It's hard being a book lover sometimes because every so often you get The Fear.
The Fear comes along when you sense a dark shadow over your shoulder or a little darkness in your belly and it suddenly occurs to you: not everybody likes books.
I don't mean I think everyone should be reading 'classics' or non-genre fiction or even non Oprah-endorsed fiction (she did, after all, spruik Jonathan Franzen's spectacular The Corrections, which is quite remarkable when you think about it). There are, naturally, books I think are Good Books or Books You Should Read but I read plenty of weird and trashy stuff and other people can read what they like. They just have to read.
Recently(ish) I got The Fear when I recounted what I thought was a brilliant anecdote about a quite brilliant author and journalist. Someone famous. Someone who has had books written about him and movies made of his books. I finished my anecdote and waited for smiles. Nuthin'.
"Who's that?" my audience asked. It took a bit to sink in: they had no idea who I was talking about. The audience in question was made up of some of my favourite people in the world: people who were lovely, very smart and well educated. But this moment gave me The Fear.
Even worse than the above is hearing the phrase "I don't really read". I know people who don't really read and they are people I like but cannot ever completely understand. It's like living your life and never listening to music. It's like chips without salt. No, fuck, it's like life without chips. I don't know why anyone would choose that once they've tasted how good books can be. Maybe they are put off because they never read as kids and they only have the memories of slugging through Macbeth in high school. I don't know. But I wonder sometimes if they know what they're missing out on... which is everything.
But all that pretentious wank is just a way of saying that sometimes you can get the opposite of The Fear. I don't really know what that is but I got it today when I heard that a copy of Emily Bronte's novel Wuthering Heights sold for 114,000 pounds, more than double the expected price.
Oh sure I know it was probably for a rich old bint who is 110-years-old and it doesn't represent anything bigger, other than that some people have obscene amounts of money, but I don't much care. I love Wuthering Heights in all its melodrama, slushy over-the-top romance and roaming around the moors and, every so often, it's just nice to hear that someone else does too.
Phew, it took a while to get there, didn't it?
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Monday, November 12, 2007
Seriously, Charlie, it doesn't even have to be a real marriage...
I was going to stop spruiking Charlie Brooker, honestly I was. You don't care. It's predictable. He seems to be quite popular, I don't see how he can't be popular. Certainly he doesn't need my help getting readers. But how am I expected to resist linking when he comes up with this:
Mr Brooker you're killing me.
"Weirdly, for a programme based around the relentless humiliation of desperate K-listers, I'm a Celebrity has a fairly solid track record of relaunching careers (far better than, say, the now defunct Celebrity Big Brother, which, in the fame stakes, surely ranks 10 steps below releasing an internet sex tape starring yourself and a microwaveable ready meal for one)."
Mr Brooker you're killing me.
Will you look at the time, it's 1950 already...
Everybody has their secret shame and one of mine is that I have, for some time, actually quite liked Peter Costello. Oh shut up. I don't agree with his politics, obviously, but I've always sort of suspected he might be quite fun when really, really drunk. But No. Fucking. More. Because, my god, I have just heard him use the phrase "reds under the bed". What a wanker.
Life Pursuit: a love letter
The first time I listened to the charming Scottish band Belle and Sebastian it was because of a boy.A certain skinny, Buddy-Holly-glasses-wearing boy I had a huge, multi-year unrequited crush on. I believe at least a few of you know exactly who I'm talking about. He recommended the band to me for some reason or other, possibly because I feigned an interest, and suggested I would like them. Of course I promptly devoured every song of theirs I could, pushing past the 'eh it's okay' barrier into true love. I got over the boy (mostly, eventually, probably) but I never got over Belle and Sebastian.
Since then most people who become close friends of mine eventually have to listen to a lot of Belle and Sebastian. "Isn't this great?" I bellow at my passengers while I'm a Cuckoo ('I'd rather be in Tokyo/I'd rather listen to Thin Lizzy-oh' guffs lead singer Stuart Murdoch) blares out of the car stereo. "This will change your life," I say, pressing a copy of Tigermilk into someone else's hand ('reading the Gospel to yourself is fine,' coo B&S).
Some of the friends who have been around for awhile have learnt to like (a bit of) them. Others have learned to feign enjoyment and quietly pray for death as I crank up the stereo. I forget how much I talk about them until sometimes, when they come on the radio, and I receive a text message to let me know. That makes me almost as happy as a B&S song does.
