Drive-by blogging.... watch out for that tree... I mean fence!

Further to my previous post, this is how I am currently feeling!

And on Thursday night, after 3 days of 10+ hours days and an average of 3-4 hours sleep each night, I decided to go with NPNP to see Hairspray...

Great movie by the way, want to go and see it again... they are doing sing-a-long versions already.

Glad I caught up with NPNP, and glad I saw the movie despite being utterly exhausted BUT turning into my driveway about 10.00pm, I stopped as I usually do to collect my mail from the letterbox, climbed back into the car and accelerated up the drive to the sound of crunch, bang...

As I'd turned into the drive I was closer to the fence then I realised and dragged the car's passenger side along the fence line taking the car down to base metal in several places as I caught the metal edge of the fence protector FENCE 1 CAR 0

I've driven up this driveway at least 5 times a week for the last four years... I just sat in the car and had a quiet sob for a few minutes... then came inside to toss and turn till 3.00am... and then slept for 3 hours to get up and drag myself off to work for a 7.00am start.

Car will take a week to fix... which means I will either have to take some time off... almost impossible to get from my place to my place of work by public transport, or see if anyone who lives in neighbouring suburbs might be give me a lift... either way I'm going to have to curtail my working hours.... the universe trying to tell me something do you think?

Note: Friday night sleep tally - in bed and asleep with the light on at 11.30pm - slept through until 9.00am! Last night... asleep by 1.00am ... awake at 8.00am... so may be the sleep thing is going to settle down.

Am going to try this week to see if leaving at a normal time (i.e. 5.30pm) and going home and fixing dinner etc. and then sitting down at computer to do some work after I've eaten, might help with the sleep thing... am sure leaving work at 7.30pm and eating dinner at 9.00pm isn't a healthy thing!

Also as a result of Friday's meeting with Safety Inspector it's clear that we need some additional resources to manage the current crisis... so will be talking to the powers that be about bringing in a contractor to help out... either that... or I curtail some of my projects as this level of craziness is unsustainable!

Night and day.... dum, de de dum....

"I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day"... Vincent Van Gogh

Have you ever realised how much the world is designed for 'morning people'...

I am not a morning person... never have been. My mother laughingly tells the story of me as a school aged child, and later as a young working woman living at home, she would awake to the alarm, get up, come in and prompt me to get up, have a shower, prompt me to get up, feed animals, prompt me to get up (by this stage very loudly), have breakfast, prompt me to get out of the shower (where I was usually half asleep under the spray), put a load of washing on the line, and then discover me staring dreamily into space, sitting on the end of my bed, with a towel wrapped around me and one sock on...

When I lived at home, there was someone to keep me moving and active, if still in a zombie-like state, and hustle me out of the house and onto school or work. For many years, I drove my mother to work on my way in, and was therefore forced to keep a particular schedule, which was probably a good thing, as I also had jobs that required me to open up the office or to start a shift.

At the same time there was also someone to prompt me to go to sleep... when us kids and Dad was still at home, I disappeared to my room early... usually to listen to music on headphones in the dark... till the wee small hours... or to read... until I nodded off over a book or my Mum came in to screech that it was 2.00am and if I didn't turn my light off I wouldn't get up in the morning.

In one of my early jobs as a mailsorter, in order to get to work on Friday mornings for a 7.00am start, that required catching a 6.00am bus, I would set my alarm for 4.00am, get up, shower, make coffee, and then hop back into bed semi-clothed for an hour or so, listening to music so I could be awake enough to trust myself to leave the house.

At the Architectural practice when some bright spark the Managing Director, decided to schedule marketing meetings for 7.00am so they'd be over before the workday started, I declared the only way they'd get me there was if they supplied breakfast... so there was a danish and a coffee waiting for me... and I'd arrive with dripping wet hair and no makeup and converse in growls and grunts until my brain woke up. The same deal was negotiated with my summer school classmates a couple of years ago, if they wanted to start the day earlier, they needed to provide me with caffeine... and there was a different boy waiting patiently with coffee and a donut each day as I dragged my arse across the campus, bleary-eyed and ragged.

So... it's not a recent thing that my body clock is out of whack with what most people would consider the norm... But, living on my own, I can indulge myself a lot more.

There are days now when I have been up and prepared for work, but I have to lie down for 15-30 minutes, sometimes even an hour and then I will feel up to facing the day... those days are usually when I haven't woken up before the alarm has gone off. I don't respond well to alarm clocks or being frightened awake... it's like my system goes into shock or something, and it's almost impossible for me to bound out of bed and race into the day.

