An appeal to readers - what are your tricks for waking up when really tired?
I'm struggling to get out of bed in the mornings lately, and feel like I may have to resort to keeping my eyelids open with toothpicks.
Help me avoid that icky eventuality, please!
(Pic Via)
I always get absurdly excited about the prospect of frontier adventures. These days space is the place*, although of course we can only really think about it - look but don't touch.
I think my eagerness comes from the idea of being able to go somewhere new and create something from scratch. It's probably one of the reasons I'm so attracted to Battlestar Galactica's new series, and have really enjoyed other sci-fi stuff based around building new societies. Not to mention settler fiction, from times of Yore here in Aotearoa and overseas.
Recently I read a book by Anita Diamant called The Last Days of Dogtown. Although it's about the death of a small US town in the 1800s, it really struck a cord with me, even though it really shouldn't have given what I've just written above. But what was so attractive was the notion that as the town was dying new people could move in and just claim land, without upsetting anyone or displacing someone else, and then do with it whatever you could. Reading Diamant's words I would dream about what I would do if I had the time and the skills to shape and sculpt a piece of land, and the small society around it. I'd overcome difficulties, I'd come up with creative solutions, I'd become physically hardened and able to cope with myriad hardships.
Yes I'd probably not enjoy washing the laundry by hand, or having to kill my own meat. Which is where I come back to the sci-fi pioneering as my ideal. If we had the technology to travel to another planet in my life time then surely we would also be able to do all that labour saving stuff, whilst still maintaining sufficient ruggedness for me to feel I was creating something truly new and unique?
I can understand the spirit that drew my ancestors when they came across the world to this country they knew so little about. I can see the limitless potential of being there at the start, somewhere so new and raw that my footprints might be the first ever made in that spot. I can tell that I'll never get that chance, but I can still dream.
Let the competition for best Auckland Earthquake Blog Post Title begin!
It was quite exciting to be in an earthquake I could actually feel. Many's the time I've been in Welly and someone has said, oh did you feel that shake five minutes ago, and I've had to sadly answer nope.
We were watching the first episode of BSG's second series, and the shaking at first felt like some kind of really bonus extra. Nickname Pending didn't feel it at all, and the cat was totally unaware. So much for that theory about animals having some kind of earthquake ESP.
Of course if anything had fallen off a shelf I probably would have screamed, shortly followed by a session of gibbering. But it didn't, so I can just bask in the glory of having Been There. I can feel a story for the (yet to be born) grandchildren coming on already...
One of the good things about flying to Wellington for work periodically is that I get to peruse the Air NZ mag and dream about other places I'd like to travel to (nice as Wellington is).
I'm down to Wellington for work tomorrow, for the rest of the week.
I'd kind of assumed, seeing as Welly and Auckers aren't really that far apart, that the weather will be what I've been experiencing up here this week, minus the humidity. That would be rather warm and sometimes even sunny.
But then someone emailed me about something saying they hoped I didn't freeze in the Capital - are readers from the bottom of the North going through a cold snap?
Information appreciated!
(Yes I could just check the weather forecast, but, and I know this will be a shock to some people, they aren't always right...)
Nevermind that it was in the latest "newsletter" that comes with my Telecom bill, Swarmsketch is actually quite nifty.
You get to draw one continuous line, of 100px, in a collaborative drawing. 100px is not very long, so I'm pretty impressed with the person who managed to draw a feather in the hat of the current artwork, titled Renaissance Costumes.
The best feature though is looking at the history of the pictures, watching them come together over time. Quite the worthy procrastination tool, methinks.
Today I left my old job. It was my first grown-up job, although I've always thought that I got it more because of who I know than what I know. But I did ok. My boss said at my leaving do that I've left a legacy. I just hope it lasts.
I'm sad about leaving Erst behind, especially as Rude is coming with me to the new place. I've made so many friends in this place, as well as strengthened some old relationships - but will I get frustrated with their obssession with the place, an obssession borne out of the trauma of working there. I hope not. I hope I can listen and support them as they supported me.
It was strange that I didn't feel like I was leaving until I was the last person in the building, coding the last pesky files. I really hadn't realised that I Am Not Going Back, except as a visitor. At least for a few years anyway. So much has happened in the last month that I haven't been able to stop and think about it. I don't think it will hit me until I'm on the plane tomorrow, doing something different, going somewhere different.
An odd way to end a big part of my life.
The Man In The Comfy Chair is listening to the Tsunami Benefit Cricket Match, with a World 11 playing an Asian 11.
Surely the World 11 didn't have to set such a high target as 345 runs? Wouldn't it be nice for the Asian 11 to win this?
;-)
DPF has something and it is catching - I too am now ill and off work for a day that I probably can't afford to take off. Curses!
you find the oddest ways to procrastinate.
My current jag is googling the Names Of People I Used To Know. Kind of the stalker version of an ego-search. I'm not going to do anything with the information except muse over it - I just often get a curious itch about how people turned out and tonight I would much rather scratch that than go to sleep, an activity which invariably seems to finish off with waking up and getting up and going to work. And we all know that the three words at the end of that sentence must be avoided at all costs.
So what have I turned up?
