It’s been a month since I’ve been able to sleep in my own bed. It’s right here - and although I’ve removed the plastic sheets, boxes and chunks of plaster from it, I can’t sleep in it yet since it’s in the middle of the floor, surrounded by towers of boxes and bags that were thrown there haphazardly by people other than me.

I’m unbelievably tired. I’m cranky. I want my comfy bed and a good night’s sleep.

Once I spend some time with friends tomorrow morning to a) play some tennis and get some damn exercise and b) so that I feel happy, I’ll get to return to this.

My only consolation is that in having to go through every item that I own, I’ve been able to start weeding out things I know I won’t need when I move or that I haven’t touched in years. I’ve found letters and cards and objects that made me smile, and others that I just shoved in the paper shredder without reopening them because I could remember quite vividly what was inside and have no wish to relive it. I found my early admission letter from NYU. I found a birthday card from a friend I haven’t spoken to in almost 10 years. I found an old journal; I don’t know whether to tear offending pages from it or to throw it out entirely.

I’m trying to view this as chance to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of personal belongings so that I might not have quite as much to deal with when getting settled into a new place. Hopefully soon. Hopefully before Thanksgiving.

Right now, though, my eyes hurt, my head hurts, my back hurts, my legs hurt, my feet hurt, my toenails hurt, and my left wrist is sort of throbbing. It’s only 10:15 and I could get some more cleaning done… but screw this. I’m done with today and with this week. Even if I can’t sleep comfortably, some sleep is better than no sleep.

My goal for tomorrow: a night of quality sleep in my own bed. Even if that means I have to work at it until 3 in the morning. I can take advantage of coffee’s speed-like effect upon me. Yep. That’s the plan.

Tonight, I (mostly) ran my first 5K (well, 3.5 miles so 5.63 kilometers) as part of the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge. I signed up with my company and was one of 15,000 people from various companies who completed the course through Central Park.

I had to slow down to a walk more often than I would’ve liked since my allergies were bothering me and my throat was burning. I now have a nice cough and post-nasal drip to show for it, though. Still, I managed to finish 3.5 miles in just under 47 minutes, meaning that I’m doing a 13-minute mile when I split it between walking and running.

Afterward, a bunch of us went over to a pub to get some food and drinks. We got there about 8:10. They didn’t start serving us food until 9:40, at which time I had to leave to get to the subway (at 77nd and Lex) and take the 6 down to Astor Place (down by my old NYU stomping grounds) to get to the 9th Street PATH and take that back to NJ to get back to my car in Hoboken before the parking garage closed at 11. I got my car at 10:48.

So, until I had some of this peanut butter and jelly sandwich 3 minutes ago, I hadn’t eaten real food (Gatorade and a Special K bar don’t count) since lunch at noon, and had done a 5K in between. I have no appetite, but I ate half of the sandwich so that I don’t wake up in the middle of the night with hunger pains (it’s happened before when I told myself it was too late to eat dinner and skipped it after a day of physical exertion).

I’m glad that I did it, because I proved to myself that I could. But I’m angry that I couldn’t run the whole time because of my allergies. This just means I’ll be working to prove that on the treadmill - which won’t be hard because the treadmill is not asphalt, it doesn’t have hills, it’s not humid and covered in 15,000 other runners, and I can watch TV while I’m at it and not pay attention to how far I’ve gone or how fast I’m going.

Yes, it was good to do, but everything hurts (despite my stretching) and I am not feeling as tired or clear-headed as I thought I would in the aftermath. But that’s my problem, isn’t it?