I came too close to heaven

March 21: turbid

I'm a quart low on sleep lately, so my mind sometimes wanders and my imagination gets somewhat turbid around the middle of the day.

1. When do you have your most inspired thoughts?
   late at night. Ironic, isn't it, given the word-of-the-day statement? But if I was operating under optimal circumstances, I wouldn't be waking up at the ungodly hour that I have been lately, for sure, and that would make it a lot easier to cook out profundity at 1:AM.
2. Of whose voice do you never tire?
   
   my friends'. All of them. Each of them, I mean. In their own ways, and at their own times. Those voices shore me up and save me, in huge and tiny ways, every day. I would be lost without them.
3. What is the most elaborate project or endeavor you have completed?
   
   my M.A. thesis, I suppose. I can open that book and...it's sort of like if you blindfolded me and dropped me anywhere in my hometown: I would know exactly where I was, because it's so much a part of me. That's how it is when I read those words.
4. What is something that you love about your job?
   
   getting lost in the details, while still knowing that, in some ways, I have control over the entire thing, too. My position is an odd mix of macro- and micro-level importance. It is both minutia and strategy; the tactical level is handled by others, which is exactly the way that I want it.
5. What is the last song you got stuck in your head?
   
   "Fall Victim" by Alkaline Trio. I'm working on a project for Sparky....

[from The Cat, who got it here; the title quotation is from "Fall Victim"]