Yet again, having a week off reminded me of just how screwed up my body clock really is. Even with the combination of domesticity, general routine, and a Hound who sends us to bed at 10.30 every night (I think I’ve written about that experience before, but if not there’ll be something about it this week, I’m sure) the body clock itself is still terminally screwed.
The insomnia that I suffered from/through for far too many years seems to be in abeyance currently, but I still sleep incredibly shallowly for the most part, to the point that if Hound wakes up and wanders around the house at all, it wakes me up. If Psycho Cat moves round the bed, I wake up. (Mind you, I think at least some of that is just down to survival instinct) Unless I’m absolutely dead to the world, if Herself rolls over, or gets out of bed, I wake up.
In short, my nights are generally fairly disturbed. That’s usually fine – I’m used to it, and can get along fine with my life so long as I’ve managed to get some sleep. C’est la vie, and all that guff.
But – and this is where the really screwed up bit fires up – if I can sleep between 7am and 9am, I’m fine. It’s the best sleep I get all night (morning, day. Whatever) During the normal course of work, of course, I’ve got absolutely chuff-all hope of ever sleeping for those perfect two hours. In fact, I’m normally awake at 7, and getting up, getting sorted, moving around. Operational, but not really refreshed, or enthused.
By contrast, over the last week, I’ve been able to get those two hours that my body really needs. All the rest can go to hell in a handcart, so long as I get those two hours asleep. My mood has been better, I haven’t been anywhere near as reliant on caffeine, and everything has just generally been much better.
I think I need to spend some time reassessing (again) what works for me. The end goal of being completely self-employed would fix all the sleep-time issues, but I need to figure a way to make it work while I’m still ensconced in offices and the like.
But on the evidence of last week, I think it’s something that I need to put at a far higher priority than it’s currently on.

Today’s award for “fucking bizarre event of the week” goes to the phone call I just received.

Phone rings. It’s not a number I recognise, but OK, I answer.
“Hello?”
“Hello, can I speak to [name] please?”
{Brain shuts down}”Eh?”
“Can I speak to [name] please?”
“Sorry, you’ve got completely the wrong number.”
“Oh, OK, sorry for bothering you”.
“No problem.”

Now in itself, that’s not bizarre, I agree.

What IS bizarre is that [name] was the name for Herself’s sister…

Shudder.

A 2lb toad. Blech.

Attending my parent’s 40th wedding anniversary over the weeked was a very odd experience. It all went well, don’t get me wrong, but it was still strange.
Most of it, really, is down to just the way my family is. We’re not really a close family in many ways, and while I do stay in (fairly) regular contact with my parents (a phone call every couple of weeks, usually) and my brother (a text message every couple of weeks, and we see each other about once a year, usually) I don’t see the rest of them from one year to the next. And usually less than that.
So seeing pretty much all of them at once was deeply weird. And trying to remember names in order to introduce them to Herself was, frankly, a process that was always pretty well doomed. I got so many wrong, mainly by giving them the names of their siblings, which isn’t as bad as it could be (calling one great-uncle by the name of the other great-uncle, now deceased for three years was about as bad as it got – but still pretty bad!) but still fairly galling and embarassing.
The very strange ones, though, were my cousins, who (we worked out) I hadn’t seen in about ten years, if not more. Time flies, and all that crap. Having at least one complete stranger come up to me, know my name, know the basics of what I’d been up to, and having NO clue who they were at all – only for my brother to later confirm that he was one of my cousins – was pretty much the high/low point of the day. Mind you, at least I was honest, and said to him that I hadn’t a clue who he was – although I dont think he believed me.
But it made me think a lot about family, and about my role within it. I can’t deny, I’ve always been pretty much the black sheep of the lot, the one who’s not in touch, and has no intention of changing that. But at the same time, it now feels kind of weird to be so out of touch with my relatives. All the cousins now have partners, and in a couple of cases children – but I couldn’t tell you their names if my life depended on it. Only one comes to memory, and that’s because it’s a bloody horrible name, for which the kid will most likely be soundly beaten throughout his school days. As for the various partners, nope, not a clue.
I couldn’t tell you what the various birthdays are, or ages – hell, I have to make an effort to figure out my brother’s age (30 next year – heh) – nor could I tell you even where most of them live. Yeah, OK, I know the towns where they live, but addresses? Forget it.
And yet they all seem to know what I’m up to, where I’ve been, what I’ve been doing, and the like. I assume my mother must do some information dispersal about that, but it’s still weird, where they know what I’m doing, and I don’t know (and, to be honest, don’t really care) what they’re doing from one year to the next. Or indeed in some cases from one decade to the next.
Still, it all went OK, and it meant I got to take a fair number of photos as well ( willing / unknowing audiences are great) which I’ll also get prints of, and send them to the parents. Well, once I’ve edited them, and got rid of the crap ones. (I know there’s a couple of those, for sure)

Well, that’s the backlog caught up with.

Fairly impressive, blitzing a weeks worth of outstanding work in one day – it’s made an impression on the people here, anyway. Also, it’s amusing (to me) to note that people who’re used to contacting me and getting stuff done on the day have lodged complaints with senior people about how long it takes for their requests to be handled when I’m not in the office…

(I know, I know, I’ve written about this before – but all the same, it’s nice to have proof, rather than just the raging ego of one’s own suspicions and thoughts)

Well, after ten days away, I’m now back in the office.

As such, most of today is going to be spent catching up on stuff, and dealing with a backlog of jobs. Grand…