Versus what she heard...
Thursday morning, I put on a new shirt. I woke Honey up and asked if the shirt was too sheer. I handed her her glasses and turned on the light behind me.
She thought I asked if the shirt was too short.
Confident in her answer, she said no.
At no point did I think the shirt was too short.
It was, however, too sheer.
I spent half the day with my jean jacket on (despite the 78 degree SoCal spring day). The other half I spent with my office lights off.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Sleep, on not getting enough
It may be a sign of getting old, but I find myself increasingly unable to sleep through the night. Honey has always maintained that I am truly amazing in my ability to get to sleep in the first place.
Lately, I've been waking up in the middle of the night. For a while, I wrote it off to pee needs. Go ahead, I'd tell myself, pee and the you'll drop right back off to sleep.
I really don't want to get too reliant on non prescription sleeping pills. Drugs are bad. Nancy Reagan said so.
Truth is, though, when I wake up in the middle of the night, I become acutely aware of discomfort. My ears hurt from the ear plugs I wear because of the dogs. My arms hurt because I tend to fall asleep with them underneath me. My brain comes alive with it's weird loopy patterns. Song lyrics have dominated lately. I rarely get back to sleep.
I still haven't solved the sleep number crevasse problem. (And before anyone asks, no I didn't call them back, despite their offer to help. I don't have the information she asked for and can't really get it--given that we have the "cheap ass sleep number" (or CASN).
So, for now, it's going to have to be Advil PM
or Simply Sleep. I'd blame this all on my recent transition to my fifth decade, but since it predates that, I'll just assume it's some kind of karmic punishment for, well, bad karma.
Point of post, for those who like such summations:
WHINE
Thank you, that is all.
Lately, I've been waking up in the middle of the night. For a while, I wrote it off to pee needs. Go ahead, I'd tell myself, pee and the you'll drop right back off to sleep.
I really don't want to get too reliant on non prescription sleeping pills. Drugs are bad. Nancy Reagan said so.
Truth is, though, when I wake up in the middle of the night, I become acutely aware of discomfort. My ears hurt from the ear plugs I wear because of the dogs. My arms hurt because I tend to fall asleep with them underneath me. My brain comes alive with it's weird loopy patterns. Song lyrics have dominated lately. I rarely get back to sleep.
I still haven't solved the sleep number crevasse problem. (And before anyone asks, no I didn't call them back, despite their offer to help. I don't have the information she asked for and can't really get it--given that we have the "cheap ass sleep number" (or CASN).
So, for now, it's going to have to be Advil PM
or Simply Sleep. I'd blame this all on my recent transition to my fifth decade, but since it predates that, I'll just assume it's some kind of karmic punishment for, well, bad karma.Point of post, for those who like such summations:
WHINE
Thank you, that is all.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Substances
Last week, I took our extra microwave out to the garage. We had acquired it through abandonment, along with an immovable hutch from the estate of the previous owner of our house. We didn't actually need two microwaves. This one had begun to make odd noises and it needed to be abandoned by us. (Shouldn't twice abandoned appliances simply vaporize?)
It's former space is now occupied by two coffee burr grinders and Honey's coffee pot. We're such coffee geeks. She's been drinking decaf since her brain went a little jazzy on her in our visit to the fiftieth state. I acquired a second burr grinder for us, so our coffee consumption can continue unabated. To be clear, in addition to the burr grinders, we also have a filtered water drip coffee maker (for her) and a espresso pot and the magical wonder that is the aerolatte for me.
I thought about our coffee as substance this morning, when I received from the fine institution I work for the updated campus guide to a drug free workplace. I dutifully clicked through and was greeted by our policy and a list of the substances in question that might be abused. They also provided, quite handily, a chart of their nom de narcotics. For example:
COCAINE/CRACK (Blow, bump, C, candy, Charlie, flake, rock, snow)
or
ALCOHOL (Beer, wine, liquor, malt liquor, booze, juice, sauce, hooch)
They also listed the effects of these substances on the user. Back to cocaine, or as I now think of it, bump:
Irritability and depression
Impaired decision-making
Insomnia
I excerpted but have all three of those things. Hmm.
On Wednesday, I was home a little early, impaired, apparently, by my use of Charlie, though I don't recall actually encountering it. I heard a ruckus outside. I went out to find that some kids had been playing with some safety glass that had been left deposited outside our fence. Sigh. I love our neighbors so. Anyway, the kids had moved the safety glass into our driveway. However "safe" it was, I didn't want to leave it there for my Honey to drive over when she got home. I fetched our broom and dustpan and began to sweep it up. Seemingly out of nowhere a woman appeared.
She seemed pleasant and said she had seen the kids playing with the glass. I mumbled something about the joys of our neighborhood. She offered to hold the dustpan for me. I tried to demur, but was unsuccessful. When I looked up at her, I noticed she was crying.
It turned out that she was on her first day as a door to door salesperson for a cleaning product. "No one cares," she said to me.
She wanted very badly to demo the product for me, which she claimed to "clean anything" including our picket fence. Why in the world would I want to clean our picket fence? Answer: I wouldn't.
