I discovered a new thing which is great.

Well, two new things.

First, if you put those little foam concert earplugs in before you sleep, the sleep you get is of an entirely different level. For two nights in a row I’ve had the longest, deepest sleeps I’ve had since I can remember. After lights out and earplugs in, I’m asleep within minutes. I hear nothing but those subtle inner ear sounds, the occasional ring, and of course my breathing.

For a high-sensing person like me, blocking out the little sounds of the world really lets the mind focus. Unfortunately it’s not the safest thing to do. But fortunately, my friend the legendary death metal guitarist is still crashing, so if someone broke in in the middle of the night, he’d be on it, I bet. A very loud noise I would hear. But that’s about it. I really like it, so far.

I also stopped all caffeine for a while, just to see if it leads to more deep sleep. My little Jawbone Up device reports that even when I get 7 hours of sleep, only about 1:50hr of it is “deep”. Deep sleep is where the recovery and recharging really happens, so you need that more than anything else. So far, my deep sleep has gone way up. I should have isolated earplugs from no caffeine so I know what’s working best. But for now, I actually feel super energized and I’m stimulant free. Good sleep is important.

The second thing is that you can buy these bleach pens that let you bleach just the collar of your white shirts. You know how they get all discolored so quickly? That’s fixable now. Just bleach them back. You don’t have to bleach the whole shirt and worry about ruining it, just do the collar. It’s nice and it works. That’s less interesting than ear plug sleeps, but has been a life upgrade. My collar looks so nice and white today.

I’m having a rough re-entry to work after a few great weeks away. I see so through so much of what was so clouded up before, and I see perfectly clearly that I need to get out of here. It’s too comfortable, too low stress, to easy to be complacent, too weirdly bureaucratic, and after this much time, I just don’t belong here any more. I’m definitely losing my edge. Gotta move on. The job market is super tough in my field. I could try something on my own. It’s all tough though. We’ll see what happens. Getting to the point where anything would be better than this being my full time thing. My hearts not in it like it was. I’m less happy with the new people I work with. I feel like the golden era here is gone, and I should be too.

We’ll see what happens.

Have a great hump, monkey holes.