It's weird the way some bands get into your mind. Eight-ish years on from listening to my first Belle and Sebastian song I still nominate them as my favourite band, pretty much without hesitation. They're not the 'best' band in the world, the most talented, the best looking or anything like that but listening to a Belle and Sebastian record, for me, is like taking prozac. Even the depressing songs about break-ups and infidelity and stuff that should make me want to take a razor to my wrists cheer me up.
Maybe it's Stuart Murdoch's irrepresibly friendly face or the suspicion that he'd be really fun to hang out with. Maybe it's the fact that, as somebody wise recently told me, no music will ever be as important to you as the music you listen to before you're 25. Maybe it's because they're bloody good and sweet and charming.
So why aren't you listening to them, fool? Call me, we'll talk about it - I'll make you a mix tape...
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Not a bad innings for someone who once stabbed his wife with a penknife.
“There was that law of life, so cruel and so just, that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same.”
(Norman Mailer, January 31 1923 - November 10 2007)
Perhaps one is more valid than the other...
Call me old Mrs Unadventourous but, before tonight, two experiences on the list of many I have not had would have included having a bottle thrown at me from a moving car and hearing "fuck you, you fucking slut" shouted at me from a completely different car. Clearly I have led a sheltered, middle class life because tonight I experienced both.
Oh sure leaving Burswood on my lonesome to catch a taxi 'on the walk home' was among the less brainy schemes I've hatched over the years. Actually it was doubly stupid because I was tarted up for the media ball and tottering on heels at the time but when has anyone ever made a brilliant move when free booze all night was involved?
So the increasingly dark road pretty quickly became very, very creepy and it did occur to me (thanks for asking) that I may well die and be buried in a shallow grave in the uber dodgy-looking park/oval I discovered on my travels. Concern over my inability to recognise my surroundings (I was, as it turned out, walking the wrong way- I know, I know) also grew pretty sharply, heightened by the complete failure of any of the many taxis I saw to stop for me. But until some cockhead hurled a bottle from the window of their car (which managed to smash on the footpath right in front of me, covering my lovely new silky dress in the process and scaring ten types of shit out of me) I was holding it together pretty well.
Me being me (read: drunk, emotional and sort of a pussy), as soon as said cockhead let fly I pretty much burst into tears. Luxuriant, embarassing mess-up-your-face-tears. Tragically, however, I was not distraught enough not to give the finger, moments later, to the dicksnap who beeped at me. The result? A "fuck you, you fucking slut" screamed out the window as the car sped away. Je-sus. Is this really what we've come to?
It was right about then I decided it was time to call in a lift, which only necessitated another ten minutes of waiting in the middle of fucking nowhere at the continent's creepiest intersection (presumably marking the entrance to hell) for the lovely Ruth (to whom I owe many things) to arrive. I was wearing a skimpy-by-my-standards dress with a huge wet patch on it, tottering in high heels, still sort of bawling and trying not to look like a distraught hooker. I can't remember the last time I have actually been quite so frightened, nor felt so helplesss. It was all a bit fucked actually.
At the risk of angering my two male readers I would suggest that men can't imagine quite what it feels like to be alone and stranded in the wee hours on a Saturday night in a slinky dress when all those episodes of Prime Suspect come back to terrify you. I mean nobody enjoys being uncomfortable on the street waiting for a taxi instead of tucked up in bed but it is, I'm a little bit sorry to say, Different For Girls.
Of course boys, too, can have bottles thrown at them, just as they can be brutally raped and murdered in the middle of the night but I've yet to see a boy huddled in the darkness trying to cover his cleavage with a pathetically small clutch bag and dreading each new set of headlights coming along the road just as I've yet to see a boy get called a fucking slut from the safety of a speeding car.
The lesson of the night? It's a tie between 'Don't Go Off On Your Own You Dumb Bitch' and 'People Are Fucked'. Both valid points, I feel.
Oh sure leaving Burswood on my lonesome to catch a taxi 'on the walk home' was among the less brainy schemes I've hatched over the years. Actually it was doubly stupid because I was tarted up for the media ball and tottering on heels at the time but when has anyone ever made a brilliant move when free booze all night was involved?
