I'm thinking of cultivating an ethereal and mystical aura. The only things that spring to mind from that sentence are a tie-dyed T-shirt, a long cotton skirt, sandals, frizzy hair and the reek of sandalwood, so the look probably isn't for me. Give me jeans, pithy slogan T-shirts and Amazing Impromptu Haircut any day. I also loathe sandalwood.
The reason for this is some of the ridiculous awkwardness from a neighbourhood mum because I gave her daughter an ice pack for a twisted ankle. ("I'll get it back to you," she sheepishly announced). I found these ice-cube bags in the amazing plastic bag aisle while grocery shopping (cringe*) and had one filled up. Since the ice-pack is disposable, I wasn't too fussed about getting it back. Really. If I wanted it back I would have said where and when. I'm direct like that.
While I'm on the subject, I'm not un-fond of my possessions, but they are only possessions. If I lend something to someone, I hope for it back, but I say goodbye before I hand it over. Not because I think it will get damaged, destroyed or run off with, just because accidents sometimes happen. If it's a disposable something, I couldn't care less if it became Prime Minister, won an Oscar and went on to say it was all down to its new owner in its thank-you speech. The awkwardness** then is perplexing, and occasionally irritating.
So the mystical and ethereal manner could work for me. I could look even more vague than usual. I only need to practice a beatific smile, and stop saying "WHAT?" when I've had a zone-out. I could wear a long cotton dress thing and an occasional stretchy velvet thing. And smell of sandalwood (if I had nose plugs). Although practising facial expressions in a mirror feels a bit American Psycho, and Patrick Bateman is a tool.
*Normally I avoid gadgety-plastic-bags like this because they're disposable, usually craptastic (or less fabulous than I've hoped) and seem a ridiculous waste of all the effort to make plastic. I'm funny that way. I also have a sidebar feeling of the great advertising cliche: being one half of two c's in a k. Erk. (Although I don't have another c that I talk to about shopping in my kitchen over coffee and teacakes we've baked ourselves. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong and should embrace the cliche.)
**I have an urge to invent the word "awkwardity". Until I see how stupid it looks when I type it.
It's three a.m. in the neighbourhood and I've hit a sleepy spot.
It's hard to function at this time of night,
When eyelids slide shut in spite of false light;
My head hits the bench as sleeping I fall
In flittering dark, a whispering hall.
Liquid muttering, shapes felt but unseen,
A glimmer of skin, unhealthy, unclean;
I should run away; no running, not yet.
There's nowhere to go, it's in my own head,
As if the horrors I know took root: bred.
Short naps such as this are double-edged gifts;
The rest of the sleep, the dreams in the rift.
So fell Lord Perth; see that crater in the Earth?
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
A Strong Drink and a Peer Group
Adventure! Thrills! Escapes!
Or rather, not really, but you try making fixing-the-screw-on-my-glasses-and-putting-the-lens-back-in sound interesting.
It has been a thoughtful week rather than an hilarious one. I still love my haircut, my wrist is giving me no end of gyp and small lad knows how to make microwave popcorn. None of those things led to any particular thoughts, but I have thought to mention them.
I got told by an orderly that he wasn't "...paid enough to be pleasant." Eheu. When he said it, it gave me some pause, but I could see his point. Orderlies aren't paid well. Certainly not considering they get vomited on, abused and, being the low men (and occasionally women) on the totem pole of hospital hierarchy, are ordered around, and often not nicely.
On top of this, several times this week* there has been this dialogue:
Me: Here we are again, how are you?
Other: Back to the shithole. It's not too bad ... yet.
Me: Well, you don't want to peak too soon.
And then I run away to my little lab. (*This "week" started for me last Friday, apologies for any temporal confusions.)
Granted, I've started liking my job again - I don't have to read the procedures manual every time I get something that isn't the routine get specimen/process it/put everything away, I've gotten more things right than wrong (I wasn't getting that much wrong, but I hate making mistakes) - and I have my time off, deliriously filled with things like housework, it's true, but compared to the life I was living eight months ago, it is marvellous.
That said, I would much rather be writing for a living (despite all of my current and ridiculously* crushing doubts about my ability to do that); still, the food is on the table, the roof is over our heads and we're all, pretty much, okay.
My advantage, I suppose, is that I work alone and therefore can ignore any and all politics, peccadilloes and people, if I so choose. So long as my work is done, nothing else really matters. (Others might argue with that, and they can if they like, I'll probably ignore it.)
