Corner of Bourbon & Division

I had dinner yesterday with guruwench and her "hunny N" as she calls him. I'd forgotten to post last week about my breakfast with her and le_maistre_e, and was subsequently thwarted for days by my lack of a functioning computer. Still, it was a lovely breakfast, and it served to remind me that I actually have friends who live in this city with whom I can socialise! It was very exciting.

So last night after work I hied myself over there, and proceeded to snorgle all their cats (except for Kira, who was not overly pleased at the new invasive human in her home). N made a delicious jambalaya, guruwench made an equally delicious berry crumble for dessert, and we spent over four hours talking about cats and geeky things and work and cooking. N has promised me his recipe for jambalaya, and this is very exciting indeed.

After last night's dessert-y indulgence, I am back to the yummy salads I prepared for myself. I discovered this evening, much to my dismay, that my cunning plan of pre-chopping and pre-packing veggies for my snacks is not a great plan. My cucumbers went horrifically mushy. I think it's that I tried putting them all in sandwich bags ahead of time. Next week I'll pre-chop but keep them in Tupperware so they don't, um, disintegrate. :P So right now I'm uncomfortably hungry, because it's not quite dinnertime yet. If I eat my food too early, I'll be hungry later, and being hungry at 03:00 is way worse than being hungry at 21:00.

The plan is to look up some more creative salad recipes for next week. I'm not the type of person to get bored of eating the same thing over and over again, but I think a little variety will do me good, especially in the nutrition department. I want to try new and different and hopefully inexpensive things. Experiment a little. Or a lot. So that'll be on the menu for this weekend (both figuratively and literally!).

I didn't go walking either yesterday or today, partly to give my ankles a break. They have not been overly happy with me for the sudden burst in activity of late. Today's lack of a walk was also partly because of inertia and tiredness and procrastination. I did do those 10 minutes of yoga I've been threatening to do for days, though, so I feel pretty good about that. My conclusion so far is that I am in terrible shape. Even 10 minutes of very basic yoga poses made me work for it, though it was definitely doable. It was a little more difficult because I kept having to move out of position to see the video in order to figure out how I was supposed to be positioned. Practise should help with that, at least. I'm hoping to get to a proper 30-minute routine by the end of the month.

Unfortunately I had some errands to run today, so I wasn't able to do the sleep-until-I-can't-sleep-anymore thing that I try to do on the transition day between day shift and night shift. It's the only time I can really try to make up for the sleep deficit I constantly live with. On a good day when I'm working I can manage my full eight hours. Usually it's closer to six. When I work night shifts I average about five hours of sleep, but it tends to be very broken because my room is very bright and my landlords tend to be very loud when they're home. On my transition day I sleep about 10-11 hours, but that's because I don't sleep before my night shift, so it averages out to about 5 hours a night. I generally get 7-8 hours when I'm home in Montreal, but that's only because I don't get up at the same time as pdaughter and Bean, who are usually up at 06:00, or whenever Bean decides it's "sunny time." Last week I started getting myself up earlier, but the earliest I managed was 06:20, which was still long after pdaughter got up (though Bean slept until nearly 07:00 that morning!). So this week I am going to try harder to train myself to get up when it starts getting light out. Hopefully that won't backfire on me when I need to sleep during the day on my night shifts.

Honestly, these days I find myself almost wishing I suffered from insomnia, because at least then I'd get stuff done instead of sleeping. Almost. The thing is, I love sleep a lot. If I could get more of it, I would, but what I need to do is require less of it. All my life I've been the type of person who needs about 9 hours of sleep a night to feel properly rested and be a fully functional human being. These days, though, I need to be the type of person who not only gets by, but thrives on four hours of sleep per night. I've been resisting setting an alarm, because I'm paranoid that it'll go off and wake pdaughter on the one day that Bean decides to sleep in, but without an alarm I seem to be physically unable to get myself out of bed. I don't suppose anyone has a trick they use to wake themselves without an alarm?

So that's the daily report on me. Riveting, n'est-ce-pas? Now I have to get back to work. Maybe next time I'll tell you all about the new TV shows I've been watching, if you're lucky. ;)

I wasn't up all night, but it feels like it. I made poor life choices and decided I would stay up to watch Hannibal, which continues to delight me. However, at 21:30 my landlady walked through the door, so not only did I stay up past my bedtime but I didn't even get to reap the rewards of my poor life choices. I am bitter about this. Also tired.

I had a visually pretty intense dream right before awakening. ( Dream behind the cut. It gets a little gory, be warned. )

Aside from horrifically bloody dreams, yesterday was pretty good overall. I walked during my lunch break and had another delicious mason jar salad for lunch. I'm still working on the food/better nutrition thing. I thought I was doing okay yesterday, since last week I'd brought too much food to work with me. By the time I got home last night, though, I was very hungry and thus overdid it a little at dinner. So I'm going to have to tweak the amount of food I bring to work with me so I'll have something to eat later in the afternoon. Apparently all my willpower goes to hell in the evening/at the end of the day, which at least is consistent with studies on willpower. I just have to work on not needing to rely on willpower to get me through the last few hours of the day. More on that when I figure it out, I guess.

My coworker is back from his sick leave, but he's only back part-time. He'll be here during the week, four hours a day only, at least until the end of June. So I still get my nights and weekends to myself, which is pretty keen. It's a win for me for now, though my boss has made noises about moving someone over to my shift, which is not as awesome. I don't feel a particular affinity for either of the two guys he's thinking of putting with me, and I'd honestly rather be left to my own devices at work rather than have to learn to work with another partner. That being said, I'm paid to work here, so if that means learning to work with a new partner, so be it.

Since I'm alone this weekend I'll have to do my walking after work, which is fine. It just means I'll have to make sure I get out there and walk when I get home, rather than collapse in a puddle. See above: less willpower at the end of the day.

The yoga has also not happened yet, due to my poor life choices/going to bed too late. I have at least found a nice yoga-for-beginners routine that seems doable. Oh, and before I forget, I should think about the things I am grateful for today:

1- Bananas. No, seriously. Yummy, portable, not messy, and a great source of potassium. Also, it sounds funny when you say it a lot. Bananas!

2- I am grateful that I live in a place in which food is not only plentiful but generally inexpensive and nutritious and comes in a variety that many people can only dream of.

3- I got interrupted by work before I could get to #3, so I guess I'll say I am grateful that I have work to do that I find rewarding.

And that's it for now. Stay tuned for more riveting updates. Possibly with less blood next time.