erin's emporium of discount dreams & well-worn wonders

When I was in college I kept a rather interesting schedule that usually involved napping from midnight until 3am and then getting up to write papers and such. It was surprisingly successful, most of the time.

I have since developed more standard sleeping habits.

But I am finding that the occasional late night opens my brain up in interesting ways. It is definitely good for turning off my inner editor (especially when combined with a glass of wine or two) and ideas just seem to flow differently. I’ve always gotten ideas for stories and paintings and whatnot when I’m drifting off to sleep so maybe my nighttime brain is more creative than my daytime brain.

It’s quieter at night, which helps. No neighbors with loud dogs and motorcycles, not as many cars driving by the window. Pedestrians pass by once in awhile, which is rather disturbing since you can hear every word through the windows and it sounds like they’re actually in the room. But for the most part it is quiet, just me and my typing and my iTunes and my tea and my kittens which is really quite a lot of things but it still seems mellow in comparison.

I think it helps me better listen to my brain. My brain tends to be a non-linear mess of images and words and imaginings. I am still not entirely sure how it works. I have a very lousy memory. Seriously, I remember very little from those nocturnal college days and even less from days before that. If pressed, I could likely recount the events of last week but they might be highly fictionalized. I tend to live in the now and the five minutes from now and my grasp on anything else is tenuous at best.

I don’t really mind. I’ve never been particularly nostalgic and I tend to assume anything and everything could happen in the future so the only really reliable time is the now. I’m not even sure how I got on this tagent. See what I mean about the inner editor? She takes nights off, obviously. Or she gets sick of me after midnight and goes off to do whatever inner editors do on their nights off.

So that leaves me alone with all this stuff in my head and only my keyboard to take it out on (the kittens have given up on me and are asleep, Tessa is on the box of files to my left and Bucket is in the other room) and maybe that’s a good position to be in and maybe I should try doing it more often.

It is 1am. It is quiet outside and the air is still humid with the summer heat despite the thunderstorm that passed by earlier this evening. A car just drove by, the first one in awhile. I have a necklace made of keys around my neck that jingles when I move like chimes.

I suppose I should go unlock something.