It is a huge relief to not worry about what's been said today, asked what I'm doing (in tones of I must be doing it wrong) or having too much to do and no time to do it in. I (finally!) have my right head on about that. I have as much as I need and time left over for reading books, watching movies and possibly running away to Queensland for a couple of days in the school holidays with small lad (husbandly too if he can manage it). I believe people call it perspective. Mine's changed. Nice.
That was a fairly marvellous digression, and I'm still not even close to what I started out to say, but bear with me, will you? I might just get there and try for witty along the way.
*It's ridiculously crushing. Ridiculously. While I'm getting things into perspective, it occurred to me that I'm reading real writers' (!!!) work and immediately comparing it to what I'm managing (zilch, currently). Of course I'm nowhere near it. Der. Once again I'm trying to run before I can even turn over on to my belly. (Side note in the middle of all of these side notes - the family do last weekend involved lots of babies and smaller children than small lad; I was pleasantly reminded of all the fun things such as vomiting (baby vomit really isn't as bad as it sounds, but it is ubiquitous) and learning to crawl and walk and baby frustration (which resulted in small lad as a small baby looking at me as "Fix it, Mum! You fix everything else!") and turning over and then back again was a big achievement.)
Phew. Back to the point, which I'm sure by now we've all forgotten (but I haven't, I went back and re-read the first couple of paragraphs), the idea that you can be paid enough to be pleasant. It's a poser. In some respects. Bear with me again.
One of the things that used to drive me up the wall (and still would, if I had to put up with it) is the idea that when you're at work it should all handed to you on a plate, particularly when major changes (or even minor ones) are afoot. I can probably explain that best with the comment, "I'm not paid to think." Well you're not paid to breathe either, are you about to crash out all blue?
It's...interesting that people at work have this entitlement attitude - that you should be compensated for civility or effort. The effort part is a no-brainer - if you're paid to do "x" minimums then I suppose, she types doubtfully, the minimums are all you must do. Everything else is an extra, but why you should be ordered to apply yourself when something changes is a source of puzzlement to me. To keep doing your job you have to absorb the changes and adapt to them. As Sue Kaufman put it, "...Change is Growth and Growth is Life, which makes a pretty neat equation." In more ways than one. With this is mind, should you only develop outside of work? Should your personality only be formed away from the job? Only be affected by the people you meet?
I've certainly found the people I deal with professionally (i.e., outside of friends in the workplace) instructive in how to live in ways that friends are not. Which brings me back around to civility. One of the great liberators for me was the realisation that most people don't get out of bed in the morning to make anyone else's life difficult. Those who do usually have something else going on, and they're still in the minority. Hmm. So if I've got someone unpleasant on the phone or in person, they're either unpleasant themselves (more on that in a minute) or something has happened before the phone call, incident or conversation.
Unpleasant people, character disorders and total effing nutbags are usually more to be pitied than hated. Or perhaps empathised with. Can you imagine having to live you life constantly on guard? Constantly having to fight nearly everyone you meet because you think that's the way to live? To always be angry?
I've spent a lot of time angry, nearly all my life. Considering that start I got (in short, nasty - is it enough to say I was a foster kid? Well, I hope so, because I don't feel like getting into it), it isn't surprising about the anger. Having said that, my dearest wish is to be at peace. To not be angry; so I find myself, confronted with angry people, upset people, wanting to make them feel better, or at least less worse.
I'm certainly not paid for that - but I choose to live the way I want to rather than dictated to by a paycheck. And there's the logic fail in the attitude. If you're not paid to be anything other than the bare minimum in your duties, aren't you ceding your power (to choose, to live, to be) to your job?
As far as empathy and/or sympathy goes, it's somewhat off-putting that there are people who might read this and assume I'm fooling myself, since I fell down (In their opinion) so spectacularly when confronted with someone in genuine need. This blog probably isn't the place to start - or at least not in this entry. We can disagree on what the genuine need was, when balanced against the needs of the job and the ridiculous lying that was going on (nice and intriguing?). And for the moment I'm leaving it at that.
Some personality wobbles are fascinating, and not in the sense of looking at a new bug, although any reading this may think I'm having a shot, I'm really not. I have my moments of shit too. Anyway.
Most of the time I find people hugely entertaining; exuberantly laughing my way through my days is how I prefer it. Even crazy eyes (a subspecies of nutbag - always defensive, always have a scapegoat and often dud themselves) are wondrous in the way their minds work.
