Sleep deficit week.

Woke up last night at 1:30 a.m. with my bedroom once again filled with smoke and the smell of cooking meat from the neighbor downstairs. Openened all the windows and the screen door, turned down the thermostat so as not to waste as much energy and slept on my moldy old couch with at the quilt over my head. Too late at night to run to my parents house to sleep and my good neighbor with the welcome living room is out of town this week. If it happens again tonight I probably will start staying in Smyrna during the week.

Sunday was also a nearly sleepless night because of my own poor judgement in eating a very large seafood dinner before going to bed. No more salmon before bedtime. Maybe salmon at brunch, followed by a long walk, next time.

Woke up with a scratchy throat this morning. My eyes itch. Driving to work, the sky had a strange kinda west coast haze between me and the rest of the city.

I turned on the radio. There's a Code Red smog alert today in Atlanta.

Quite appropriately, a friend sent this letter to us. I thought it was good and am sharing it here:

Bad things are about to happen to our Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests. The U.S. Forest Service's 15 year plan is a rotten betrayal of the Georgia Forest Watch's recommendations - which they previously agreed with. Read about it here:
http://www.gafw.org/spring%202002/spring_2003.htm It's sad and wrong. Less wilderness designations, more ATV trails, more approved logging, zero watershed protections. And no forum for public comment except to write to a committee in Utah by July 3rd. Take a minute and bitch them out. Here's my letter:

Dear Chattahoochee-Oconee Content Analysis Team,

So why the big point to limit public comment? Hmmmm? Up to no good?

I work on the 54th floor of the Suntrust Plaza building in Atlanta every day. On a good day, I can see the North Georgia mountains. On a bad day, I can watch the band of yellow-brown goo spread from the north west and completely encircle the city. It's the old coal burning power plants that the EPA protects. I think to myself; "at least there's the Chattahoochee Oconee National Forest up there, 750,000 acres of trees has to help ".
Unfortunately, the U.S. Forest Service has become infested with timber industry folks. The Forest Service's 15 year plan for the last of Georgia's wild lands has got to be changed. Four million people really need the oxygen. All summer our local health officials advise us, especially children, not to exercise outside. Our kids can't ride bikes in the summer but we need more ATV trails and less wilderness? We shouldn't buy gas until the sun goes down, but more land has been approved for commercial logging. Last summer Atlanta hit water usage numbers projected for 2020 and watershed we drink from has no special protection.

How is our country so hard up for cash that we need to hock our trees, wildlife, water and air? I notice the National Forests Content Analysis Team is sitting in Utah. Utah has 9 million acres of National Forest and less than 3 million people in the state. Nice. Decisions about Georgia's natural resources should be made by people who have to breathe here.

Last night after working late and missing aerobics class, I ended up going out to eat with the boy next door and his pal.
We had an outdoor table at Apre Diem, where the men both eat beef and I filled up on fresh bread and mussels. Delicious. I made them help me finish off the plate, telling them it was a good source of zinc in an Auntie Jules voice. We chatted about brilliant ideas, political and economic theories, and I watched and listened to the two of them watching the waitresses. Apre Diem does have one of the most attractive staffs in Atlanta. Funny watching males gush over cute girls and talk about the girls they're dating and long for. And we think women only think and worry about these things...

Tonight is Screen on the Green with Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. Two of Hollywood's greatest bitches battling onscreen (and off if the legend is true).

I shouldn't have eaten so much so late at night. I need at least one good night of sleep this week.

Went to see 2001 Space Oddesy at Screen on the Green this week. Halfway throught the film, a large part of the park crowd left. Apparently they couldn't take the lack of narrative and dialogue and I suppose most people don't know what a visually impressive film it was for its time.

You are 49% geek

You are a geek liaison, which means you go both ways. You can hang out with normal people or you can hang out with geeks which means you often have geeks as friends and/or have a job where you have to mediate between geeks and normal people. This is an important role and one of which you should be proud. In fact, you can make a good deal of money as a translator. Normal: Tell our geek we need him to work this weekend. You [to Geek]: We need more than that, Scotty. You'll have to stay until you can squeeze more outta them engines! Geek [to You]: I'm givin' her all she's got, Captain, but we need more dilithium crystals! You [to Normal]: He wants to know if he gets overtime.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com