X-Ray Specs: Sleeplessness, Worry Usher In Year's First Flash of Fleeting Genius

I couldn't get to sleep last night. Nor did I have much luck the night before. The constant concern over my sate of joblessness has got me all tied up in strangling knots of worry and crippling self doubt. I tend to lay awake all night, groaning out loud over perceived missteps and rolling over and over on a pillow that can't seem to settle on the right temperature. Always too hot or unreasonably cold. I sing songs to myself and try with all my might to think of nothing. Trying to seek out some sort of impenetrable psychological darkness that'll distract my aching brain long enough that I can slip into it's folds and away to sleep. But I've gotten nothing of the sort in the last 48+ hours. Though I did find something that I had forgotten I was looking for.

I've been trying without success to come up with a reasonable piece of artwork for Red Heart Alarm, the Seattle-based, Alt-Country band that my brother and his songwriting partner, Jared finally put the fine tuning to a year or so ago. Over the last few months, I drew up what would be expected. A streamlined alarm, complete with clapper and bell, only the bell was in the shape of a heart. By my own standards, it was far from prophetic work. I tried different variations against different backdrops, even going so far as to put a crack in the heart to indicate some sort of shallow sense of yearning and loss, but the truth is that the design was sorely one dimensional in more than one sense and there was an audible silence from the boys in the band whenever I sent out one of my creative half-truths. I just wasn't able to come up with anything other than the pedestrian alarm bell.

But in the last 18 hours I had a breakthrough. My mind wandered off on it's own and found some sort of inspiration from the green glow of the alarm clock on the bedside table. Unable to shut down, it coaxed me out of bed just after 2:30 AM and led me into the living room where I concocted the attached image. It took just under 4 hours to get the dynamite drawn just right and another two plus change to find a decent x-ray to work with and implant the drawing. I sent an image out to Corey just as Jared walked into his house this afternoon and they both loved it. I suppose every losing streak has to end at some point. Maybe this is a sign that my luck is about to change.