I have a long history of feeling bad for people like this and she was throwing the works at me. She said something about how tired she was, how lonely she was, that she had tried to quit at lunch, and then there was that "no one cares" mantra. The product, she said, was environmentally friendly. I asked what was in it. She didn't know, but said it was biodegradable.
I tried valiantly to extract myself. She said her supervisor was picking her up at 7pm. She would just wait for him and smoke a cigarette. If I wanted to check out the ingredients of the product online, I could decide what I wanted to do. She asked for a match or a lighter. When I said I didn't have one, she cried a little more and said she wouldn't smoke the cigarette after all.
I went inside. Let the dogs into the house. I looked up the product. No ingredients listed on their website either. It had SUCH a generic name, it was practically ungoogleable. My choices? Stay inside and feel bad for her. Go back outside, give her a check for $64 for a gallon of crap I didn't want, need, or know the make-up of. (Did I mention that the product was SIXTY FOUR DOLLARS?!) I thought some more. When faced with either/or choices, I like to try to think if there is another choice. I remembered that we had been given a lighter in our Advocate 40th Anniversary gift bag. I had proposed throwing it away. Honey, in her wisdom, had urged keeping it. I found it (it was gift boxed!) and went outside. I gave it to the saleswoman and wished her luck.
So, despite my current seeming abuse of some substance or another (if symptoms are any indicator), I was pleased to have a moment of clarity. Now, if I can just figure out what drugs to take to counter-act all these other symptoms...
It's former space is now occupied by two coffee burr grinders and Honey's coffee pot. We're such coffee geeks. She's been drinking decaf since her brain went a little jazzy on her in our visit to the fiftieth state. I acquired a second burr grinder for us, so our coffee consumption can continue unabated. To be clear, in addition to the burr grinders, we also have a filtered water drip coffee maker (for her) and a espresso pot and the magical wonder that is the aerolatte
for me.I thought about our coffee as substance this morning, when I received from the fine institution I work for the updated campus guide to a drug free workplace. I dutifully clicked through and was greeted by our policy and a list of the substances in question that might be abused. They also provided, quite handily, a chart of their nom de narcotics. For example:
COCAINE/CRACK (Blow, bump, C, candy, Charlie, flake, rock, snow)
or
ALCOHOL (Beer, wine, liquor, malt liquor, booze, juice, sauce, hooch)
They also listed the effects of these substances on the user. Back to cocaine, or as I now think of it, bump:
Irritability and depression
Impaired decision-making
Insomnia
I excerpted but have all three of those things. Hmm.
On Wednesday, I was home a little early, impaired, apparently, by my use of Charlie, though I don't recall actually encountering it. I heard a ruckus outside. I went out to find that some kids had been playing with some safety glass that had been left deposited outside our fence. Sigh. I love our neighbors so. Anyway, the kids had moved the safety glass into our driveway. However "safe" it was, I didn't want to leave it there for my Honey to drive over when she got home. I fetched our broom and dustpan and began to sweep it up. Seemingly out of nowhere a woman appeared.
She seemed pleasant and said she had seen the kids playing with the glass. I mumbled something about the joys of our neighborhood. She offered to hold the dustpan for me. I tried to demur, but was unsuccessful. When I looked up at her, I noticed she was crying.
It turned out that she was on her first day as a door to door salesperson for a cleaning product. "No one cares," she said to me.
She wanted very badly to demo the product for me, which she claimed to "clean anything" including our picket fence. Why in the world would I want to clean our picket fence? Answer: I wouldn't.
I have a long history of feeling bad for people like this and she was throwing the works at me. She said something about how tired she was, how lonely she was, that she had tried to quit at lunch, and then there was that "no one cares" mantra. The product, she said, was environmentally friendly. I asked what was in it. She didn't know, but said it was biodegradable.
I tried valiantly to extract myself. She said her supervisor was picking her up at 7pm. She would just wait for him and smoke a cigarette. If I wanted to check out the ingredients of the product online, I could decide what I wanted to do. She asked for a match or a lighter. When I said I didn't have one, she cried a little more and said she wouldn't smoke the cigarette after all.
I went inside. Let the dogs into the house. I looked up the product. No ingredients listed on their website either. It had SUCH a generic name, it was practically ungoogleable. My choices? Stay inside and feel bad for her. Go back outside, give her a check for $64 for a gallon of crap I didn't want, need, or know the make-up of. (Did I mention that the product was SIXTY FOUR DOLLARS?!) I thought some more. When faced with either/or choices, I like to try to think if there is another choice. I remembered that we had been given a lighter in our Advocate 40th Anniversary gift bag. I had proposed throwing it away. Honey, in her wisdom, had urged keeping it. I found it (it was gift boxed!) and went outside. I gave it to the saleswoman and wished her luck.
So, despite my current seeming abuse of some substance or another (if symptoms are any indicator), I was pleased to have a moment of clarity. Now, if I can just figure out what drugs to take to counter-act all these other symptoms...
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