"Drink and dance and laugh and lie, Love, the reeling midnight through,
For tomorrow we shall die! (But, alas, we never do)"... Dorothy Parker

But the world is not kind to us night owls...

At one workplace with an agreed core hours that varied between 7.00am - 7.00pm, 2 colleagues were able to negotiate 7.30am - 4.30pm workdays, but I was told that I couldn't work a 10.00am - 6.00pm day... it was too inconvenient...

This was despite the fact that I had been able to work the same hours for 5 years prior under a previous manager... and because other departments were working till 9.00pm, we had a much better coverage of hours, often for the last hour or more of the day I was the only one in the office.

I'm lucky now, in that I have a boss who is understanding of my early morning struggles, and accommodates me, knowing that I keep track of my hours. Though there have been grumblings from some workmates, who fail to acknowledge that while they're out the door at 5.00pm on the dot, I'm often one of only a handful of people still in the office at 6.00pm... and often hitting my stride workwise about 3.00pm!

It's not even the work situation that annoys me most. It's the remarks by friends and acquaintances... the snide remarks and suggestions of laziness... that I am wasting time, that I should be doing something productive with my daylight hours...

I'm not lazy... I'm at my most productive, when most people are nodding off for the evening. Just because getting up at the crack of dawn rocks your boat, doesn't mean I have to... actually most of these bright and shiny, happy morning people are also those scary pod-people who confess to liking camping, and 5k runs in the pre-dawn.

I'm not wasting time... I am usually doing a pretty good imitation of the 'living dead' before midday... so why wouldn't I choose to actually sleep during that unproductive time.

You want to wake me up early, it better be because more than the sun is up, and you want to indulge in exercise of the carnal kind... and even then, you need to be gentle about it... otherwise... bugger off!

I've discovered over the last few days at home, that it is not so much that I suffer from insomnia, it is that my system doesn't need to sleep until well after midnight... and if I am allowed to wake naturally, I am able to be awake, and reasonably alert without much strain or effort by about 9.30am. And a 30-60 minute nap mid afternoon is more than enough to keep me feeling calm, centred and rested.

And it would be nice, when we're talking about endangered species that someone would give a shout out to us 'Night Owls' and recognise that we too need to be protected... Night Owls of the world... stand up and be proud!

"Q: What do you get when you cross an insomniac, an agnostic, and a dyslexic?
A: Someone who stays up all night wondering if there is a Dog.”... Groucho Marx

TO DO LIST:
* Get a job that starts at midday and finishes at 8.00pm
* Preferably somewhere that celebrates siesta
* The next time someone jokes about giving me an early morning wake up call... let them... then ring them at midnight and babble for an hour

Thursday Thirteen #9... 13 Random Thoughts from a Space Cadet

Well, I'm sorry I've been away... head cold turned into a major dose of flu, still not quite up to scratch, but getting there slowly. Thank you to all of you for lovely messages... nice to know I was missed a little...

So, today's Thursday Thirteen - the week that was for me...

One - learning to sing songs in another language (koori, polynesian and east timorese) is a bit difficult when you feel like you're walking around with a bucket on your head... could barely hear anyone at 2nd choir rehearsal

Two - singing in a group is also a bit of a waste of time in the same circumstances. Miss La De Da was asking me if I was actually singing, to which I replied, yes - loudly from my end - she thought I was miming! Maybe I was practising how I'm going to survive the concerts? Though singing the chorus of Singing in the Rain with my tongue out, knees bent and bum out as part of the warm-up exercise was great fun.

Three - for someone who struggles to sleep, I think I've made up for this year's insomnia in the last week... though fever induced dreams are often less than restful.

Four - I'm going to struggle to look a work colleague in the eye next time I see him considering the fever induced dream I had about him... though I was a bit disappointed on briefly waking that I didn't go back into the dream... hooley dooley... if I didn't already have a fever I sure did after!

Five - Feed the cold, starve the fever they say... pity everything tastes so bloody awful... knew I was really sick when even chocolate couldn't tempt me.

Six - Is it just me, or do other people hate blowing their nose? I hate it, such an inelegant thing to do... particularly when you're full of head cold

Seven - and speaking of noses, why is it that one nostril always gets blocked and the other drips non- stop?

Eight - I am so glad that I kept all my daggy, soft flannel shirts and leggings. I've lived in them for the last week, with big fluffy bedsocks... what with ratty hair, and a red nose and cracked lips I looked a treat... just as well as I live on my own... fancy coming home to that!