Ah-ha. Finally I come to the point. People are fabulous. Even the repugnant ones. Because after all they're just trying to get through too; first do no harm is my ethic. I could go on for pages about how fantastic, how awesome people are, just being themselves, but I'll bog down in sentiment (more than there is already?) and I'd like to pass and leave it at that.
"What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god!"
That'll do for now. Peer group? What's that?
Or rather, not really, but you try making fixing-the-screw-on-my-glasses-and-putting-the-lens-back-in sound interesting.
It has been a thoughtful week rather than an hilarious one. I still love my haircut, my wrist is giving me no end of gyp and small lad knows how to make microwave popcorn. None of those things led to any particular thoughts, but I have thought to mention them.
I got told by an orderly that he wasn't "...paid enough to be pleasant." Eheu. When he said it, it gave me some pause, but I could see his point. Orderlies aren't paid well. Certainly not considering they get vomited on, abused and, being the low men (and occasionally women) on the totem pole of hospital hierarchy, are ordered around, and often not nicely.
On top of this, several times this week* there has been this dialogue:
Me: Here we are again, how are you?
Other: Back to the shithole. It's not too bad ... yet.
Me: Well, you don't want to peak too soon.
And then I run away to my little lab. (*This "week" started for me last Friday, apologies for any temporal confusions.)
Granted, I've started liking my job again - I don't have to read the procedures manual every time I get something that isn't the routine get specimen/process it/put everything away, I've gotten more things right than wrong (I wasn't getting that much wrong, but I hate making mistakes) - and I have my time off, deliriously filled with things like housework, it's true, but compared to the life I was living eight months ago, it is marvellous.
That said, I would much rather be writing for a living (despite all of my current and ridiculously* crushing doubts about my ability to do that); still, the food is on the table, the roof is over our heads and we're all, pretty much, okay.
My advantage, I suppose, is that I work alone and therefore can ignore any and all politics, peccadilloes and people, if I so choose. So long as my work is done, nothing else really matters. (Others might argue with that, and they can if they like, I'll probably ignore it.)
It is a huge relief to not worry about what's been said today, asked what I'm doing (in tones of I must be doing it wrong) or having too much to do and no time to do it in. I (finally!) have my right head on about that. I have as much as I need and time left over for reading books, watching movies and possibly running away to Queensland for a couple of days in the school holidays with small lad (husbandly too if he can manage it). I believe people call it perspective. Mine's changed. Nice.
That was a fairly marvellous digression, and I'm still not even close to what I started out to say, but bear with me, will you? I might just get there and try for witty along the way.
*It's ridiculously crushing. Ridiculously. While I'm getting things into perspective, it occurred to me that I'm reading real writers' (!!!) work and immediately comparing it to what I'm managing (zilch, currently). Of course I'm nowhere near it. Der. Once again I'm trying to run before I can even turn over on to my belly. (Side note in the middle of all of these side notes - the family do last weekend involved lots of babies and smaller children than small lad; I was pleasantly reminded of all the fun things such as vomiting (baby vomit really isn't as bad as it sounds, but it is ubiquitous) and learning to crawl and walk and baby frustration (which resulted in small lad as a small baby looking at me as "Fix it, Mum! You fix everything else!") and turning over and then back again was a big achievement.)
Phew. Back to the point, which I'm sure by now we've all forgotten (but I haven't, I went back and re-read the first couple of paragraphs), the idea that you can be paid enough to be pleasant. It's a poser. In some respects. Bear with me again.
One of the things that used to drive me up the wall (and still would, if I had to put up with it) is the idea that when you're at work it should all handed to you on a plate, particularly when major changes (or even minor ones) are afoot. I can probably explain that best with the comment, "I'm not paid to think." Well you're not paid to breathe either, are you about to crash out all blue?
It's...interesting that people at work have this entitlement attitude - that you should be compensated for civility or effort. The effort part is a no-brainer - if you're paid to do "x" minimums then I suppose, she types doubtfully, the minimums are all you must do. Everything else is an extra, but why you should be ordered to apply yourself when something changes is a source of puzzlement to me. To keep doing your job you have to absorb the changes and adapt to them. As Sue Kaufman put it, "...Change is Growth and Growth is Life, which makes a pretty neat equation." In more ways than one. With this is mind, should you only develop outside of work? Should your personality only be formed away from the job? Only be affected by the people you meet?
