Shift Change
I enjoy staying up late. I’d read in bed until (gasp!) 8:30 or 9 as a little kid, with nothing more than a red night light (one reason I think my night vision got pretty good, and why I have to wear sunglasses a lot during the days). As a teenager and young adult, my preferred sleep schedule was 2am – 10am, with the occasional 4am – noon if I got into something really worthy of my tunnel-focused attention.
These days, though, I’m up between 5:45 and 6 every morning, and just being able to drive to work without major injury means I’d better be in bed by 11. 10 would be better; 9:30’s been known to happen. It made this year’s New Year’s Eve a little duller than I’d planned, let me tell you.
Well, my quasi-conscious train of thought upon leaving REM sleep this morning went as follows:
Voice 1: Dude, why on earth did we put the clock where we can’t easily see it without moving? It’s gotta be about 5:40, the alarm’s gonna hit any minute.
Voice 2: No, no, this is our semi-regular 3:30 Brief Moment of Pseudo-Lucidity. Just roll over and go back to sleep.
Voice 1: Yeah, you’re probably right. But let’s wiggle over and get Line-of-Sight on the clock just to be sure.
Voice 2: Uh-oh. 6:30? We didn’t set the alarm, did we?
Voice 1: Dude, and you were the one who wanted to go back to sleep.
Funny thing is, since I awoke naturally, I felt much better this morning. And I still managed to get to work on time.
To-Do Listing
This was supposed to be the week where I caught up on sleep and email and life. I think I’m about 83% caught up on email, but the rest of it all still needs some work!
Just had to write another program book blurb about me. I hate doing that, I never feel like I’m any good at selling myself. But I’m pleased with how it came out, so I’ll consider it additional experience in an unfamiliar writing style.
I found today the Federation Models (http://www.federationmodels.com/) website which has all the customization pieces I wanted to complete the Grin’elle Kriet-era U.S.S. Yeager model kit. This is really tickling the bits of my brain that want to dig out the Dremel Tool and styrene glue again.
This concept is Anathema
Did you know that, as recently as the eighteenth century, “engine” meant any generic “device” or “tool”?
Of course, in the twenty-first century, “engine” almost always means “machine that provides motive power”. We still, though, have some leftover of the old meaning when we talk about someone who designs, maintains, or operates devices and tools as an “engineer”.
In the older usage, a loom might be a “weaving engine”, a crane a “lifting engine”, or a computer a “calculating engine”.
The only reason this is on my mind at all is that, while waking up this morning, and sorting and filing the loose random thoughts of a foggy brain, I suddenly heard Scotty warning that “The devices canna take tha strrain!”
…
Look, it’s not like I’m charging you admission.
Frankie Say Relax
The other day it was cold enough for me to wear my Fourth Doctor scarf to work. This morning it’s so warm I didn’t really need a jacket, and there are mightily-confused birds singing in the trees.
Elfie.org seems to have been down since yesterday. How am I supposed to see all your comments of love and adoration without my e-mail? Sob. Weep.
I was unsettled and short-tempered all weekend, and I’m not really sure why. Was it a late bout of S.A.D.? Have I been obsessing too much about my sundry responsibilities? Or was it just my time of the month? Not sure, but I’m done with it, and I’m determined that this week is going to be a week where I get things done and yet enjoy myself.
And I’m-a gonna crack this Writer’s Block I’ve been having right down the middle, yes sirree.
Tweets for Today
- 08:12 “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” on NPR may be lightweight comedy, but it’s funnier than morning DJs. #
- 10:09 Walking across two parking lots in 25 degree weather is enough to make the hip start hurting. #
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Dream A Dream
“What are your dreams?” I was asked. I couldn’t answer – I wasn’t sure.
I’ve been spending a lot of years focused on making it to the next day. If I thought extremely far ahead, I made plans for two weeks away. I’m not saying it was a daily struggle for food and shelter – I’ve been fairly comfortable the whole time. My dreams got little thought, though. I was busy.
What have my dreams been in the past?
– I wanted to be a starship crewman. (Well, I’m working for NASA. Not bad.)
– I wanted to be an experimental particle physicist. (Less interesting to me now as a career, plus I’d need to devote something like 15 years to catch up to that horse.)
– I wanted to be a well-known movie and TV actor. (I’m having plenty of fun, and eating better, doing that as an occasional hobby.)
– I wanted to be an airplane pilot. (After my trip up two Novembers ago, I’ve decided to go after my license as soon as my slowly-increasing savings will support that.)
– I wanted to be a well-known novelist. (Still not impossible, though I’ve done pathetically little toward that dream in the last years.)
There are one or two others, but those are the oldest ones. The next question is, what are my dreams for the future? It looks like some of those carry over, but I ask myself now not only what I want to be, but what do I want to do? (A clearly related matter.)
Worth some introspection.