Nine - I had a quiet sob to myself at one stage, cause I was on my own... all I wanted was someone to give me a hug... it's hugs and cuddles that I miss more than anything about being single

Ten - Despite being full of snot, I managed to get to my Winter Solstice ceremony, it was lovely, though my meditation was probably temperature induced, had visions of a cavern with a circle of fire rising up to meet a circle of stalactites, which melted and smoked... was told I needed both fire and water, need both to be balanced.

Eleven - If you're going to be a bit spacey, might as well make the most of it, so have been reading Harry Potter - have read the first 3 books pretty much back to back, am now started on number 4.

Twelve - Engaged in even more spaceyness, by spending all of yesterday curled up on the couch watching the first 12 episodes of Heroes... wow, what a fantastic show... perfectly suited my wants and needs...

Thirteen - I've had 12 days of sleepy, dozy, spacey, snotty, achey, shakeydom (only need 1 more and I've got my own version of the seven dwarfs - have you met my friend pukey?)

We interrupt our broadcast....

Sorry, no Thursday Thirteen today... am still struggling with major head cold.

A word to the wise... probably not a good idea to take 2 antihistamines when you're not used to them... it can result in feeling a lot like this...



Normal transmissions will resume as soon as I return from la la land...

And for my next trick... I'm going to juggle kittens....

Another semi-sleepless night... I drifted off to sleep about 4.00am, knowing that I needed to be up and out at a reasonable time as I was doing e-time management training this morning.

I woke, at 6.44am suddenly, and realised that somehow in my sleep I had picked up my alarm clock (my reasonably large electric alarm clock) and I slept with it cupped in the palm of my hand, hanging suspended over the bed...

Just as this thought entered my brain, the alarm went off... and I got such a fright that I tossed the alarm up into the air... crash... and two sleepy cats went screeching around the room in terror... sigh... what a gentle, calming way to start my day... not...



I know Savannah posted this on her blog, not so long ago, but I like it and it seems apprpropriate to this post... though I still think it would be fall down funny if you had him and the music and instead of juggling his movements would be some weird form of interpretive dance...reminds me of my attempts at tap... just imagine me dressed as a gold tinselly sausage showgirl.. similar mouth movements and all

If I Could Read My Mind...

Those thoughts have included but are not restricted to:

Why have I always liked even numbers rather than odd?

And why have the 2 homes I've lived in in the last 5 years been made up of odd numbers - 5/77-79 and 3/31-33?

Why is the deepest, most satisfying sleep always the hour before the alarm goes off?

Maybe I'm a cat... I want to sleep all day and party all night... maybe I'm actually a vampire?

If I was a vampire, I'd be immortal ... I wonder if I'd have a successful relationship if I lived for centuries?

Why does Sunday time always go much faster than Monday time?

Is it a message from the universe when you win only one movie ticket that you should get used to seeing movies on your own?

Why do people playing trivial pursuit take it all so damn seriously?

Truly, has anyone ever really fallen asleep in the bath and drowned?

Why is it that I never feel hungry? Maybe I AM a vampire! Or I've been reading too much Vampire P0rn Sherilyn Kenyon/Tanya Huff/ Lauren K. Hamilton?

If you want to generate your own Catalogue Card - it's here.

The weekend that was...

I go back to work tomorrow.... sob, sob.... Part of me is glad to go back, I miss people, have some interesting things that are happening or I'm trying to make happen... but the problem with having a 10 day break is the more time I spend away from work the more realise I'd prefer not to work at all...

Did I do all the things I wanted to do during this break... nah! Though I've had a good time, enough social interaction and solitude to please my slightly schizophrenic personality.

My girls, Gertie and Gracie have loved having me home, especially Gertie, wherever I've been she's been for the last 10 days. Sitting watching TV, she's either on my lap, on the arm of the chair or on the footstool. In bed, she's beside me... we've napped together a few times. On the PC, she's usually sitting on the keyboard, or trying to climb on top of the monitor. Even having a bath, involves her curled up on the ledge over the bathtub, occasionally patting me on the head.

The last couple of days have been weird though... probably why it's not a bad thing that I'm going back to work, as I suspect this is what my life would be like if I didn't need to work... and it's not pretty..or particularly healthy...

Friday
Up reasonable early for me on holiday and pottered around for most of the day sorting through some crafty stuff (will blog about that separately as I'm making a list of all projects both unfinished and yet to start - yikes).

At the same time, as sorting through stuff, I made a pot of minestrone soup. There's a reason why I refer to myself as an undomesticated goddess... and that I don't cook very often... soup is terrible. Not inedible, but not great.... sigh... even Gertie, who loves all human food, wouldn't touch it...