I've certainly found the people I deal with professionally (i.e., outside of friends in the workplace) instructive in how to live in ways that friends are not. Which brings me back around to civility. One of the great liberators for me was the realisation that most people don't get out of bed in the morning to make anyone else's life difficult. Those who do usually have something else going on, and they're still in the minority. Hmm. So if I've got someone unpleasant on the phone or in person, they're either unpleasant themselves (more on that in a minute) or something has happened before the phone call, incident or conversation.
Unpleasant people, character disorders and total effing nutbags are usually more to be pitied than hated. Or perhaps empathised with. Can you imagine having to live you life constantly on guard? Constantly having to fight nearly everyone you meet because you think that's the way to live? To always be angry?
I've spent a lot of time angry, nearly all my life. Considering that start I got (in short, nasty - is it enough to say I was a foster kid? Well, I hope so, because I don't feel like getting into it), it isn't surprising about the anger. Having said that, my dearest wish is to be at peace. To not be angry; so I find myself, confronted with angry people, upset people, wanting to make them feel better, or at least less worse.
I'm certainly not paid for that - but I choose to live the way I want to rather than dictated to by a paycheck. And there's the logic fail in the attitude. If you're not paid to be anything other than the bare minimum in your duties, aren't you ceding your power (to choose, to live, to be) to your job?
As far as empathy and/or sympathy goes, it's somewhat off-putting that there are people who might read this and assume I'm fooling myself, since I fell down (In their opinion) so spectacularly when confronted with someone in genuine need. This blog probably isn't the place to start - or at least not in this entry. We can disagree on what the genuine need was, when balanced against the needs of the job and the ridiculous lying that was going on (nice and intriguing?). And for the moment I'm leaving it at that.
Some personality wobbles are fascinating, and not in the sense of looking at a new bug, although any reading this may think I'm having a shot, I'm really not. I have my moments of shit too. Anyway.
Most of the time I find people hugely entertaining; exuberantly laughing my way through my days is how I prefer it. Even crazy eyes (a subspecies of nutbag - always defensive, always have a scapegoat and often dud themselves) are wondrous in the way their minds work.
Ah-ha. Finally I come to the point. People are fabulous. Even the repugnant ones. Because after all they're just trying to get through too; first do no harm is my ethic. I could go on for pages about how fantastic, how awesome people are, just being themselves, but I'll bog down in sentiment (more than there is already?) and I'd like to pass and leave it at that.
"What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god!"
That'll do for now. Peer group? What's that?
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Spread My Dreams Under Your Feet
There were wasps flying outside the garage, in formation, orange and black. The garage and side doors were open and small lad was running down the driveway towards me. I put my hand up to stop him, my voice frozen, circuits jammed. Husbandly was standing behind me. The wasps flew past the open side door, diverted by something outside. Small lad came into the garage to look at what Dad was holding - a friendly duck wrapped in a towel. The duck was happy to be with us, a smile sensed (since ducks can't smile, can they?), nice and warm inside the towel. As I looked at him I saw the wasp-maggots on his feathers. He was a diversion. I turned to look out the side door again and the wall in front of me disappeared; the walls behind me changed to a deep golden cream colour with a white trim, the wasps outside, four, five, six of them flying straight for me. As the walls changed behind me, the wasps veered away, unable to attack in the reflected golden light; husbandly woke me up to offer me a cup of tea.
We have wasp issues. There is a nest somewhere near the bathroom window and every now and then (okay, it's only twice so far), I've found a wasp in the bath after I've cleaned. Bees don't bother me at all, I'll happily stand still if a bee is crawling on me. I've scored plenty of bee stings, particularly when I was a kid and went barefoot just about everywhere. Wasps, ick. For some reason we keep getting nest attempts on the front door as well - quickly killed off but after ten years of it, it's annoying. I've never been stung by a wasp, which is why I'm creeped out by the whole notion of wasps.
Back to the dreaming, I don't always get the wake up call from husbandly or small lad; if I'm deep enough I go back to sleep and barely remember dreams unless they are somehow important.
