Saturday notes: The day’s another house of cards and plans let go.

1:30 a.m. – I’m awake for the second time since I went to bed. This time there isn’t even the hope that I’ll drift off. Until 5:30, I work on the emerald and sapphire bracelet (above) and then, finally, head back to bed and lose consciousness for three hours. I don’t know if it can be called “sleep” when I have stretches like this. I don’t think I’ve hit the deep stage sleep for over a week now and every sound from outside has become an alarm going off. A Russian alarm.

When I was twenty-something, I bought a windup alarm clock that was made in the USSR – and let me tell you, the Russians must have been serious about timekeeping because that thing emitted a sound that I imagine to be the audio equivalent of cardiac arrest. Comrade get up now or die!

8:30 a.m. - The “or die” part, in my sluggish, slumping state, has become vaguely interesting. I wonder if death is restful. Is there a REM stage? Do you hear car horns, and traffic and people yahooing home drunk and sharing their inebriated joy with the whole world? Are there angels? And if so, do the pesky things have a harp and hymn curfew? Are there barking dogs? Telephones. Naw.

Noon - I give up on the idea of shopping for food because I’d only careen around the Superstore like Night of the Living Dead, buying things I already have and forgetting everything I need. Instead, I listen to a science program on the radio, while experimenting with closed eyes, just to see if I feel at all drifty. I don’t. The program airs a segment on Direct Brain Stimulation as a treatment for Parkinson’s disease, severe depression and anxiety and insomnia. Well, at least I’m not depressed – but apparently the problem is in “Area 25” on your basic brain roadmap and Area 25, people, has forgotten to shut down, it’s partying like it’s 1999 and I am young enough to stand life without sleep. Myself, I’d be happy to call an agent and put it on the market. Cheap brain real estate. Fixer-upper. Needs off-switch.

5:00 p.m. – I have two really good email letters and two really good snail mail letters to answer. If I could focus my eyes, I might read. And what am I doing? I am chasing flying bugs with my shop vac. Yessir. That’s what I’m doing. Trying to vacuum up bugs as they fly.

7:00 p.m. - Someone just shoot me.