Retrofitting Reality

Here’s what happened in my world…

For reasons beyond my control I got about 45 minutes worth of sleep the other day. Some of that was a people problem (got handed too much work from someone who hasn’t read my specs) some of it was a tech problem (computers, how I love them in all their moody glory).

So I went to bed and slept something like 45 minutes and then got back up and did it all over again. No choice really, just one of those things.

I got back from work yesterday and figured I ought to be tired. Problem is just that once you get going it sort of becomes irrelevant – the being tired part. Nor are you hungry, nor thirsty or anything like that.

I had a shower and watched a movie (Australian heist movie…different, but good) and then sort of drifted for a while until I realized it was well past midnight. So here I am on five hours of sleep and the weird thing is I don’t even feel tired. That’s sort of the thing about having sleep patterns as badly fucked-up as mine. I don’t even know what normal means anymore. It’s all good and fine, but physically I fell it more now than I used to.I get the shakes. I feel cold even if there is glorious sunshine and mild weather out there.Coordination is a little fucked.

And there’s the Tyler Durden thing, of course. I could be working at the Paper Street Soap Company and not even know it. Makes anwering innocuous questions like “how are you” kind of difficult. The most truthfull answer would be “fucked up nine ways from Sunday”. I tend to settle for the more acceptable “I am fine, how are you?” but I might as well say “Honestly? I don’t know”.

That really is how it feels, you know? How am I? Fine, I’m always fine.

Eh… Except for the Tyler Durden thing, I guess.

… Reality isn’t all it’s cracked up to be anyway.

ROL

Alarm from Hell

My next door neighbour is the quiet sort.

Never even see the person in question. Never hear him or her. Not that friendly with the neighbours anyway.

So, the other day I’m working from home, typing away faithfully at my computer… that kind of thing. And then I start hearing this noise. It’s all in all a pretty familiar noise.

You know, back in the day, the alarm started and then you pressed snooze, and then ten minutes later the thing went off again. I think you had like an hour’s grace and then the thing just wouldn’t shut the hell up. Alarm in rising pitch and moment and with an increasing volume too.

My neighbour has one of them.

How do I  know? You guessed it.

He/She/whomsoever left for work having pressed whatever button you press for snooze. Sooo … as the day progresses that noise gets more and more annoying. Three short bursts of a beep, pause, three more beeps, pause and so on ad infinitum. Gets loud too.

I have pretty good impulse control, as I am sure  I have commented on before. And that really is a good thing, because towards the end there the noise was constant, loud and very, very annoying.

The beeps pretty much covered my swearing. Pretty much. Like, almost.

Got me thinking about the close quarters thing again, like the lady on the parquet with the high heels. It starts feeling like a really weird game of Cluedo, but no Colonel Mustard in the kitchen with the candle stick. Just me losing my marbles in front of the computer.

Might turn into me at the door with an axe though, like Jack Nicholson in The Shining.

Luckily, the neihbour came home at the end of business hours and three seconds after that the alarm got switched off.  Much rejoicing ensued.

I stowed my axe back in the closet.

ROL

I reject your reality – and substitute my own!

I rented a movie the other day. Yeah, I still do that. I don’t download like everyone else on the planet, okay? Anyway…
I had this idea, like you sometimes get, about a specific scene in a specific movie.

Hadn’t seen it in forever, so there’s that to be taken into account. The memory is a slippery little sucker. Ah, Mnemosyne, she has nimble feet the little minx.

I found the movie while browsing and figured I wanted to see that scene again.

It’s a crap movie. Crap script, actors struggling to do their best, total cliché bingo material throughout, but for whatever reason that one scene had stuck in my head.

So I get my popcorn and I’m watching. When I get to the scene in question, it’s … really, really bad.

So I sit there going ?

And that’s when it hits me.

I’ve done that thing again that I sometimes do. I am a fairly creative person, imagination working well, thank you – and maybe a little too well, you know what I mean?

I re-wrote that scene in my head. It’s much better in my version. Damn.

I hate when that happens.

So, instead of a pleasant evenings viewing there I am groaning in pain (yes, the rest of it is that bad) and throwing popcorn at my TV, wondering where the hell I went wrong.

That’s just it. It was much better inside my head, I swear. It’s like that sometimes.

ROL

I knew it! Fruit is bad for you!

Science again, folks!

Okay – so first for the backstory. I used to work in the fruit packing business. The company party line was naturally that fruit is good for you.

I have seen fruit in all stages of decay and general nastiness. I have seen the banana at its most rotten and the mango at its most green. I have smelled every kind of mold and I understand better than anyone exactly how unsexy cherries are once threy’ve lost their sweetness and become the home of a mulitude of crazed fruitflies.

So I always knew fruit was evil.

Hence my unmitigated glee at recent discoveries that state quite simply that – hey, fruit might not be good for you at all.

There is actually no scientific evidence that fruit is good for you. It’s just one of those things we all know to be true. It’s like with milk – a couple of decades of indoctrination and we believe that it’s good for us. Unless your lactose intolerant – or, hey, not a cow.

Now, scientists, as we all know are an interesting bunch. But in this case I am willing to give them a little leeway, because I like this idea.

Recent studies show, as the typical statement begins, that fruit – which is basically sugar, water and a little fibre (at least sometimes) is like soda. It’s sugar and water. If you break that down what you get is – first off you increase your sugar intake and you’re more likely to be prone to diabetes. And the sugar you’re not burning turns into fat. So you’re more likely to get a little potbelly going on if you happily munch away at that recommended half-kilo a day.

There are no scientific studies as of yet of the possible harmfull sideeffects of fruit. Just a few one-off things where doctors have recommended overweight patients to knock off the bananas. And as a result of that some patients lost weight. We don’t know what else they were told to knock off though. You know, they might have been topping that banana with whipped cream and chocolate sauce, but still.

My argument is still solid. Sugar is not good for you in large quantities. And of course there is no way that a Snickers bar is going to be a better mid-day snack than an apple. But still.

At the fruit company I worked for we got one of those fridge magnets for one of our bosses as a Christmas present. It said “Fruit is not Candy”.

Out on the floor the party line was distorted further.

Fruit is not candy – we needed candy to make it through the sixteen hour shifts.

Fruit is not food – because there is no excause for pinapple in food. None.

Fruit is Evil – because anyone who has ever stared down the business end of a peach turned green and slimy will know that this is the face of evil. And the smell is like something from the X-files.

I am going to be all over this as it works its way through the scientific community.

And I’ll be eating my M&M’s while reading too…

ROL