Or, Today Is The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Sleep.
It is 5:02 pm on December 28, my first proper day of unemployment in a year and eight months. I woke up at 8:00 when Jacob left for work, woke up again at 10:00, woke up again around noon, got out of bed at 2:30, and got out of the shower at 4:30. I'm wearing pink fuzzy slippers, rolled-up pants covered in cat hair, a BME shirt reading "Pierce them all -- let God sort 'em out", and no bra. This is probably a good time for a snack, so I might open up one of the four bags of Uncle Eddie's vegan cookies that Jacob gave me for a Hannukah present.
Between now and January 15 I need to deposit a paycheck and accept about six thousand dollars in financial aid (all grants). After January 15 I'll need to waltz into the campus library and let my old boss know that I'm back, but I don't want to get too far ahead of myself here. I'm enrolled in all my classes, I don't need to take any loans, I just looked up summer field schools and found a good one run by a former professor in whose class I did tremendously well, and, for god's sake, I've even got all my notebooks and pens ready. There is nothing of which I can think at the moment which is not fantastic, and for the next two and a half weeks I can devote myself entirely to considering that fact.
Also to consider: I had a dream last night in which I got my lip repierced. Hooray! For some reason I had it done with an enormous spirally 6g wood thing which was always in my way and not very comfortable. It probably didn't look too hot either, now that I think about it. I was constantly chewing on it and flipping it off to one side or the other, which was making my lip incredibly sore. This may have been an echo of the unreasonably spicy Thai food that I accidentally ordered last night, which made my lips burn after just one piece of tofu and four green beans. After some thought I've decided to use a ring in my lip like normal people, and order my food mild next time.
Thank you for your kind attention. You are now free to go back to sleep, or at least I am.
Posted by dianna at December 28, 2005 05:32 PMWhen you go in to work, tell Ferrol and Willyce that I still need their contact information for my job applications. They've been dragging their feet on that. John Thomas was on the ball, though.
I dreamt the other night about reading an article you wrote for the New Yorker. It was a sprawling non-fiction piece about your decision to travel to Iraq and your journeys once there. I didn't get to the part where you actually left for Iraq, though, because a fire alarm went off, waking me up. I looked around, determined that my room wasn't on fire, and then tried to get back to sleep through the alarm. I found out several hours later that someone had catastrophically failed at toasting a bagel. What I read of your article was very good, though.
In reference to your sleeping, I believe I have broken the noon barrier in terms of wake-up time twice since the start of break. That is, I have only woken up before noon on two occasions.
Posted by: Zach S. at December 28, 2005 08:44 PM