There are some occasions when life takes over and in a vain attempt to juggle 16 different things you simply crash and burn in spectacular fashion. Last Saturday night we held our end of season hockey club awards night, since when I have been entirely unable to concentrate. It may have been a two-day hangover, following the heavy drinking, dancing the night away in town and lack of sleep. Whatever the cause, I have struggled to maintain coherent thought or conversation since then, and now my brain has turned to mush.
This was most evident on returning home from work. I have various things on my mind that require organising in one way, shape or form, but I thought it might be nice to edit some of Saturday's photos over dinner. When I went to serve up, I found that I had in fact failed to cook my fishcake, largely due to turning on the wrong bit of oven. In a desperate attempt to salvage some miniscule fragment of edibleness, I blasted it in the microwave, during which time I burnt my asparagus. A total culinary disaster was only averted due to the presence of some potatoes.
Whilst eating my dry asparagus and chewy fishcake, I received a message from a friend on facebook notifying me that a terrifying picture of me raised aloft has been uploaded as 'photo of the week' on the website of the very nightclub that I frequented with the hockey players on Saturday night. I have little recollection of this peculiar moment, but apparently it now qualifies me to free VIP entry and champagne in a 'roped off area' for me and eight friends if I ring the fine establishment to claim. I have no particular desire to return to said establishment, but might be tempted for the freebies, and to discover exactly what sort of 'roped off area' will be given over to us - it sounds like a crime scene.
This series of events, combined with my fragile mental state, cause me to begin a laugh that started with a chuckle and grew rapidly into full-scale hysteria. In a matter of moments I was crying with laughter and shaking uncontrollably. Maybe it's best I don't go drinking for a while.
On my walk home from work today I happened upon a banana skin on the pavement. Realising the huge potential danger I was in, I neatly sidestepped the fruit peeling to avoid almost certain death should I happen to step on it and slip to my doom. I then wondered if anyone has actually ever damaged themselves in this manner. I have never actually slipped on a banana skin. I have never witnessed someone else's demise in a banana-skin related incident. Nor have I even heard of such a thing. In fact it appears that the only people ever to have suffered, emotionally or physically, through standing on a banana skin, are cartoon characters and clowns. And the only result that I can fathom from this interaction is a comedic loss of dignity. Am I to assume that, should this unfortunate coming together of foot and banana skin ever occur, the likely outcome would be me gliding 50 feet down the pavement whilst simultaneously crashing through market stalls, sending passers by flying, knocking over porcelain vases and finally crashing through a wall, leaving a perfect human outline as I go?!
The human body is an amazing piece of equipment. As a student of biology I have a reasonable understanding of some of the functionality of this kit; I've read some of the instructions. But other aspects of the human physiology remain a complete mystery to me. One of these is the body clock.
How does the body maintain it's own time system? Through most of the winter, my alarm has been set to 7:15 on work days. Yet the bulk of the time I wake up naturally at 7:14 anyway! How does the body know to pre-empt the rude awakening of the alarm? And to be so accurate about it?! I remember as a kid those sleepless nights when you knew you had to be up early for whatever reason, and then barely got a wink of sleep all night as a result. Now my body compensates and calculates the most efficient time to rise.
What confuses me even more is how, on days when I set my alarm to another time, my body somehow adjusts to this new time, and still rises from it's slumberous state a mere moment prior to the electronic noise of dawn. If I asked someone to set my alarm to a completely random time, unknown to me, would my body be fooled?!
On the occasions when I actually remain asleep until the alarm sounds, my body goes through a bizarre process of waking, vague comprehension and recollection and then understanding in just a few seconds. During this period I am able to open my eyes, roll over and turn the alarm off, and I wonder how I moved so seamlessly from one state to another. Some days the comprehension takes longer than others, and sometimes the understanding doesn't fully click in until around lunch.
When my alarm is activated, there is a mechanical click before the electronic beeping. The click sounds regardless of whether the alarm is on or off, as the clock hands pass the alarm hand. When I'm lying in bed on days when I haven't set the alarm, and I hear the click, my body goes through the same wakening process as if the alarm had gone off. It pre-empts what normally happens, and some kind of chemical reaction causes me to become alert very suddenly, as though adrenaline has been pumped into my system. Which is slightly disconcerting.
Boxes: friend or foe?
Lately I had cause to question my hitherto undiminished love of boxes. Boxes create order from chaos. They collect assorted jumble and contain them in one usefully categorised location. They form squares and right angles from irregularity. They stack, they pack, and there is always a box somewhere that is exactly the right size.
Yet a box used wastefully annoys me. Why do amazon send small items in vastly oversized packages filled with paper or bubble wrap? Why not just use the right sized box? They of all people should have a selection of suitable options - they must have literally billions of boxes ready to use! I recently ordered some software that was essentially a CD, but it came in a small paper envelope, that came in a small square box, which was in a larger rectangular box, that slid out of a larger cardboard sleeve, contained within an Amazon box: four separate packages for no reason. By the time I reached the CD I felt like I had won a solo game of pass the parcel.
Also, despite having a range of boxes gainfully employed about the house, when I need another one I can never find one (perhaps due to my unnecessary fear of using the wrong size!). And I'm always sure that I know where to get one - usually the end of a supermarket checkout - but when I get there they are nowhere to be seen. Maybe I should just order small and cheap items from Amazon to get hold of the boxes. Maybe I should order a box from Amazon?!
There are many great mysteries in life, but I am continually at a loss to explain perhaps the greatest of them all: the mystery of the inexplicable fluff.
Whenever I change my bedding, there it is! Great mountains of the stuff coating my duvet cover and pillow cases. You might think that this is entirely explainable, but I have no idea where it originates from. The duvet and pillows are not covered in fluff. The bed appears to be largely without it. Yet by removing one from another, myriad tiny cloud formations coat my bed linen.
It doesn't appear during the washing process - nor does it disappear. It simply clings to my laundry like a limpet; right up until I remove my washing from the machine, that is. At that point it suddenly loses its adhesive qualities, floating down onto the utility floor, the stairs, and across my bedroom. It looks like someone has bombed a cotton wool factory.
I can hoover this up, but worse is to come. Enough of it remains attached to my bedding to aggravate me. There's too much to pick it off piece by piece. The only technique that I have been able to employ that comes remotely close to removing it involves using a comb to scrape it off.
So this is how I came to be stood on my landing combing my duvet cover over the banister today, wondering what quirk of unfortunate circumstance had led me to this point, and pondering the mystery. If anyone else suffers a similar devastating occurrence I would be interested to know about it, especially if anyone has a remedy!
