Bone tired and Brainless
Not sure why I'm writing just now. For that matter I'm not sure why I haven't written in months. Distracted, I guess. It hapens.
I occasionally work at an altitude where there's about half as much air as you get at sea level. For the most part this doesn't pose a big problem for me, but there's nothing like repeat exposure to teach you just how much something can get to you.
I've been at altitude for most of the last month. This is excessive, even for me. In the evenings after work I like to write. Nothing published yet, but I'm having fun learing the craft, anyway. But I've been in a block for about the last month. Normal writing blocks don't bug me that much. You either write past them or you take a break from them. This one has been different. It's not that I can't frame what I want to say, I just can't say it. There's nothing there. "Blah blah blah" is about as much plot as I can drive forward.
So I did some looking. Turns out this is to be expected. The oxygen deprivation you get at 4000m is enough to cause temporary short term memory loss, fatigue, and general dingbattedness (not a dictionary term). Luckily none of it is permanent. Above 8000m, however, you get well into the dead zone where basically you've started killing your body. Sleeping gives no rest, eating does very little, and with every breath you're losing cells because there's just not enough there to keep them all going. Thank goodness I don't work at an altitude anywhere that nasty. I get the dingbattedness, but it's temporary.
I got a rest day from altitude today. Don't ask why, but I spent the day cleaning workspaces. One in particular was a wreck because an experiment we've had going on in there requires total darkness. It's hard to clean in total darkness. And unfortunately the people running the experiment have been coming in, flipping on the lights, making more mess, flipping them off, and insisting on total darkness from everyone else. So one can understand how things got a little out of hand. They lost a day of darkness, but won a lab that'll pass a safety inspection and has all the bits and pieces put back where they belong. It's a bargain.
Nothing like breathing thick air and whiffing cleanser fumes to get you back to the land of the living. Now if I can just get more than five hours of sleep tonight I'll be good to go and ready to write.
I occasionally work at an altitude where there's about half as much air as you get at sea level. For the most part this doesn't pose a big problem for me, but there's nothing like repeat exposure to teach you just how much something can get to you.
I've been at altitude for most of the last month. This is excessive, even for me. In the evenings after work I like to write. Nothing published yet, but I'm having fun learing the craft, anyway. But I've been in a block for about the last month. Normal writing blocks don't bug me that much. You either write past them or you take a break from them. This one has been different. It's not that I can't frame what I want to say, I just can't say it. There's nothing there. "Blah blah blah" is about as much plot as I can drive forward.
So I did some looking. Turns out this is to be expected. The oxygen deprivation you get at 4000m is enough to cause temporary short term memory loss, fatigue, and general dingbattedness (not a dictionary term). Luckily none of it is permanent. Above 8000m, however, you get well into the dead zone where basically you've started killing your body. Sleeping gives no rest, eating does very little, and with every breath you're losing cells because there's just not enough there to keep them all going. Thank goodness I don't work at an altitude anywhere that nasty. I get the dingbattedness, but it's temporary.
I got a rest day from altitude today. Don't ask why, but I spent the day cleaning workspaces. One in particular was a wreck because an experiment we've had going on in there requires total darkness. It's hard to clean in total darkness. And unfortunately the people running the experiment have been coming in, flipping on the lights, making more mess, flipping them off, and insisting on total darkness from everyone else. So one can understand how things got a little out of hand. They lost a day of darkness, but won a lab that'll pass a safety inspection and has all the bits and pieces put back where they belong. It's a bargain.
Nothing like breathing thick air and whiffing cleanser fumes to get you back to the land of the living. Now if I can just get more than five hours of sleep tonight I'll be good to go and ready to write.
posted by pencil at 4:33 PM
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