In another, I was sprawled on the lounge reading a book while small lad was playing in his room with a friend. For some reason my hackles were up - I didn't know who the other child was - when both boys came out of small lad's room. The unknown boy came first and my stomach went cold and creepy; there was something wrong about him being in our house. He had blue eyes and blonde hair and a gorgeous smile; but he wasn't supposed to be here. Then someone knocked on the door four times (the heartbeat of a Time Lord?) and I was relieved. Thank God, that will be the police, I thought, so I opened the door, ready to welcome them in when the words died and my mouth hung open. At the door was a lady with a scarf over her head, wrapped completely around her head so I couldn't see her face, facing away from me and turning slowly in my direction - I woke up, heart pounding, since I don't want to be anybody's blue-eyed girl, Mrs Death.
While I'm freaked out about the door knocking - it was so clear, so concise somehow, even if Death was shorter than me - no, I'm freaked about that dream. I think I know that child from somewhere, so whatever freaky thing I'm processing in that one, it's freaky. Unlike the last time I dreamed knocking on my door, this one has me unsettled. The vivid patterning on the scarf, the slow turn of her face toward me, ponderous and unstoppable, until I woke up.
I'm at work at the minute and it has been a very quiet night (yes! I said the Q word!). I'm too scared to move near the stock fridge since it keeps hitting 5.5 degrees and therefore setting off nearly every alarm in the place. Or rather, two alarms, and nowhere near as loud as the oxygen depletion alarm from the BMT lab (that's a horror).
I've had a very full five days off. There was housework. There was shopping for birthday presents. There was an appointment with a hairdresser. There was a christening and birthday party. There was more shopping, this time at Ikea. There was building of furniture. Okay I'm going to stop this half-arsed list.
I went home and crashed out completely last Wednesday, having had the wasp dream on Sunday and meaning to put it in here. Ha! After spending Saturday night reading a book, Sunday through to Wednesday morning was amazingly busy. If it wasn't a bleeding patient, it was an antibody, or just volume of work. Come to think of it, the only thing I didn't have was a transfusion reaction.
So! On Wednesday morning I crawl into my bed, thinking of nothing more than picking up small lad from school, then coming straight home to catch some more z's; oops, I'd forgotten his haircut appointment. I manage to stagger around for the afternoon. I think I made it to about seven in the evening and out like a light. I slept until about two, then surprisingly (surprising to me anyway) went back to sleep until six. Oh bliss.
On Thursday there was housework. Enough said. Small lad and I went to get some veggies for dinner after school and, standing in the "food court" (no it isn't), I talked myself into a hair appointment for Friday, because this going to work and coming home and going to work and coming home is getting a bit dull. With some trepidation, because I have never come out of a hairdressers utterly pleased with my haircut. Until last Friday. Talk about awesome. Three hours later, I have a marvellous colour (not blue, maybe next time) and when we got to the end (because I did so much, sitting there, watching everyone else's haircuts, reading my book and blissed out on the head massage), R. (the BEST hairdresser in the WORLD) says "I could straighten it out, or I could do...what I want to do, and give it some body." "Go on," I say, "I'll let you." Am I glad I did? Or rather, he did? You couldn't have wiped the smile off my face with a sandblaster. Or a grinder. What an awful mental image that is. Particularly compared to how wonderful my hair looked. It still does. Although it's not quite so fancy, I find I'm wearing it out rather than tied back and hidden away. Marvellous.
I was so excited by the Amazing Impromptu Haircut, I had to ring an old friend and burble at her about how truly wondrous it was; which was nice for me, but not much chop for her since she was at work and I could hear people wanting to talk to her in the background, but oh well.
For some reason I thought I was shopping some more on Saturday what with the birthday presents and the christening thing (supposedly) on Sunday. Oops again, because all of that was on Saturday, so emergency shopping and run around later we're all enjoying the splashing of Holy Water (well I might find it a hoot, Catholics may differ and I probably have to avoid any of those people if they read this blog) then on to a two-year old's party (the sister of the christen-ee). Small lad had the joys of trampolining, husbandly reconnected with some seldom-seen friends and I did the helping out, the sitting around chatting, the running after kids. The latter might have been a mistake since I wound up under a pile of kids on the trampoline; it did give a couple of adults a chance to have a lend when they told me I had to get back in as minder. Har dee har har.
Again I have the good intentions and intend to start on the blog entry because the wasp-maggot-duck has caught my imagination, but I crash out again Saturday night, waking up again at two. That night I didn't go back to sleep, but read a book instead (Deep Water, Pamela Freeman, book two in the Castings Trilogy, very good).
