Sleep, meds, and guitars

I just started taking a new medication for insomnia. It’s called Rozarem, and it’s supposed to work by regulating sleep cycles as opposed to working as a sedative.

It’s supposed to take 3-5 days to begin working. It’s definitely not working tonight.

So I just took an Ambien to knock myself down for the evening.

Before drifting off, I think I’ll hit the guitar briefly. I’ve hung the big blonde dreadnought on the wall above the bed for easy access and it’s made me play more often. I’m working on playing much more extensively up the neck in second and third positions and also working on alternate voicings for various chords. It’s making a difference — so many ideas for songs in my head, and I find myself humming tunes during the day that aren’t tunes from existing songs on the radio or anything. Trying to replicate those songs has been a source of short term frustration and longer term satisfaction.

Interesting — lyrics, which you’d think I’d have an easy time with, aren’t coming as quickly. Almost as if I’m so tied to the free-verse and customized forms I use in my poetry that I can’t switch up to more rigid lyrical forms (I know I don’t have to restrict myself to those forms in songs, of course, but I want to at least try as an exercise). I also don’t want to set any of the existing poems to music. Creating backups and tunes with Faro is one thing; I find I’m very reluctant to do it myself, although I have written a couple of Garageband electronic backing tracks I may use sometime.

Off to play. Tomorrow I fly to Orlando for a job, back on Wednesday night — no time to socialize this trip.