The sky is going light here in Providence. Official sunrise isn't until 5:37 a.m., but it's only 5:11 and you could read a newspaper out there. The sky is that specific shade of violet-blue-grey than comes before dawn. I have lain awake for hours, trying not to keep Spooky awake. I tried reading, music, all the usual tricks. All my meds which have, in the last three weeks or so, been helping me sleep more than at any point during the last several years, inexplicably failed me tonight. Even a dose of Ambien, no longer part of my regimen, that I broke down and took before 4 a.m. has had no effect. And so I am awake, and I loathe this time of the morning. The world quite around me, quite and still, birds, people sleeping or just waking up, the house so quiet.

So...I'll likely spend this day in a fog, neither quite awake nor quite asleep. I'm rarely nearer true madness, I think, than when I am so deeply in the embrace of Monsieur Insomnia.

What else do you say at dawn? Other than, I wish I were asleep.

This is actually the second consecutive night of sleeplessness, though last night was not nearly this bad. An Ambien solved the problem. But it left me in a haze all day long, a haze through which I could not work. I managed the blog entry and most of the day's email. After that, as the House began to heat up, there was talk of heading back to the shore. But I wasn't up to it. Instead, I read to Spooky from Patti Smith's Just Kids and she read to me from Gregory Maguire's A Lion Among Men.

The ebay auctions end tomorrow, I think, and I'd be grateful if you'd please have a look. Thanks. And my thanks to those who have bid already.

I have more photographs from Monday, including "Spider Cove" (41˚28'43.08"N/71˚21'45.35"W):





View to the east, from "Spider Cove." Aquidneck Island and Newport are just visible in the distance.



A very tiny (immature) starfish Spooky found among the cobbles; that's her thumb for scale.



View back down at "Spider Cove," taken by Spooky as we were climbing out. View to the north.



Back at the north end of West Cove, where we find the best glass. A fog was moving in. View to the southwest.



Again, West Cove photographed from the boat launch. At middle far right you can see "Spider Cove." View to the southwest.



Driving back across the Jamestown Bridge, view to the west.

All photographs Copyright © 2010 by Caitlín R. Kiernan and Kathryn A. Pollnac