Seemed to fritter away the day, just pottering and a bath and reading both books and blogs, and watching some TV... am slowly watching 'Tripping Over' that Mum taped for me last year.

Lost in Translation on TV Friday night - so watched that... not as good with commercials... note to self - buy DVD!

Bed before midnight, go to sleep almost instantly, and then:

3.00am... wide awake .... sigh...

3.30am give up and get up... back on pc's doing some work on my blog, just adding and reorganising things, while reading others... and checking out ebay...

6.00am... gee I'm tired... back to bed...

Saturday
1.30pm... woke up... for once the cats haven't done a not so happy dance over my head demanding food... both curled up asleep beside me.

2.00pm... I feel cottonwoolly and headachey and awful... it's overcast and I'm cold... so put the heater on briefly...make some breakfast and coffee (and panadol) and sit down and watch another episode of Tripping Over while doing some handpiecing of Bushfire Quilt blocks.

3.30pm Went to the loo and coped a look at myself in the mirror... my hair looks a bit like Cameron Diaz' in that scene from There's Something About Mary... so shower... bugger getting dressed, so clean pair of pj's.

4.00pm - Set myself up with some cross stitch... the Patchwork Santa/Hermit.

My vision has changed in the last 12 months, so I can't wear my glasses to do fine work like cross stitch, but need my glasses to watch TV... and usually end up with a cricked neck from the constant peering over the top of them to do handwork. So, no TV this time, sitting in absolute silence while I stitch only occasionally stopping to get a cuppa or cuddle Gertie.

6.00pm - watch the news, and feed animals. Not hungry yet, and can't decide what I want... another cuppa

6.30pm - TV off again, back to the cross stitch. Decide I might as well do my week's washing, mostly tracky's and pj's, while I'm working.

8.00pm - should eat I guess... decide to put frozen quiche in oven... heah... better than my first thought... a packet of potato chips... more stitching...

9.20pm - start to tape Rockwiz - love that show... get dinner and patchwork out again, and settle down to watch The West Wing. I've so enjoyed the double episodes on the ABC of the last season... only one more week to go and it's finished... wish they'd start all over again... note to self - buy DVD... more patchwork... 3rd block this time...

10.50pm - still patchworking.... and watching North and South... love that show too... I thought Colin Firth's Mr Darcy was dark and brooding, but Richard Armitage's Mr Thornton is better... oh la la... he's good... he declares his love for Margaret and she rejects him... stupid cow! Note to self - buy the DVD

Midnight - bed...reading for awhile... but nodded off with the book in my hand around 1.00am.. as you do...

Sunday
8.00am - awake... but still tired... up and feed girls and then back to bed...

11.00am - awake again... though could be tempted to stay here... have a scratchy throat... that would be great, back to work with a cold... should I stay in bed?...no... up...

Coffee, reading my book... fart arsing around....

1.30pm - breakfast... have bought bacon and eggs, but decided I'll have those for tea... so cereal... and watch taped Rockwiz from the night before. Josh Pyke and Neko Case guests. Saw Josh Pyke when he was touring with Tim Finn at the Forum. I like him - note to self - get CD!

Start to meaninglessly channel surf - The Horse Soldiers with John Wayne, or Beethoven or sport... sigh... waste an hour or more just channel flicking... and naval gazing...

3.30pm - internal debate... what to do? Do some ironing and get organised for work tomorrow? No - back to the Patchwork Hermit, but set egg timer for 1 hour, to make sure I do something else productive...

4.30pm - Something productive! Writing this blog and another entry with my current crafty projects... will post that later after taking some photo's.

5.30pm - need to do dishes, and tidy up at least a little, garbage etc. - if I go to work tomorrow with a messy house, I'm going to be cross.

Plans for tonight... Cooking a fry up dinner... eggs, bacon, hash browns and toast (cholesterol heaven!)

Then the ABC again, I think... Einstein Factor, News, Robin Hood (Richard Armitage again.. woo hoo) and The Abduction Club...

This kind of weekend, which I've largely enjoyed, despite the strange sleeping/habits is one of the reasons why I don't think I'll ever settle down with a bloke... can't imagine any guy being happy to have this sort of weekend... well, I guess someone who had his own hobby I guess... who would go off and do his own thing, while I did mine. Maybe I need to find a guy who'll happily stay during the week and then disappear of a weekend?

Musings from the sleep deprived...

Can't sleep, can't sleep, can't sleep.... argh... in bed at 11.15pm (early for me) and drifted off almost immediately and then woke up at 1.44am and here I am...