So the increasingly dark road pretty quickly became very, very creepy and it did occur to me (thanks for asking) that I may well die and be buried in a shallow grave in the uber dodgy-looking park/oval I discovered on my travels. Concern over my inability to recognise my surroundings (I was, as it turned out, walking the wrong way- I know, I know) also grew pretty sharply, heightened by the complete failure of any of the many taxis I saw to stop for me. But until some cockhead hurled a bottle from the window of their car (which managed to smash on the footpath right in front of me, covering my lovely new silky dress in the process and scaring ten types of shit out of me) I was holding it together pretty well.
Me being me (read: drunk, emotional and sort of a pussy), as soon as said cockhead let fly I pretty much burst into tears. Luxuriant, embarassing mess-up-your-face-tears. Tragically, however, I was not distraught enough not to give the finger, moments later, to the dicksnap who beeped at me. The result? A "fuck you, you fucking slut" screamed out the window as the car sped away. Je-sus. Is this really what we've come to?
It was right about then I decided it was time to call in a lift, which only necessitated another ten minutes of waiting in the middle of fucking nowhere at the continent's creepiest intersection (presumably marking the entrance to hell) for the lovely Ruth (to whom I owe many things) to arrive. I was wearing a skimpy-by-my-standards dress with a huge wet patch on it, tottering in high heels, still sort of bawling and trying not to look like a distraught hooker. I can't remember the last time I have actually been quite so frightened, nor felt so helplesss. It was all a bit fucked actually.
At the risk of angering my two male readers I would suggest that men can't imagine quite what it feels like to be alone and stranded in the wee hours on a Saturday night in a slinky dress when all those episodes of Prime Suspect come back to terrify you. I mean nobody enjoys being uncomfortable on the street waiting for a taxi instead of tucked up in bed but it is, I'm a little bit sorry to say, Different For Girls.
Of course boys, too, can have bottles thrown at them, just as they can be brutally raped and murdered in the middle of the night but I've yet to see a boy huddled in the darkness trying to cover his cleavage with a pathetically small clutch bag and dreading each new set of headlights coming along the road just as I've yet to see a boy get called a fucking slut from the safety of a speeding car.
The lesson of the night? It's a tie between 'Don't Go Off On Your Own You Dumb Bitch' and 'People Are Fucked'. Both valid points, I feel.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Are you lonesome tonight?
For reasons into which I would rather not go my bathroom is currently full of towels. I don't mean there are a lot of towels in my bathroom - I mean it is full of towels. Wet ones. On the floor.
For related reasons the launcdry is full of clumps of white fluff that make it look as though a poodle has been brutally done to death there. These are minor, if messy, matters but it has got me thinking about the slightly mad things people can do when they're by themselves.
As I'm only just starting to discover, when you're by yourself there's nobody around to query the wisdom of what you do. Leave the slightly crusty plates in the sink for another day why don't you. Who needs a plate when you can make and eat that omlette right in the frying pan and why is drinking in bed not okay again?
Most of this stuff is all good, of course. I can stay up until 2am watching Biggest Losers: Where Are they Now and nobody needs to know I wasn't up late working on the magnum opus or reading Tolstoy or something. I can drink a bottle of wine for dinner and pretend I may one day cook the eggplants cluttering up the vegetable crisper.
On the downside, of course, there is nobody to stop me doing the kind of mental things that lead to the poodle-fluff situation or the bathroom flood.
But, hey, at least nobody ever needs to know about them. This is just between you and me, right?
For related reasons the launcdry is full of clumps of white fluff that make it look as though a poodle has been brutally done to death there. These are minor, if messy, matters but it has got me thinking about the slightly mad things people can do when they're by themselves.
As I'm only just starting to discover, when you're by yourself there's nobody around to query the wisdom of what you do. Leave the slightly crusty plates in the sink for another day why don't you. Who needs a plate when you can make and eat that omlette right in the frying pan and why is drinking in bed not okay again?
Most of this stuff is all good, of course. I can stay up until 2am watching Biggest Losers: Where Are they Now and nobody needs to know I wasn't up late working on the magnum opus or reading Tolstoy or something. I can drink a bottle of wine for dinner and pretend I may one day cook the eggplants cluttering up the vegetable crisper.
On the downside, of course, there is nobody to stop me doing the kind of mental things that lead to the poodle-fluff situation or the bathroom flood.
But, hey, at least nobody ever needs to know about them. This is just between you and me, right?
Friday, November 9, 2007
Wait, so, Darcy and Elizabeth hook up?
