The Life and Times of Florence Knitingale

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Pants on Fire

Indeed, for I am truly a shameful liar. I proclaimed openly, right here on this blog, that I love the “fall back” part of Daylight Savings Time. I waxed on and on about the lovely long weekend and the extra hour. Piffle. This is in the Hall of Fame of lies, and I have finally come to remember this courtesy of my strange, time-impaired little brain that now persists on bringing me to full wakefulness at precisely 3:30 a.m. with no hope whatever that I will sleep even another moment. I hate Daylight Savings Time. And I hate the fall back weekend. And, at the moment, thanks to my eyes having been briskly sanded with steel wool which was then stuffed unceremoniously into my head, I more or less hate anything that stands between me and my disgracefully unmade bed (I couldn’t bear to close off any avenues of rest, even if it meant tripping and falling into it, so best to be prepared). But, as Momma Knitingale always told me, one must learn something from every experience, no matter how unpleasant the experience (yeah, I got yer learnin’ right here…..), so here for your perusal is the collected wisdom of my day (day 3 of wishing for the good old days when I was blissfully unaware of the existence of TWO 3:30’s in any given 24 hour period):

1. On days such as this, someone (gnomes? Elves? Mischievous sprites?) sneaks into the room during my few sleeping moments and viciously and with malice aforethought moves objects into the path I will take when I stumble from the bed at 0’dark-thirty. I believe that the purpose is to cause me to trip over my backpack and ram my toe into the chair. It is unbelievably successful.
2. Someone, possibly the same little bastards from number one, sees fit to swap out all my clothes for items which are, apparently, indistinguishable from one another, causing me to stare blankly and uncomprehendingly at the mass of collected and unhelpful fabric.
3. The cats can and do conspire to position themselves on the stairs for maximum “wow, listen to mommy scream as she falls” entertainment.
4. Shampoo looks just like conditioner but is a poor substitute.
5. Shaving, which seems quite simple on most days, can become a deadly task.
6. It is, indeed, possible to forget the same item three times, simply by returning to the house over and over again to stare blankly and wonder what the hell I’m doing there.
7. My husband is capable of speaking in tongues (or some other strange language that translates to nothing whatsoever in my sleep addled brain--or the steel wool that passes for it).
8. Every other person on the road today has forgotten how to drive. I don’t understand how this can be…but they have pretty much all been driving slowly, carelessly, and in front of me. Naturally, it can’t be me.
9. A class that is scheduled to last from 8:30 to 10:50 can take approximately 37 hours under the right (so wrong) circumstances. Some sort of glitch in the time space continuum, perhaps?
10. My psychology teacher has the ability, against all odds, to become even more inane than usual. (you don’t know how amazing that is….. but she’s a story for a different day)
11. My knitting has the ability to hide itself cleverly so that when I get to the 2 hour 20 minute gap between classes, I will discover that it is still at home, no doubt chuckling merrily to itself.
12. The schedule for the winter quarter has been written in esperantu. Or something else that I can’t make sense of. (wait, now…if I take Chemistry HERE, and Biology 212 HERE….then I can—no, wait. That won’t work. How about….?)
13. The charts in my statistics book, the ones I need to use to follow along with the teacher, have the ability to swirl their numbers around on the page tauntingly. (Although I did find out that I got 103 on the test I mentioned yesterday—or maybe not….I think I can’t be trusted to read numbers today…..)
14. It is actually possible to be too damned tired to become excited about yarn when stopping at the LYS on the way home. (Yeah, I know—it scared me, too. That was when I decided I’d better come right home and have a lie down. But don’t worry too much. If I’d thought about quitting knitting, I would have rushed right to the ER. I’m tired, not crazy.)
15. Conversely, too long spent in the bookstore staring glassily at who-knows-what can result in absolutely everything appearing to be a perfect gift for a secret pal, regardless of her interests, or the possibility of actually shipping it. Again, best to head home at that point.
16. One key that fits into the front door lock can become 732 that don’t. In a heartbeat.
17. Fingers can become quite spectacularly stupid and keyboarding can be much like embroidering while wearing a catcher’s mitt. I won’t even tell you how many times I’ve had to retype stuff…..I’m not entirely sure I didn’t start this 10 hours ago. That time-space continuum thing again…
18. A cup of tea, a handful of caramels and four cheese puffs can sound like haute cuisine. Truly.

I have absolutely no knitting progress to show you, which I think is for the best. If I did, it would probably resemble nothing so much as a wooly green colander in some shape never before seen on any human being. Think good thoughts for me tonight….or, if you’re up around 3:30, give me a call. At least I’ll have someone to talk to.

6 Comments:

  • At 6:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Sweetheart, I would *so* call you, at any time. I know all about those kinds of days...yep, best have a bit of tea, then maybe a bowl of soup, warm bath/shower and into your bed/nest you go and sending all kinds of good,peaceful,restful thoughts your way.
    Oh yeah, wait til you hit your 50's and your eyesight starts getting wonky, you have to always have the shampoo in the same place, the same for the conditioner because I'm telling you, without your glasses on you *cannot* see what's what, (of course you have to *remember* exactly what you put 'where')
    Life is grand.

     
  • At 7:27 PM, Blogger Faren said…

    Wow, sounds like you could use a nap!
    I hope you get used to "falling back" quickly!

     
  • At 11:31 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Ah Marianne..those glasses which I can never find and the World going fuzzy yep I can really relate to that. Cats really do love to lurk just where they can trip you up ...furry devils . After 8pm I feel pretty much like this ,Holly talks to me but it is so fast and poor Jeff takes the menopausal fool to bed with a cocoa .Last night I took my new Cherry Tree Hill "Oceania" to bed .I am sure Jeff comes up later as around 11pm there are some very loud snores .You definately need a long sleep ...I think humans should hibernate with a huge packet of chocolate biscuits and a big fluffy duvet.

     
  • At 1:21 PM, Blogger Charity said…

    I had a yucky day on Sunday because of DST, too. I slept in, raced around the house getting ready for work, left a crying baby at home who crawled around after me with her book until I flew out of the house, HAD NO TEA (this may have been the worst part), and then arrived at work an hour early because I had forgotten to change my clock. Sigh.

     
  • At 7:30 PM, Blogger Lynn said…

    Amen, sister. Thank you for putting the past two days into perspective (middle-aged, squinty-eyed perspective, but perspective nonetheless) for me.

    Waking at 3:23 yesterday morning because my body thought it was 4:23 and I'd overslept, seeing that the porch light was still on from Halloween, discovering that youngest was *still* not home from working at the final night of the haunted house, and deciding that a mug of milk would help me sort things out. Hearing her come up the walk as I put the jug back into the fridge.

    It's been a tense couple of days around here, and there will be no midweek (AKA school night) volunteering at said haunted house next year. Nor will she get to go to the cast party this coming weekend.

    I suspect that I can go ahead and forget about that Mom of the Year nomination.

    Oh yeah, I feel your pain. And I understand why some species eat their young...

     
  • At 7:47 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Am I the only one who enjoyed the time change? I've almost been sleeping good! Huge feat over here!

     

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