Red Light

God. Damned. Tired. It took nearly superhuman effort to get up this morning. Then I found out I'd run out of milk. I hadn't gone to bed early or late, and I didn't wake up in the middle of the night; but even now, two hours after my alarm went off, I'm still tired.

I was so tired that I rode through a red light this morning on my way to work. That's not something I've ever done before. Fortunately it was at some roadworks and there was no traffic that could have come from the other way. But if it had been elsewhere I might have been in trouble. My concentration really is shot to pieces.

I don't know what to do to remedy this. I visited the doctor about it, but she (a stand-in doctor for the regular GP) said that, unless you can find and eliminate the cause of a lack of sleep, then the only thing a doctor can do is prescribe sleeping pills which a) don't work after a week and b) can be addictive. I'm unwilling to take medication for this and her advice sounded sound so... I don't know. I'm just so damned tired.

I managed to burn a pan of rice yesterday. Proof that my smoke alarm doesn't work.

I'm going to see if avoiding my computer will help me sleep. I don't think it will; besides, I'm on a computer all day at work anyway. The only reason I think it may make a difference is that when I first moved into this flat I was sleeping really well. So well that I could get up extra early, jog along the seafront as the sun rose, have a shower, have breakfast, make my lunch, and still get into work early. Now I'm lucky if I don't have to wolf my porridge down and ask myself if I've got any money in my wallet to buy a school dinner from the canteen at lunchtime. When I first moved in, you see, I didn't have anywhere to put my computer as I was still searching for a decent desk and some extension cables. So I didn't use it.

On Sunday I entered that now all-too-familiar trance-like state of sitting in front of a blank piece of paper not knowing what to draw for what turned out to be hours. I was thinking of starting a new project, which is mapping a new version of my fantasy setting. I was previously working on Arborea, but it's a project that requires a bucket-load of drawing and illustration has become a very weak point for me. Then again, this new project will also require a lot of drawing.