Mondayitis (PG for bodily functions)

It turns out that this weekend is a long weekend and the week a short week for me.

'Yay' you say? Well, not really. After a couple of weeks of bad sleep, this weekend it spiralled out of control and culminated last night with being woken up just as I was dozing off at 11pm by the people next door coming home. Loud car music, loud voices, doors slamming....... There was no going back, I tossed and turned for hours.

My body has an interesting physical response to lack of sleep. It suddenly decides that the only way to make me stay in one place long enough to get a couple of hours sleep is to turn my bowels to mush. That's right. My body thinks that a bout of gastro is the perfect way to get me to sleep.

It is of course not that simple. To start with, I have to get out of bed at regular intervals. Also, its pretty cold here at the moment, and every time I dash out of bed, my body loses 8 degrees and I have to shiver manically for 15 minutes to return to a normal temperature, often just in time to get out of bed again. And of course, its really not that easy to sleep while you worry about whether you'll make it out of bed in time.

So, after being hit with my body's 'you need to sleep' response at about 2 in the morning, I finally managed to get to sleep sometime after 4am. And then the alarm went off at 6:20. I seriously considered just getting up and staggering into work. But when I tried to sit up, the muscles refused to function and I nearly brained myself on the bedhead. So I reset the alarm for a more civilised hour and dozed off.

When the alarm again pulled me through the vortex of pain, I called my boss. She had her phone turned off. So I left a message, and thanks to the joys of the web enabled phone, wrote an email to her work address without having to move more than about 15 inches in total. Then I passed out. Literally. I dont remember hitting the send button, or putting the phone back (which actually, it turns out I didn't).

Its ok though. About half an hour ago I rose out of the haze following a soft buzz from said phone (vibrate alert for incoming email) and the boss says 'all good, sleep well, see you tomorrow'.

So - a long weekend. Sort of. I'm marooned on my couch, tossing up whether if I go back to bed now I'll manage any more sleep before the miracle hour of midday when daytime napping becomes a disaster waiting to happen. And as for the short week, I now have 8 working days instead of 9 to prepare for a week off. Which wont actually be a week off as I will be engaged in hard physical labour moving boxes around. But hey, so I have about 4 weeks of work to squeeze into that time. If I pull it off they can continue to underestimate how much work I do, and if I don't they might see they should hire someone to help.

PS. Louise - please note the efforts I made to include all apostrophes in the appropriate places (I think).

Time drags when your not having fun....

In three weeks, at about this time, I will be in my own place. In just over 2 weeks, I'll officially take ownership. This is exciting.

I have however been just a little stressed lately. This week I developed dermatitis on my hands, and today I chipped a tooth - probably because I've been grinding. Its going to be a very long 3 weeks.......

An outpost of the world

Every now and then something happens to remind me that this country really is a tiny little outpost of civilization that no-one else really pays much attention to. Today it was one of the usual culprits. TV.

For some reason, the powers that be in the major TV producers in the US and the UK think that they can justify not giving us HUGE tv shows anywhere near the time they are played 'at home' or for that matter in the 'U'.

Season 3 of Merlin premieres here TONIGHT. For a minute I was really excited. Until I remembered that Season 3 is now something more than 6 months old. Excitement became a mixture of depression and anger.

Its an old gripe. And it is getting better - Dr Who for example is only a week behind the UK now. But seriously folks, its not like it take weeks to get it here anymore. If you don't want people illegally downloading things, then make the damn stuff available in a reasonable timeframe.

OK - rant over. I'll go and distract myself with a book......

Good news and bad news

On Tuesday I exchanged contracts on a nice little 2 bedroom apartment. In about a month I'll be in almost poverty. This is in fact a good thing - because I wont have to pay someone elses mortgage, or put up with the silly restrictions and rules that landlords apply (think, the walls have to be falling down before we fix anything).

In other news, a good friend has had some really bad news about a family member. To them and everyone else dealing with serious illness, there are people who care and will help in any way we can. Hang in there.