Confronted with a now-empty Sunday, instead of a day of family fun, I decide to betake myself off to Ikea. Again. I seem to do that a lot. I spent an hour fiddling with the kitchen planning software and harassing the Ikea "coworker". I'd already picked out the furniture I wanted from the net, only to reverse myself midstream and get completely different furniture. And a soap dish. Coming home at midday, I spent the rest of the afternoon building furniture and emptying the fucking ugly hand-me-down-glad-we-had-something-but-yuck-how-awful we've been putting up with for fourteen years. I can finally open my wardrobe door fully without having it clunk against the bedside. Downer note (to wit: fucking ugly etc.) aside, it does look much nicer than it did.
Once again, I opened my fat mouth and fell in while at Ikea. A lady asked the Ikea coworker (*snort* going to run that into the ground? You bet) about parts missing, and muggins here pipes up with "not ever happened". Guess what I found when I got home. Go on, guess. Not only a couple of screws, but an entire side panel of a storage box missing. Bahahaha. The universe loves me. My first thought was "I hope that lady doesn't have any missing parts," before fixing it up. Ikea will post it so no dramas there.
Much nicer five days off than I've had since I started this noo improoved job. Today (meaning Monday, although it is Tuesday morning), I got it into my head to iron clothes. While I'm happy I only have some odd socks left to match, it probably wasn't the brightest choice given it's four in the morning and I need some toothpicks or matchsticks for my eyelids. Because then of course I did the floors. Colour me silly.
Today (meaning Tuesday, since I'm looking forward now and it is, indeed, Tuesday morning) I plan to crash out again so I'm on form to cook something nice for dinner. Or possibly some washing, because we just can't have enough of that in our house.
Are dreams better than newspaper to wipe the mud off your feet? Not really, ephemera leave smears.
We have wasp issues. There is a nest somewhere near the bathroom window and every now and then (okay, it's only twice so far), I've found a wasp in the bath after I've cleaned. Bees don't bother me at all, I'll happily stand still if a bee is crawling on me. I've scored plenty of bee stings, particularly when I was a kid and went barefoot just about everywhere. Wasps, ick. For some reason we keep getting nest attempts on the front door as well - quickly killed off but after ten years of it, it's annoying. I've never been stung by a wasp, which is why I'm creeped out by the whole notion of wasps.
Back to the dreaming, I don't always get the wake up call from husbandly or small lad; if I'm deep enough I go back to sleep and barely remember dreams unless they are somehow important.
In another, I was sprawled on the lounge reading a book while small lad was playing in his room with a friend. For some reason my hackles were up - I didn't know who the other child was - when both boys came out of small lad's room. The unknown boy came first and my stomach went cold and creepy; there was something wrong about him being in our house. He had blue eyes and blonde hair and a gorgeous smile; but he wasn't supposed to be here. Then someone knocked on the door four times (the heartbeat of a Time Lord?) and I was relieved. Thank God, that will be the police, I thought, so I opened the door, ready to welcome them in when the words died and my mouth hung open. At the door was a lady with a scarf over her head, wrapped completely around her head so I couldn't see her face, facing away from me and turning slowly in my direction - I woke up, heart pounding, since I don't want to be anybody's blue-eyed girl, Mrs Death.
While I'm freaked out about the door knocking - it was so clear, so concise somehow, even if Death was shorter than me - no, I'm freaked about that dream. I think I know that child from somewhere, so whatever freaky thing I'm processing in that one, it's freaky. Unlike the last time I dreamed knocking on my door, this one has me unsettled. The vivid patterning on the scarf, the slow turn of her face toward me, ponderous and unstoppable, until I woke up.
I'm at work at the minute and it has been a very quiet night (yes! I said the Q word!). I'm too scared to move near the stock fridge since it keeps hitting 5.5 degrees and therefore setting off nearly every alarm in the place. Or rather, two alarms, and nowhere near as loud as the oxygen depletion alarm from the BMT lab (that's a horror).
I've had a very full five days off. There was housework. There was shopping for birthday presents. There was an appointment with a hairdresser. There was a christening and birthday party. There was more shopping, this time at Ikea. There was building of furniture. Okay I'm going to stop this half-arsed list.
I went home and crashed out completely last Wednesday, having had the wasp dream on Sunday and meaning to put it in here. Ha! After spending Saturday night reading a book, Sunday through to Wednesday morning was amazingly busy. If it wasn't a bleeding patient, it was an antibody, or just volume of work. Come to think of it, the only thing I didn't have was a transfusion reaction.
