After some dicking around with lights, moving alarm clocks around, reading Terry Pratchett books, and anything else that would slightly delay the moment of going to bed alone, I dozed off at 12:30 a.m. with my bedside lamp on and the stereo playing quietly to distract my sleeping brain. I woke up two hours later scrambling for the stereo remote because I'd slept through REM and Morphine and was now listening to Portishead.
Portishead, if you're wondering, will not make your empty house more comfortable. While your individual mileage may vary, you should expect a 10-20% rise in oppressive spookiness in all rooms in which the music is audible. Rooms in which the music is half-audible may experience a higher increase in spookiness than rooms in which the music can be fully heard and appreciated.
Fortunately, that was the scariest thing to happen to me over the course of yesterday night. I woke up a few times, looked around, realized that contrary to all expectations the kitchen was not full of feral vampire squirrels, and went back to sleep. Glorious! I left the house this morning feeling like a little kid with new shoes: proud, excited, and trying to strike a balance between grinning from ear to ear and acting very mature and calm.
I bought myself a bus ticket to Santa Cruz for the weekend anyway. 48 hours without the economical imperative to be at work all day might be pushing it, and there is still the matter of the zombies in the water heater closet. I know they're there.
Posted by dianna at January 6, 2005 10:24 AM