I know people who don’t reread books (indeed I am related to one of them) and I don’t understand their attitude because rereading books is one of the great pleasures of reading at all.There are plenty of books I doubt I will ever reread because I didn’t enjoy them all that much on the first run through and hold out no great hope for changing my mind after a second crack (no, Life of Pi, I will never understand your reputed charms, I’m sorry) but there are many more I have thumbed through, either in their entirety or to linger over favourite passages, two, three or (in a few mildly shameful cases) dozens of times.
Oh sure on the second time around you know that know Elizabeth and Darcy will end up together, Sebastian will crash and burn or that things aren’t going to end all that well for Gatsby but that knowledge doesn’t diminish the pleasure. At least not for me. Instead it just makes the experience different, filling every page of, for instance, The Great Gatsby with foreboding for what’s to come and fuelling your hatred for the cunt Tom. Of course a reread also allows you to focus on the language, a lot of the prettiness of which - as a reader with a bad habit of skim reading when I get excited - I tend to miss out on in a first read when I’m desperate to find out what happens in the end.
Of course rereading one book means you’re spending time on familiar passages when you could be discovering something new. I assume that’s pretty much the argument of non rereaders (and the more I type reread and rereaders the more wrong it looks, and Microsoft Word appears to agree with me).
But I suppose the whole thing turns on what you think the point of reading is. If it’s to cross off titles on a long list of ‘classics’ or to absorb the latest water-cooler (and, as an aside, can’t somebody please come up with a replacement for that sucked dry phrase?) book so you can bore people at parties then, okay, you’re wasting your time rereading anything and you should just keep right on moving. (Of course if that’s your attitude then you’re probably a dull wankhead too so perhaps you should tie a copy of In Search of Lost Time around your neck and jump off a bridge of some kind while you’re at it.)
But if the reason you read is to enjoy the writing, to watch a story unfold and, maybe, to take a wild and purely hypothetical example, to escape the very unliterary and rarely beautiful world of business reporting, then there’s nothing better than cracking open an old favourite.
I could go on but a)my right hand is tired (what? too much?) and b) I’ve already completely ripped off the Nicholas Lezard column this post was actually intended to link to. Forget everything you’ve just read and read that instead
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
This is not a love song
Call me crazy but I'd swear I was prepubescent when this stupid election campaign started. And yet the election is still So. Far. Away. How can this be possible? I hate it.
I hate the gabbled super-fast "authorised by blah blah blah" bit at the end of the stupid ads. I hate Howard. I hate the flip in my stomach every time the Labor campaign hits a bump and I wonder if they might fuck it all up. I hate Howard. I hate finding out that somebody else I know and like is going to vote Liberal. I hate realising that so many people care more about what tax cuts they're going to get and whether they can buy another flatscreen for the spare room than what their government plans to do about social justice, the environment and things that actually matter.
I hate the knobhead who called ABC radio this morning to complain about both a)Rudd and b)the dangers of multiculturalism and I really, really hate the fact that said knobhead's vote is worth the same as mine.
I hate the gabbled super-fast "authorised by blah blah blah" bit at the end of the stupid ads. I hate Howard. I hate the flip in my stomach every time the Labor campaign hits a bump and I wonder if they might fuck it all up. I hate Howard. I hate finding out that somebody else I know and like is going to vote Liberal. I hate realising that so many people care more about what tax cuts they're going to get and whether they can buy another flatscreen for the spare room than what their government plans to do about social justice, the environment and things that actually matter.
I hate the knobhead who called ABC radio this morning to complain about both a)Rudd and b)the dangers of multiculturalism and I really, really hate the fact that said knobhead's vote is worth the same as mine.
It's not actually that hard...
It's so nice to see that John Howard can say sorry about the latest interest rate rise.The rise isn't really his fault and he's not accepting blame for it, or offering to reimburse everyone who has been affected by it - he's just sympathising, saying that he wishes things could have been different and that it is not okay. It doesn't change anything or make things better but it's a nice gesture. And maybe the cockmuncher will learn to like the sound of the s-word on his tongue.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Sounds fair to me
"Seamed stockings aren't subtle but they certainly do the job. You shouldn't wear them when out with someone you're not prepared to sleep with."(Cynthia Heimel, Sex Tips for Girls)
Pass me the floatie, Mum
There’s a lot to be said for getting thrown in at the deep end. You learn more quickly when your feet can’t touch the bottom, you feel incredibly good when you manage to stay afloat and, to stretch a metaphor to breaking point, you don’t become reliant on floaties. All of these things are good – they are what makes you better at whatever you’re trying to do.