So! On Wednesday morning I crawl into my bed, thinking of nothing more than picking up small lad from school, then coming straight home to catch some more z's; oops, I'd forgotten his haircut appointment. I manage to stagger around for the afternoon. I think I made it to about seven in the evening and out like a light. I slept until about two, then surprisingly (surprising to me anyway) went back to sleep until six. Oh bliss.
On Thursday there was housework. Enough said. Small lad and I went to get some veggies for dinner after school and, standing in the "food court" (no it isn't), I talked myself into a hair appointment for Friday, because this going to work and coming home and going to work and coming home is getting a bit dull. With some trepidation, because I have never come out of a hairdressers utterly pleased with my haircut. Until last Friday. Talk about awesome. Three hours later, I have a marvellous colour (not blue, maybe next time) and when we got to the end (because I did so much, sitting there, watching everyone else's haircuts, reading my book and blissed out on the head massage), R. (the BEST hairdresser in the WORLD) says "I could straighten it out, or I could do...what I want to do, and give it some body." "Go on," I say, "I'll let you." Am I glad I did? Or rather, he did? You couldn't have wiped the smile off my face with a sandblaster. Or a grinder. What an awful mental image that is. Particularly compared to how wonderful my hair looked. It still does. Although it's not quite so fancy, I find I'm wearing it out rather than tied back and hidden away. Marvellous.
I was so excited by the Amazing Impromptu Haircut, I had to ring an old friend and burble at her about how truly wondrous it was; which was nice for me, but not much chop for her since she was at work and I could hear people wanting to talk to her in the background, but oh well.
For some reason I thought I was shopping some more on Saturday what with the birthday presents and the christening thing (supposedly) on Sunday. Oops again, because all of that was on Saturday, so emergency shopping and run around later we're all enjoying the splashing of Holy Water (well I might find it a hoot, Catholics may differ and I probably have to avoid any of those people if they read this blog) then on to a two-year old's party (the sister of the christen-ee). Small lad had the joys of trampolining, husbandly reconnected with some seldom-seen friends and I did the helping out, the sitting around chatting, the running after kids. The latter might have been a mistake since I wound up under a pile of kids on the trampoline; it did give a couple of adults a chance to have a lend when they told me I had to get back in as minder. Har dee har har.
Again I have the good intentions and intend to start on the blog entry because the wasp-maggot-duck has caught my imagination, but I crash out again Saturday night, waking up again at two. That night I didn't go back to sleep, but read a book instead (Deep Water, Pamela Freeman, book two in the Castings Trilogy, very good).
Confronted with a now-empty Sunday, instead of a day of family fun, I decide to betake myself off to Ikea. Again. I seem to do that a lot. I spent an hour fiddling with the kitchen planning software and harassing the Ikea "coworker". I'd already picked out the furniture I wanted from the net, only to reverse myself midstream and get completely different furniture. And a soap dish. Coming home at midday, I spent the rest of the afternoon building furniture and emptying the fucking ugly hand-me-down-glad-we-had-something-but-yuck-how-awful we've been putting up with for fourteen years. I can finally open my wardrobe door fully without having it clunk against the bedside. Downer note (to wit: fucking ugly etc.) aside, it does look much nicer than it did.
Once again, I opened my fat mouth and fell in while at Ikea. A lady asked the Ikea coworker (*snort* going to run that into the ground? You bet) about parts missing, and muggins here pipes up with "not ever happened". Guess what I found when I got home. Go on, guess. Not only a couple of screws, but an entire side panel of a storage box missing. Bahahaha. The universe loves me. My first thought was "I hope that lady doesn't have any missing parts," before fixing it up. Ikea will post it so no dramas there.
Much nicer five days off than I've had since I started this noo improoved job. Today (meaning Monday, although it is Tuesday morning), I got it into my head to iron clothes. While I'm happy I only have some odd socks left to match, it probably wasn't the brightest choice given it's four in the morning and I need some toothpicks or matchsticks for my eyelids. Because then of course I did the floors. Colour me silly.
Today (meaning Tuesday, since I'm looking forward now and it is, indeed, Tuesday morning) I plan to crash out again so I'm on form to cook something nice for dinner. Or possibly some washing, because we just can't have enough of that in our house.
Are dreams better than newspaper to wipe the mud off your feet? Not really, ephemera leave smears.
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