:::sparked by a comment I made to luvenditti:::

Ever have a problem shutting up?

I don't mean when you're talking at length and intelligently on a topic that may or may not interest your listeners. That happens to most people at any given time. All the other person can do at that point is roll their eyes (inwardly, anyway) and wait for you to finish if they don't give a rat's ass about your topic.

I'm talking about the kind of non-stop babbling that makes your listeners wonder what the fuck you've been smoking. The kind of situation in which you can hear yourself talking and cringe at what's coming out of your mouth, and yet instead of sensibly shutting your mouth and salvaging what's left of the situation, you keep talking, and there's nothing you can do about it.

There's nothing quite as awful as sitting there and listening to your mouth continue to talk, and all you can think is: "Oh God, oh God, shut up. Please shut up. Stop talking. Can you hear yourself? Stop. Stop now. Stop while you still have some shreds of dignity left. You can still salvage this if you stop talking. Shut up. Please please please shut up. Oh God, I can't believe you just said that. For the love of all that's good and holy, shut UP!"

This happens to me all the freaking time. I also happen to have a freakishly good memory, and that means I can remember all the hideously embarassing things that have come out of my mouth in the past twenty-three years or so that have passed since I learned to form complete sentences and interact with others.

I think part of it has to do with the fact that I didn't talk much until I was in my late teens and early twenties, and thus never really learned how to censor what comes out of my mouth. It was either be silent or else talk the other person's ear off. No middle ground.

It can't be only that, though. I know a few people who have the same problem, and they certainly weren't wallflowers when they were in high school. So I have no real explanation for what it might be.

The net result, though, is that I've spent most of my life with the uncomfortable feeling that most people view me as a complete nitwit with no self-control whatsoever. Or at the very least a little weird and creepy.

It's like they say: You can dress her up, but you can't take her out.

Okay, so getting up this morning wasn't quite so much of a struggle as it usually is. I still got up half an hour later than I normally would, but that's better than forty-five minutes later. If I get up at seven o'clock, I can still get all my shit together in time for work and not have to run like a mad running thing.

I prefer to get up at 6:30, because that gives me an extra half hour to not freak out and forget things and get all stressed if something goes wrong because I don't have time for things to go wrong. However, 7:00 is infinitely preferable to 7:15, as I have to be out of the house by 7:45 or 7:50 at the very latest in order not to be late for work.

I didn't get to bed early last night. I managed an 11:00 pm bedtime, which isn't bad, but I don't consider it early. I got back late from the retirement party (and who the hell knew that St-Hubert was so damned expensive these days? Honestly, $20 for a drumstick, a drink and a dessert is not my idea of cheap), because the computer system was having issues processing my tab. I was sorely tempted to just leave without paying after waiting for nearly half an hour, but my sense of civic duty intervened.

Have been reading First Things First that ai731 lent me yesterday, and it looks like there are some very good things to be taken from it. Shall be taking notes, in any event.

This week my goal is to reduce sleep-deprivation. So far so good, I think. I’m really going to catch up over the weekend (I hope), but the long-term goal is to not keep horrendous bedtime hours the way I have been. I just do not function well on less than eight hours of sleep a night, and really, if I'm entirely honest with myself, I work best with nine to ten hours' sleep in my system. Yes, that means that there are fewer hours in the waking day in which to get things done, but I don’t think that necessarily translates into more stuff getting done when I sleep less. There's a lot to be said for efficiency when one is working with an optimal amount of sleep.

Eventually, I shall incorporate other healthy-type goals in my time. However, changing habits one at a time seems like the way to go. I'm not eating entirely unhealthy stuff these days, but obviously I could be paying a lot more attention to what I eat. Same goes for exercise. I'm doing my dancing thing three, sometimes four times a week, although part of that is simply spent standing behind a counter when I'm volunteering. Dancing is pretty good exercise, but what I'm doing is not really enough to get into better shape.

So, that makes two other goals to think about in the near-to-middling future. There are probably lots of others, but I’m not going to try to change everything at once. That usually just spells crash-and-burn for me.

Look at me, being all reasonable and shit. Whodathunkit?

It's all his fault, really, for lending me all those books about people climbing Mount Everest with little more than a compass, some trail mix, cleated boots and a thick woolen scarf. ^_-

Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit (and, to be entirely honest, George Mallory did in fact get himself killed doing just that).

Still. The slightly obsessive and Oooh!Shiny part of me is now singing a siren's song in my ear, telling me how cool it would be to take a winter vacation somewhere where there would only be me, maybe another trusted partner or two, my snowshoes, a backpack and a tent. Maybe a small gas stove.

Like, say, in Alaska. Or the Northwest Territories.


Now, the sensible, realistic part of me is still around. It pipes up now and then to remind me that I can't make it up Peel street from René Lévesque to Pine Ave. without getting seriously short of breath. It points out that I'm not in good shape, that I have little to no endurance, and that I would have no idea what to do with myself on that kind of trip anyway.

Then the other little voice pipes up and says: "Yeah, but it would be so cool!"

The first little voice then rejoins that I should spend my (as yet theoretical) hard-earned vacation on seeing friends, maybe going to Europe if I have enough money put aside... useful things like that.

Then the other little voice pipes up and says: "Yeah, but it would be so cool!"

You get the picture.


The conclusion I have drawn from this is that I need a lot more vacation time than I currently have (which is none right now, but might go up to one whole whopping week per year if I get hired), so that I can see my friends and go on an adventure. I also need a lot more money than I have right now.

Still, a girl can dream, right?


This has been brought to you by Phnee's Ongoing Campaign To Avoid Excessive Introspection. Thank you for listening.

I keep having to sit on my hands to prevent myself from scheduling something on Sunday. I've become so accustomed to doing something every single day of the week and not taking any time out for myself to just sit quietly at home, that having a day scheduled specifically for that somehow feels wrong now.

The doormat part of me feels guilty about taking a whole day for myself. "There are so many useful things you should be doing instead!" it nags at the back of my mind. "It's selfish of you to take that time away! You should be seeing friends you've neglected, or be going out and making yourself useful!"

So far I've managed to squelch the impulse to schedule something on Sunday three times today. This is going to take willpower. :P