But you know what else there’s a lot to be said for? Telling. Me. What. To. Do. It's not the business thing - I know it's nobody’s job to teach me about how goddamn warrants and future work (though, seriously, if anyone can... call me). But that’s not the problem. The problem is that nobody will tell me what to do. I mean the basics. Like what I’m supposed to be doing. And how. And by when.
Like, um, how do I file a story? And which parts of the paper am I responsible for? And, um, how do I file a story again? All the lovely colleagues in the world and even the new-found enthusiasm I seem to have discovered for all things sharemarkety don't really make up for realising at 7pm that you haven't actually filed that market report after all. Unfortunately.
But you know what else there’s a lot to be said for? Telling. Me. What. To. Do. It's not the business thing - I know it's nobody’s job to teach me about how goddamn warrants and future work (though, seriously, if anyone can... call me). But that’s not the problem. The problem is that nobody will tell me what to do. I mean the basics. Like what I’m supposed to be doing. And how. And by when.
Like, um, how do I file a story? And which parts of the paper am I responsible for? And, um, how do I file a story again? All the lovely colleagues in the world and even the new-found enthusiasm I seem to have discovered for all things sharemarkety don't really make up for realising at 7pm that you haven't actually filed that market report after all. Unfortunately.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Charlie, will you marry me?
"How, as a tragic singleton, are you meant to go on holiday anyway? I know from experience what couples do on holiday: they argue. But I'm not a couple. Who am
I supposed to slowly fall out of love with? I can't slowly poison my relationship with myself. Or can I?"
Gosh how I love Charlie Brooker.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Fascinating (yawn), just fascinating, Kate
It's all about perspective, really.
A month ago, for instance, the prospect of starting my new job, was a terrifying one. I was scared then and I assumed I would have been about ten times as scared now. And so I should have been.
But the past few days- as anyone who has been unfortunate enough to be forced to listen to me moping can testify - have been pretty shitty for me, generally. Not shitty in the sense that anything bad has happened to me but shitty in the sense that I have been at my lowest in quite awhile thanks to general ennui brought on, I assume, by extreme lack of sleep. Sob, sob poor me etc.
But the huge perk of feeling really, really bad lately means that I am now starting to put things into persepctive. Yes the job still scares me and I'm by no means convinced that I will be any good at it. There's still so much I don't know and so many things I don't know how to do that nobody should be surprised if you bump into me in the dole queue in a month's time. But who gives a fuck, really? All that I care about is being happy and while a job that I like and can do is important it's not everything. It won't be the end of the world if it all goes tits up and I will manage. Probably. Phew. Glad to get all that off my chest.
And yes I know I've been a whinging bint these past few days. Would a joke kill me? Probably not, so I'll work on it.
A month ago, for instance, the prospect of starting my new job, was a terrifying one. I was scared then and I assumed I would have been about ten times as scared now. And so I should have been.
But the past few days- as anyone who has been unfortunate enough to be forced to listen to me moping can testify - have been pretty shitty for me, generally. Not shitty in the sense that anything bad has happened to me but shitty in the sense that I have been at my lowest in quite awhile thanks to general ennui brought on, I assume, by extreme lack of sleep. Sob, sob poor me etc.
But the huge perk of feeling really, really bad lately means that I am now starting to put things into persepctive. Yes the job still scares me and I'm by no means convinced that I will be any good at it. There's still so much I don't know and so many things I don't know how to do that nobody should be surprised if you bump into me in the dole queue in a month's time. But who gives a fuck, really? All that I care about is being happy and while a job that I like and can do is important it's not everything. It won't be the end of the world if it all goes tits up and I will manage. Probably. Phew. Glad to get all that off my chest.
And yes I know I've been a whinging bint these past few days. Would a joke kill me? Probably not, so I'll work on it.
Zzzzz
Don’t drink tea or coffee. Try herbal tea before bed. Don’t drink booze. Have a glass of wine. Try reading in bed to relax.. Only use your bed for sleeping.
The worst thing about insomnia is the theories.
Soo many theories. And, as you stare at the ceiling at two am each of them seems to make perfect sense, even the ones that contradict the other ones. Should I stay in bed and try to sleep or get up and distract myself? Should I try to read a boring book or should I just try to relax and not think about anything? Would taking a second sleeping tablet be considered an overdose?