Without naming names (I am the soul of discretion you see) we have, in no particular order:
- a part-owner of a now reasonably large ISP (and to think I remember when he broke his arm after some drunken table top dancing - guess it must have healed ok)
- a fellow blogger who is On A Break (from his blog, dear readers)
- an ice hockey player (who may have also be a top British water skiier, although that seems unlikely)
- a solo guitarist (now recording in Nashville after much travelling)
- a person of undiscoverable employ who appears to do a lot of long distance running (I guess someone must do all that long distance running, damned if I thought I knew any of those types myself though)
- a witness in a coroner's inquest (into the death of a young man in a famous building)
- a recipent of a PM's Scholarship for Architecture (although most of his hits were for sports related things, go figure)
- a top accordionist (pays the bills via her doctor's salary, no less)
- a biochemist (rapidly becoming an expert in atherosclerosis, don't you know)
- some kind of marketing account manager type (not a big surprise)
- a graduate of the DMA with a certificate in eMarketing (note: small e, big M)
The women are much harder to find than the men - I have few clues (i.e. none) about their married names, but some people just don't appear to have any kind of internet life at all - what the hell is wrong with them? One of these absences is highly surprising - a promising young actor when I knew him, he recently showed up in a Tegel ad, but I can't find him anywhere in the interweb thingy. Of course I could be spelling his name wrong.
and to round it off, for those who know him, I am sure this cannot be the only link on google for Paul Schiska. Another spelling mistake on my part, surely?
Alrighty, time for bed - you can only faff around for so long before your body rebels and starts falling asleep without you.
Our normally busy office is like the Sahara, and it's a long journey between drinks as those of us who are in are miles away from each other. There are only two of us in D Block (affectionately referred to as "The People's Republic of D Block" as there are no management in our neck of the woods), the others are spaced out throughout our floor, and the obligatory Person On Reception has been spending a bit of time lying on the couch, and fair enough too, it's not as if the phone is ringing off the hook.
I had visions of getting lots of work done. I had other visions of sliding around on the staff room lino in my socks. So far the reality has been a lot of procrastination all amounting to a whole heap of unfulfilling nothing. Not much work and absolutely no sock skating. It's hard to get motivated when no one around you is either.
I regularly have nightmares when I have work the next day, about my office and the people in it. I thought that the four days off over Xmas might reset my system, but alas the bizarre dreams returned last night. They usually involve some kind of altercation with my boss, something that doesn't happen in real life, but might if I continue to tell her things she doesn't want to hear. Luckily she's not back until February, and then I'll just be tidying up, finishing off and shipping out, as long as the next month goes according to plan.
Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to enjoy the desert more. I tried to get all my slacking off over and done with today so that I can motor through the work Thursday and Friday. Here's hoping that strategy pays off...
Seems it was the first day of summer today.
And I was not a good little slip slop slapper. I got cocky. And now I am paying the price - how typically inept of me to get badly burnt the first time the sun shows its face, especially when it's so late. urgh.
My arms actually feel like they are radiating heat. To make it worse I somehow managed to get burnt in a very odd pattern which means I won't be wearing sleeveless or strapless tops until I can manage to get the white stripey bits nice and crispy as well.
Usually I get to laugh at The Man in the Comfy Chair's sunscreen ineptness, but this year he gets the first laugh. Bah humbug!
We had our last hurrah for work today - went to Canton Cafe in Kingsland for our regular Friday lunch, as we have so often over the last year. But this time was different - instead of all going back to work, or on to appointments, we went out separate ways after paying the bill and loafing around for a few minutes.
For some strange reason it felt like I was never going to see these people again.
About half of those who were at lunch will be back at work, along with me, on Wednesday. The rest will return early in the new year.
But I just had this sudden sense of loss, something about a moment in time that had slipped away and couldn't be regained. I felt bereft.
When I got in the car they had just started playing the Jeff Buckley version of Halleluyah and as I drove off down New North Rd I had the sense I was in one of those telly shows that have used this song so much in 2004. That we were all driving off, to our very different families and our very different Xmases, listening to this song and singing along to the bits we knew, while the camera chopped and changed between shots of us all.
I fulfilled my character's stereotype by shedding a tear.
Apparently I am now a betrayer. I managed this transition back in February, but I've only just found out about my change in status. I'm sure that I was probably only a turncoat for the first few months, but recent months have resulted in my label being upgraded to full-on traitor.
It's all a bit emotive and silly really - it reminds me strongly of student politics. I guess I just thought that adults would actually be adult about things!
The Man in the Comfy Chair has an exam tomorrow afternoon and what is he doing?
He is, and this is true, hoovering his car. That's right, he took the vac, which is a bit broken, outside, got the extension cord out, hooked it all up and ran it all the way to the car, and is hoovering around inside it, sucking up all the dross.
I just hope he does mine next.
well after a weekend away it's always nice to come home to something positive - and today it was news that The Office Xmas Special will FINALLY be screened! yay!
Friday Sept 24th, tv1, 8.40pm.
for some reason they have split it into two parts, which i suppose prolongs the strangely enjoyable agony.
theme music: boys who like girls who like boys to be girls (etc) blur
one thing that puzzles me is the way that straight men seem to find the idea of lesbian sex attractive, but straight women don't seem to find the idea of gay (male) sex a huge turn-on.
(i really have no idea if gay men find lesbian sex appealing, or lesbians find gay sex hot, but i'd be curious to know)
perhaps it's that straight men largely assume that lesbian women just need their manly assistance to realise the "error" of their ways? and therefore they put themselves in the picture every time?
maybe it's just that there are two (or more) naked women in the picture?
i notice there are an awful lot of men about in the blogosphere- any comments that might enlighten me?
