No thanks Mr. Hugo.

It's late. 12:32 am. I believe a change in my blogname is called for because lately it is anything but "disregulated. " My days of open up laptop, open up brain and let everything flow out unrestrained appear to be over. My steady stream of consciousness is now constipated. Then again, that is just one way to look at things. Maybe I'd like to take my blog writing up a notch and be a little more deliberate about what and who ends up in my posts. Particularly the "who" part because I think this is an area where I must tread lightly. I'm developing a growing sense of the privacy and respect that others deserve. So as I pull in personal experiences, I feel compelled to present the characters in these personal dramas in a fair and anonymous way. Maybe this is why I've felt the need for such a long break from frequent blogging activity. Maybe I needed some time to fine tune and create a plan. (even though I have still have no plan). Once I get a plan, I also plan to deviate from my plan as the need arises. But in this moment, my plan seems to be falling asleep. I wake up enough to crank out another sentence before I slip back into my altered state. Probably not a good time to be blogging. Who knows what secrets I will divulge in this condition??? My kids used to love my bedtime stories when I was really tired. Now Josh doesn't want to hear one, unless he is pretty sure I'll fall asleep as I'm telling it. Mainly because I tend to fall asleep as I'm talking and yet I continue with the story mostly uninterrupted. It is when my unconscious starts talking and then things get really bizarre. Josh still likes to remind me of the story that started out like any respectable fairy tale does with a prince on a mission quest...but then it ended up with everyone getting on a school bus. They were all taken to a hospital where the bus driver ordered everyone out of the bus. He marched into the hospital and yelled,..."Can I get back to work here????" He laughed and it woke me up. I asked him to tell the story back to me because I had no idea where it had gone and I laughed in spite of myself. I'm hopeless at this. When I'm awake, my stories are so boring and predictable, when I'm asleep they make absolutely no sense. They toggle between mundane and incomprehensible. This reminds me again of my blogging history, which I believe has followed a similiar pattern.

It's now 12:54. Twenty minutes have gone by and what do I have to show for it? Only a cup of cold Candy Cane Tea that I forgot I made for myself an hour ago. I was distracted by a quote by Victor Hugo on the package of the box of tea... It said something like..."a smile is the sun that wipes the winter off of the human face." I found myself becoming oddly annoyed by that quote, which on the surface seems benign enough. Maybe I'm annoyed because of his insinuation that winter is a negative thing, that sun is a good thing and that smiling is our ultimate goal. I like winter. Today I took the kids sledding. Noah and his cousin launched repeatedly off of a snow jump. Every time they aimed correctly, they were rewarded with the flight of several feet off the ground. Which often led to a messy landing, which then led to giggles and big clouds of snow and then another haul up the hill to do it all over again. Christian and I shared a sled for most of the afternoon because of his timidity with solo runs. My anxiety over a metal post stuck inconveniently in the middle of the sledding field didn't help much. Christian asked me why we were sledding down a hill when there was a fence surrounding it with the words "no sledding" stamped repeatedly down the several horizontal fence planks. When he asked me, the metal post came to mind and I told him that this was more of a "suggestion". Oh...he said. So they aren't telling us...they're just "asking" us not to sled here. Yeah. I guess you could say that. So we won't go to jail. No, we won't go jail. Actually, I thought, the consequences would be much worse if we were caught by the menacing post, than any rebuke by a grumpy Parks and Recreation employee. However, we were not caught by either one today. It was a wonderful day and we had a great time. On the way home, I could feel my toes start tingling from the sensation of warming up and I thought to myself that there aren't many sensations in the world that I like better. (of course...I can think of a couple...lets face it, who doesn't enjoy a healthy bowel movement? Come on. Be honest). My face was red, glowing and wind kissed. Sun kissing the winter from my face? I think not. Winter is welcome on this face. At least for a few months out of the year.

But Shelly...I tell myself...you dope, you missed the whole metaphorical meaning of what poor Hugo was trying to express. No. I think I got that too. Winter=Sadness and Despair. Sun=Hope and Optimism. Hope and optimism shuts out sadness and despair and nothing helps the process more than a cup of Candy Cane Tea. But....obstinate doof that I am...I want to know why I need to have hope kiss away my despair? If I am despairing, I want to sit down and drink my tea with my despair. Welcome it as an important guest and get to know it. Not wallow and surrender to it,.....but look my despair square on until I understand it. Confront confront confront...until I understand. It's the only way I think to real hope and optimism rather than the counterfeit kind that we hold onto tightly because we should.

It's now 1:26am. Over an hour has passed. My brief sleeping spells are increasing in frequency and duration. Maybe its time I surrender to it.

(yaaaaaaawn) Good night!