five minutes more

My favourite alarm clock is broken. Actually, my next favourite is also broken. Even my least favourite doesn't work. I'm sure it has nothing to do with my anxious reaction to the rude awakening. Or my continual use of the snooze button, the best and worst invention on any alarm clock.

Now I use my cell phone, which has an alarm feature and a person on the other end who gives me a wake up call every night. I know. Shouldn't everyone get a wake up call from their place of work? And if I'm not there an hour later they call back to make sure I didn't fall back to sleep. Which sometimes happens (see above).

I used to always believe that if I didn't have my 9 hours of sleep I was useless. I've learned that I can indeed be useful on less than that. But it can be a struggle. Sometimes, I feel like I am always struggling.

My work schedule is so erratic that it is hard to have any set routine for sleeping or eating. It is a good thing I live alone so I can make my own schedule and change it on a daily basis.

I do not like being awakened by music, or inane drivel from the radio, which often just infiltrates into my dreams, nor one of those clocky deals where the night table accessory rolls around all over the room and forces you out of bed to find it and beat it into quiet submission.

No, my favourite alarm clock has a light that flashes for five minutes before a gentle alarm starts up which increases in intensity before the minute hand finally reaches out and slaps you silly.

Well, that last bit might be made up. I've not tested things that far.

who shot the clock

I woke up feeling rather groggy and stuffed up about an hour ago. Looked at the clock and gasped - 10:50 AM! How did that happen? I went to bed shortly after 9 PM. I slept for more than 3 hours.

I usually work 7 nights a week. Yes, every night. Though Sundays I only have one paper to deliver and it takes less than an hour for me to get up, drive to pick up the papers, deliver them, crawl back into bed with some juice and the comics. Then I'm awake for another 2-3 hours. Sigh.

Last night a friend covered my route so that I would do his a few times . I'll get two nights off a month in exchange for covering his for one Sunday a month. I have 65 papers, he has 295. It's a lop-sided exhange, but since, I'm awake ... well you know. I'm going to really look forward to my uninterrupted nights of sleep.

Outside the still drawn blinds it is grey and overcast. I have showered, made some tea and toast. I turned on the computer.

Clock on computer says 7:43.

Gasp! I have spent the last hour thinking it was mid-morning, and now I realize morning has barely begun.

This just feels so wrong.

Waiting for the sun to break through the gloom. Watching The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. I've never seen this movie but am always up for some Jimmy Stewart.

What else does one do at 8:30 on a Sunday morning?

Now, this just feels so right.

It's going to be a long day.

In an effort to regain a semi normal sleep pattern, I have decided to forego coffee.

It has been 78 hours.*

There may be periods of irritability.


that's 78 hours since my last cup of coffee, not sleep.


If you are visiting from the black box, drop a line in my comments box and say hello. I'll likely still be awake.

pillow talk

I bought two new pillows a few weeks ago. One was an expensive pillow from IKEA that was on sale for half price. The other was an expensive pillow from Shoppers Drug Mart that was on sale for half price. I know. I only do bargains. And I even got to use my Optimum points, so I actually got the second pillow for about the same price as I usually pay for pillows, which is around $8. Though I usually get two for that. They naturally don't last very long. And are often not all that comfortable after a few weeks, or nights even. But this gosa raps pillow is still very comfortable. It doesn't flatten down to nothing the way a down filled pillow does (I could never see the point in having a pillow so pillowy soft that it downed into flatness). It also doesn't have those sticking-out-pointed-bits of feathers the way feather pillows often do. You know the bits that stab you in the cheek as you snuggle into the pillow to make it mold to your head. The bits that give your cat so much pleasure to play with. It is a little disconcerting to realize that your beloved pet is not lying by your head because she is in love with your freshly shampooed hair, but is instead waiting for you to roll over and reveal another morsel of sticking-out-pointed-feather-bits to pull on and play with and eventually kill. Don't be fooled, she is not killing the feather for you. But she will put her hind foot into your eye if need be to get at it. The other pillow is a water pillow. It is perfect, as you can adjust it to any firmness you wish merely be measuring the water inside its leakproof shell. You do need to remember to keep the side with the plugged up hole on the bottom, though. And sometimes, if you are having a strange dream, the sound of the water moving in the pillow will only add to the dream and make it even weirder. Like waves crashing on a pebble while you're floating in a kayak trying to eat a smoked salmon sandwich which dissolves as you find yourself on a mountainside in a in a garden of yellow and blue flowers when a hard screech of a train whistle sounds awfully like your alarm eventually and you wake yourself up by talking out loud about a key and then you get up and go to work.

Yeah, I have no idea either.