To clarify, when I talked about lowering the volume knob below, I didn't mean poems. I love reading poems, and I still love hearing about other people's enthusiasms. Even if I disagree, I'm rarely bothered by someone else's sincere excitement over something they've just read. Unless what's really being praised is the way the work conforms to, or props up, the critic's agenda. Then it's not joy, but an oblique sneer at those pigs who are doing things the critic disapproves of.
In fact, I haven't been reading enough poetry this term. It's the damn ADHD. Concerta's not helping as much as the doctor said it would, and the university health service isn't down with prescribing anything else. So I'm currently in search of an off-campus provider willing to explore other options. In the meantime, I have to schedule my days hour-by-hour in advance, and make sure I slot in poetry, because otherwise I lie in bed at night wondering where the time went. I'd like to carry around a stopwatch and total the hours I spend staring off into space "thinking," but I'm usually not aware I'm doing it until several minutes have passed. At the end of the day, all that drift-and-return adds up to a shitload of disappointment and guilt. Ugh!
Anyway, bedtime. Nothing fucks my world up worse than a bad night's sleep, and with insomniac tendencies I have to work at that too. I've tried sleep medications, but for the most part they take too long to work and leave me groggy in the morning. I read somewhere that using a booklight to read in bed helps the brain wind down, so I'm going to try that tonight.
