The Stocking Filler (Late, or Very, Very Early)

I should complain about the weather more often: yesterday the mercury rose to summer-like levels.

It's 5:00 am and an anaesthetist is waiting in a small room. A cockroach observes from an air vent, waiting for the doctor to leave: there is a crumb on the floor with the cockroach's name on it. Or would be if the names of cockroaches could fit on the surface of a crumb.

Yesterday small lad was playing his new Lego Star Wars III game - this was his best Christmas ever, or he was imagining it (I paraphrase). Since Christmas, if it isn't the DS, it's the (actual) Lego. It's so nice to get Christmas presents right! Onya Santa! Earlier in the morning he rescued me from my 2am sleeplessness - he doesn't remember what happened, but he appeared around three, bleary eyed and looking for a cuddle, so I escorted him back to bed and lay down with him for a bit. It's the quickest way to get the light off, believe me. Aside from the back pain from sleeping on the edge of the bed, I had a lovely sleep. So did he, which works out nicely for everyone.

It's 5:02 am: Doctor Darling holds Gemma close in his manly arms as her tears dry prettily on her cheeks. They move apart and look deeply into each other's eyes, finally acknowledging their feelings for one another. Gemma tilts her head up, lips parted softly, and the breathless sexual tension is marred by the man in the front row eating popcorn with more noise than an industrial grader breaking up a road.

I surfaced somewhere around seven, but husbandly was sprawled in our bed, so it was off to the lounge with me. Sometimes I have trouble re-adjusting my sleep pattern. Meh. So it goes.

It's 5:10 am. There are cats. They are all thin. They sit in rows. They look alert. They do not shuffle. They watch us silently, us people hiding behind a gate. I expect Alfred Hitchcock to appear any minute. I hope he is walking some dogs.

Tonight I'm in the glory of Blood Bank, forever, amen, whatever. Whatever is, for the third year running, the most annoying word in the English language. Lucky it.

It's 5:20 am. Inside the room we watch the rain rill prettily down the windows, four girls in armchairs. By turns we feel: romantic, intellectual, consumptive or restless. It depends on how the light strikes us. Or perhaps it's the whalebone in our corsets.

Who reads this blog? Somebody must be, or I would have no stats (unless Google really is mucked up), but who are you? Not that I'm complaining, it's much nicer to have an audience rather than shooting these missives into the ether. But the country stats are weird (I'm geographically limited - I don't have many overseas friends). Please email me, go on, you know you want to....

It's 5:30 am. My alarm has gone off; the power is out and it is pitch dark. I have barked my shins on very piece of furniture in the house. I am trying to get to my phone, because the alarm is going off for a minute every five. It is annoying, but it will do as a torch. As I finally reach it (face down, I'm navigating by sound, not light), the alarm cuts off and out of the speaker comes James Earl Jones' voice reciting "The Raven". My hand stops, a foot, two feet - how can I tell? - above it. Well I'm not picking it up now. I've just stepped into a horror movie.

The sun is coming up. The mornings always look grey here. Our ground-floor windows face another five-storey building, and south, and haven't been cleaned in a very long while. Will you sleep better tonight, knowing that? You probably will. Unless your fevered brain is tortured trying to imagine finely-gritted windows imparting a grey tinge to the morning sky. Imparting. Tinge. Dig it.

It's 5:50 am in the airport and four security guards are running away from the terminal. They pelt across the tarmac as though the proverbial hounds have been released. Big Matty just took his shoes off at the check-in desk and the smell is terrific.

Is facebook a bad idea if friends read your entries, but never post any of their own? I had a friend comment (verbally, with mouths and everything) on something I'd posted, and then a guilty moment, because I thought I hadn't read my feed properly. I hadn't seen anything from my friend for, like, you know, ever. But when I got home, I hadn't missed any posts. So I wonder, is it a bit like watching someone through a window, to see if you can get a glimpse of them in their undies? Or picking their nose? (I suppose that depends on the friend). I don't really worry about twitter, so colour me contradictory on concerns.

It's 6:05 am. A man lurks in a rhododendron bush just outside a door. As people walk out he intones "You'll be baaack" in a deep voice. As they enter he squeaks.

In five minutes time I will get up and shut down machines. Then I'll start them back up again. It sounds rather futile, doesn't it? Then I'll put things away. Or not, because probably the phone will ring. And I will answer it. And I will have to do something because of the person who has rung me. I want a big red button in this lab. An emergency stop like we have at TAFE. I never cared about the big stop buttons when I was at TAFE, but now I don't have one, I'd like one. I'd like to hit the emergency stop button because it is all big and red and funky. But of course, I'd then have to explain why I hit it (because we have to call in an electrician to start everything up again), and I don't think a goofy grin and an "I felt like it, because the button is big and red and funky" would cover me.

It's 6:20 am. Heavens, is that the time?

It's time for me to stop fooling around in bits and pieces and start fooling around in earnest. (Not Ernest, I don't know where he's been aside from the squeaking as I came in to work tonight). Take care of yourselves, all ten peoples.

Fragmentation Grenade

I have no coherent thoughts this week.

This will make the half century of entries. I should do something celebratory, but baking a cake is futile internet-ically speaking. I feel slightly better than I did, with the help of paracetamol, naproxen and the occasional hot toddy. My biggest achievements for the last few days involve going to work, talking to the boys and shaving my legs. If you complain to a razor company that your legs are not silky smooth, do they send someone out to check? Does a little man with a doctor's bag come out and ask to stroke your shin? "Hmm, yes Ms Lateonenite, I see what you mean"?

I seem to have quit smoking, which has prolonged the illness. I almost hesitate to say it, because it's only been a week. Strangely I don't have any (more) cravings for the nicotine (so far), which is just as well, because nicotine replacement therapies make me want to hurl. Seriously. Barf city. Over the weekend I kept picturing myself stopping at a service station on my way home from work, but it was late and I was tired. Today I keep thinking along the lines of not wanting to quit, because I'm a rebel, a crazy young kid living for the now. Sure I am.

Now I've spent time typing this out, of course I really, really, really want to have a smoke. Too bad I don't have any then, isn't it?

We have a (relatively) new supermarket near us that boasts the wonders of the self-service checkout. Small lad keeps calling it the Silver Surfer. All we need is a Fantastic Four deli counter and we'll have the set. (Would the Thing be slicing meat, or would he be a kind of pastrami?)

In an effort to change up on my dream cycles, to wit: ditch the damn zombies, I've been mainlining Blackadder and Red Dwarf. It seems to be working except for re-reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies yesterday. I don't know why I did it either. I like the book, a lot, but that doesn't make up for being pursued by drippy corpses in my sleep.

Dear Tarted-Up White Pages Website,

Perhaps when I search for a business at a given postcode and suburb, I am not searching for a business at a completely-different-suburb-on-the-other-side-of-Sydney-but-I-can't-tell-that-until-I-click-on-that-link. Just a thought.

Disgruntled.

It really is late and I am tired. This is shift four out of five and my eyelids are ready to slam shut. Time to move around. Midnight will be here soon and I'll have lots to do after that. Mwahahahaha!