Equally crap is the fact that, the more you worry about not sleeping, the less you’re able to. For every half hour I spend stressing about having to start a new an terrifying job on way too little sleep and too little preparation (the fatigue means I can’t concentrate on anything more complicated than walking between the fridge and the couch) that’s another hour I’ll spend lying awake in bed. The more I think ‘I’m not going to sleep’ the less I sleep.
Somebody put a fork in me and tuck me in: I’m done.
The worst thing about insomnia is the theories.
Soo many theories. And, as you stare at the ceiling at two am each of them seems to make perfect sense, even the ones that contradict the other ones. Should I stay in bed and try to sleep or get up and distract myself? Should I try to read a boring book or should I just try to relax and not think about anything? Would taking a second sleeping tablet be considered an overdose?
Equally crap is the fact that, the more you worry about not sleeping, the less you’re able to. For every half hour I spend stressing about having to start a new an terrifying job on way too little sleep and too little preparation (the fatigue means I can’t concentrate on anything more complicated than walking between the fridge and the couch) that’s another hour I’ll spend lying awake in bed. The more I think ‘I’m not going to sleep’ the less I sleep.
Somebody put a fork in me and tuck me in: I’m done.
Quotable Quotes: Leonard Cohen
"Are the stars tiny, after all? Who will put us to sleep? Should I save my fingernails? Is matter holy? I want the barber to bury my hair. Catherine Tekekwith, are you at work on me already?"
(Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers)
(Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers)
Friday, November 2, 2007
"If he hangs himself over this I can stick an orange in his mouth and call it a fatal wanking accident."
There’s nothing worse than listening to somebody bang on about why you should be watching this TV program or that TV program is there? In theory nobody really needs a reason to spend more time watching TV and why would you take advice from someone else who has nothing better to do than slug on the couch?And yet I can’t keep quiet because Peep Show is one of the funniest new shows I have seen in a long time (also you might not believe me but another new show that is much better than it looks is How I Met Your Mother… hey I’m just saying, it's true).
But back to Peeperino, well, y ou don’t care about some show you’ve never seen, I know, but you should because it’s hilarious and different and I’ve just watched three series of the fucker back to back (thanks to the lovely Bec). My eyes may or may not be wet with tears of laughter and I have actually been cackling away like a maniac.
So the lecture is over but, while I have big plans to tie certain people to the couch and force them to watch it, once that’s over the DVDs are just a call away...
NOTE: Still don't believe me? Hear it from the experts.
Not hungry but homeless... kinda
I love, love, love 'my' apartment. I love the giant living room and the guilty-inducing leather couches. I love the balcony and the proximity to Northbridge and the city. I even love the crack dens that surround us. But in December 'my' apartment will no longer be mine. The lovely friends who have been renting it to me at a heavy discount are, tragically, returning, and while it will be great to see them again I am already mourning the loss of my home.Shopping around for a new home is a weird exercise. It's fun and a bit sad but, more than that, you're forced to try and imagine yourself into each house you look at. Would you rather be slugging on the couch watching Peep Show (thanks Bec) in this cutesy two bedroom Subiaco cottage or am I more of a drinks-on-the-balcony in Leederville sort of a person? Hmm.
Perth being such a car-based city in theory your choice of home doesn't need to have that much of an impact on your lifestyle. And yet, for me, it seems to.
Living in Northbridge, for example, is great and it's definitely encouraged me to take up mild alcoholism (if not on the lovely balcony than at the pub juuuust a short stroll down the road) as a serious pursuit. The style of the house has also encouraged me to make an effort to have people over ever so often as I don't have crappy tiles and a hideous kitchen to be ashamed of. My previous house, by comparison, had a lovely living room and several lovely flatmates, both of which encouraged me to clock up a lot of couch time and watch perhaps more Angel than one person ever needs to watch.
What will the new house be life? No fecking idea but I could be moving to a neighbourhood near you so keep your doors locked.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
You are not getting very sleeeeppyyy
By my calculations in the past 72 hours I have had six hours sleep. Admittedly I was always a bit crap at maths but, even accounting for an odd hour at either end, things are not looking great. My body hates me and I hate my body.