Only have 1 more day of work before a 10 day break, but it's going to be a crazy day... whose idea was it to organise fire warden/ fire extinguisher training on the afternoon of the day before Easter? Oh yes, that would be me!!!

Have started to read 2 separate books tonight... talk about a contradiction ... Georgette Heyer's Devils Club (historical romance) and Sherilyn Kenyon's Unleash the Night (shapeshifter romance)... can't be stuffed reading either of them...anyone else get 50 pages into a book before giving it the heaveho? My Mum is compulsive, once she starts a book, she has to finish it. And she often rereads things without realising it until almost the end, and then say's oops I've read this before...

A friend had recommended the Kenyon series to me, so when Dymocks had a couple for $4 at Christmas time I bought 2 of them. It doesn't bode well, that I'm skipping ahead to the sexy bits already... and even got bored with those.

... so sat and read the Property Guide and the Target Catalogue... know I'm really losing it when I'm looking seriously at the kid's toy section...

And have been reading through the archives of some recently discovered blogs as well as looking at houses online that I might like to buy when the great god of lotto decides to bless me... I like the listings with floorplans as I can imagine which room will be my library, and which my study etc.

Would really like a house with an attic with dormer windows or better still a turret... and a covered verandah all the way around the outside. Probably says a lot about me, that if I ever wanted an architect to design a house for me, I'd take copies of movies and say I want something like this... This being something like the house in Hayley Mill's version of Pollyanna or Practical Magic. Oh my... there is a website dedicated to Practical Magic that has lots of photo's of that house.

I loved the kitchen and conservatory and pantry... it's very weird how much I obsess over the look of kitchens, and love to browse through homewares stores and look at kitchen gadgets when I NEVER COOK....

Going to go and try and see if I can get a little bit of sleep... if not, I'll probably be up later doing some ironing...argh...

Now I lay me down to sleep...

How do people go to sleep? I'm afraid I've lost the knack. I might try busting myself smartly over the temple with the night-light. I might repeat to myself, slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound; if I can remember any of the damn things. ~Dorothy Parker

I'm not sleeping... have averaged about 4 hours sleep a night for the last fortnight... not unusual for me to have the odd sleepless night and my natural body clock would prefer I was awake till late at night, and then slumber till mid morning and then nap in the afternoon... I can usually make up for any missed sleep of a weekend... but not this weekend...

I'm afraid the usual pattern of insomnia, just lying there knowing that I won't sleep at all, being fiercely tired, but unable to sleep has kicked in, as has the muscle fatigue and aches and pains, where even blinking hurts. Bruises and skin rashes, blisters. And feeling absolutely wretched...and ancient...

The last time this happened was in the weeks just before I left my last job, where I averaged 15 hours of sleep over a 5 day period, and despite working 10 days straight to ensure there was nothing left undone and file notes were updated my boss called me in to give me a lecture for arriving late for work 2 days in a row... bastard...

And a new thing this time around... when I do finally manage to drift off to sleep, my foot or calf cramps, so severely I wake up. And then in trying to work out the cramp in one leg, the other one cramps... and I whimper as I hobble around with my toes curling skyward.

If the neighbours heard me, I'm sure they'd think I was having an orgasm... I moan and groan so much, while my feet imitate pixie shoes... And then I'm back in bed, trying desperately not to move in case I set the cramp off again, and then finally drift off ... and I cramp again...

Doctor yesterday told me to try a herbal remedy, a mixture of magnesium and B vitamins to help with the cramps, and should also help a little with the muscle fatigue, only problem is that it may take 10-14 days to have any effect.

Meanwhile, I slept most of the day yesterday, and then woke and went back to bed this morning as I couldn't face work... ended up going in at 10.00am, with everyone telling me that I looked awful and should I be there, just what you want to hear, when it's the last place you want to be.

Then upset someone who was trying to be nice to me... and wanted to put my head down on my desk and bawl like a baby... waited till I got home to do that... though it could have been worse... have an alarming tendency to cry in the car lately... not sure why... just thinking about something sad and off I go...

I probably would have been better staying home, as I managed to do almost bugger all... and only realised when I got home that I'd forgotten to eat... again...

Biggest problem with not sleeping, is that's more time to be thinking... as if I don't do enough of that already... and while sometimes the wee small hours can produce wonderful ideas and thoughts... it can also mean feeling very woebegone... particularly when you're trying to massage out a cramp that you can't reach cause you're legs have gone mental... and you wish that there was someone there to massage it for you... or just to keep you company in the dark by talking quietly to you...

Roll on Easter... when I get to have my 10 day break... if I manage to last that long...