Four of those hours are all but a distant memory, having been taken more than 48 hours ago while on a couch in London, while the other two were picked up on a plane and, last night, in my own bed. At least I think so: I remember looking at the clock at 4.48am and the next time I looked at it it was six o'clock so I assume that time went somewhere. All this is fascinating stuff I know. Shall I give you a blow-by-blow of the nine hours I spent lying awake in bed last night? Perhaps not.
Lack of sleep does funny things to you. I'm not tired, not exactly. Oh I'm sort of bone weary, my eyes hurt and every so often my legs go a bit funny but if I snuggled up beneath the doona right now I don't think I could drop off. This ridiculous situation has been described to me as the equivalent of the over-tired child who won't stop screaming and go to sleep. I am that over-tired child.
As a result I have been drifting about in a haze when I should have been seeing the people I have missed or beefing up for a new job I'm still not convinced I'm qualified to do. I could be achieving things and enjoying myself but instead I am stressed about not being able to sleep and even more stressed about the likelihood of this additional stress making sleep even less likely.
More than that, lying in bed and being unable to sleep is very depressing. I'm paraphrasing someone else there, someone good. In fact I'm pretty sure it was F.Scott Fitzgerald and what he said was that the worst thing in the world was to try to sleep and not be able to. Looking at those words from beneath bleary eyelids I think he had a point. You think about everything you don't want to think about when you can't sleep. Or at least I do. And there's a reason I don't think about those particular things.
Johnsy may also have had a point when he suggested, in the comments field of the previous post, that I needed more sleep before I got back on the blogging horse. Well, yes, that is true. But I don't care. I need to share my pain. I need to explain why I have barely talked to anyone since my return and why, when I do eventually see you, I may look like a puddle of death. Most importantly I need some sleep.
NOTE: I have aquired a hardcore sleeping tablet to ensure sleep tonight and get me back on schedule. Hopefully. However, apparently this lovely little pellet of joy has been known to cause people to sleepwalk, talk in their sleep and even make phonecalls they later don't remember making. Of course there will be no witnesses to the first two but, er, just a little warning: if anyone out there receives a weird call from me at two in the morning blathering about the aliens under my bed or the three children I've just dismembered in my bathroom... er, you don't need to be alarmed. Probably.
Four of those hours are all but a distant memory, having been taken more than 48 hours ago while on a couch in London, while the other two were picked up on a plane and, last night, in my own bed. At least I think so: I remember looking at the clock at 4.48am and the next time I looked at it it was six o'clock so I assume that time went somewhere. All this is fascinating stuff I know. Shall I give you a blow-by-blow of the nine hours I spent lying awake in bed last night? Perhaps not.
Lack of sleep does funny things to you. I'm not tired, not exactly. Oh I'm sort of bone weary, my eyes hurt and every so often my legs go a bit funny but if I snuggled up beneath the doona right now I don't think I could drop off. This ridiculous situation has been described to me as the equivalent of the over-tired child who won't stop screaming and go to sleep. I am that over-tired child.
As a result I have been drifting about in a haze when I should have been seeing the people I have missed or beefing up for a new job I'm still not convinced I'm qualified to do. I could be achieving things and enjoying myself but instead I am stressed about not being able to sleep and even more stressed about the likelihood of this additional stress making sleep even less likely.
More than that, lying in bed and being unable to sleep is very depressing. I'm paraphrasing someone else there, someone good. In fact I'm pretty sure it was F.Scott Fitzgerald and what he said was that the worst thing in the world was to try to sleep and not be able to. Looking at those words from beneath bleary eyelids I think he had a point. You think about everything you don't want to think about when you can't sleep. Or at least I do. And there's a reason I don't think about those particular things.
Johnsy may also have had a point when he suggested, in the comments field of the previous post, that I needed more sleep before I got back on the blogging horse. Well, yes, that is true. But I don't care. I need to share my pain. I need to explain why I have barely talked to anyone since my return and why, when I do eventually see you, I may look like a puddle of death. Most importantly I need some sleep.
NOTE: I have aquired a hardcore sleeping tablet to ensure sleep tonight and get me back on schedule. Hopefully. However, apparently this lovely little pellet of joy has been known to cause people to sleepwalk, talk in their sleep and even make phonecalls they later don't remember making. Of course there will be no witnesses to the first two but, er, just a little warning: if anyone out there receives a weird call from me at two in the morning blathering about the aliens under my bed or the three children I've just dismembered in my bathroom... er, you don't need to be alarmed. Probably.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)