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Midnight state of mind
Sep. 28th, 2013 12:23 amI went to bed around 9:30 this evening, when Julie's leukemia drugs kicked in and knocked her over. She wore herself out earlier today - the bathroom work is almost finished, so she decided to mop the communal corridoor and get rid of all the dust that the plumbers, plasterer and joiner have generated over the last few days. I'd already told her that I would do it when I got home, but she doesn't like it affecting the neighbours, so I arrived home to a moist entrance-hall and a completely exhausted wife.
So I made dinner, and we spent a couple of hours on the sofa, watching the Big Bang Theory season opener, and then I mopped the few bits of the hall she'd been too tired to finish, and then she crawled into bed and we watched an episode of "Don't trust the bitch in apartment 23"*, and one of TNG** before Julie fell asleep.
And then I surfed the web very quietly next to her for half an hour. And then I turned out the light and lay there for about an hour. And then I got up, because my brain does _not_ want to settle.
When we were in Wales recently we visited a coal mine and heard about the mine horses. They would be kept underground for 50 weeks out of the year, hauling coal back and forth, sleeping deep under the surface. And then, for two weeks a year, they would be brought up to the surface, and left in a field while they were checked over, treated and reshoed, etc. And for the first few days they were quite, quite mad.
That's how my brain feels right now. And it's not even about Julie. While her cancer hangs over us in the background, the main way it affects me on a day-to-day basis is by compressing each day. I want to spend time with her when possible, and to make her as comfortable and happy as I can, which tends to remove time from other things. But if I wasn't currently in the middle of implementing a major bit of functionality at work, managing a team that's co-ordinating process improvements, and helping organise a conference for all 600-odd members of the IT department then it probably wouldn't be quite so stressful.
To be honest, it is pretty-much under control - I tried out my speech on a few people over the last few days and they all loved it***, I'm down to two defects on the project work, and the major delivery I have to make for the process-improvement team just got sign-off from our leadership. By the end of next week things should be a lot less busy. Which may, actually, be why my brain is refusing to shut up - it has less to worry about, but is still dashing in all directions, an engine pushing against nothing.
So I'm back out of bed again, and writing on Livejournal. Which I keep meaning to update more, but just don't seem to have the concentration for at the moment. I only reached this point because my brain started writing the post while I was in bed, and I had half of it written in my head before my fingers hit the keyboard.
*sigh*
I shall now faff for half an hour, and see if there's anything else my brain wants to do before it's willing to be put to bed...
*James Van Der Beek does an amazing job of sending himself up in this show. It's by no means the most entertaining comedy ever, but it frequently surprises me, and I'm very happy to watch things that do that.
**We're alternating this with Breaking Bad, which otherwise I find too stressful. Nearly at the end of season three of TNG, and most of the way through season one of Breaking Bad.
***Julie got to hear it first. Sometimes, being married to someone with editing skills is incredibly useful.
So I made dinner, and we spent a couple of hours on the sofa, watching the Big Bang Theory season opener, and then I mopped the few bits of the hall she'd been too tired to finish, and then she crawled into bed and we watched an episode of "Don't trust the bitch in apartment 23"*, and one of TNG** before Julie fell asleep.
And then I surfed the web very quietly next to her for half an hour. And then I turned out the light and lay there for about an hour. And then I got up, because my brain does _not_ want to settle.
When we were in Wales recently we visited a coal mine and heard about the mine horses. They would be kept underground for 50 weeks out of the year, hauling coal back and forth, sleeping deep under the surface. And then, for two weeks a year, they would be brought up to the surface, and left in a field while they were checked over, treated and reshoed, etc. And for the first few days they were quite, quite mad.
That's how my brain feels right now. And it's not even about Julie. While her cancer hangs over us in the background, the main way it affects me on a day-to-day basis is by compressing each day. I want to spend time with her when possible, and to make her as comfortable and happy as I can, which tends to remove time from other things. But if I wasn't currently in the middle of implementing a major bit of functionality at work, managing a team that's co-ordinating process improvements, and helping organise a conference for all 600-odd members of the IT department then it probably wouldn't be quite so stressful.
To be honest, it is pretty-much under control - I tried out my speech on a few people over the last few days and they all loved it***, I'm down to two defects on the project work, and the major delivery I have to make for the process-improvement team just got sign-off from our leadership. By the end of next week things should be a lot less busy. Which may, actually, be why my brain is refusing to shut up - it has less to worry about, but is still dashing in all directions, an engine pushing against nothing.
So I'm back out of bed again, and writing on Livejournal. Which I keep meaning to update more, but just don't seem to have the concentration for at the moment. I only reached this point because my brain started writing the post while I was in bed, and I had half of it written in my head before my fingers hit the keyboard.
*sigh*
I shall now faff for half an hour, and see if there's anything else my brain wants to do before it's willing to be put to bed...
*James Van Der Beek does an amazing job of sending himself up in this show. It's by no means the most entertaining comedy ever, but it frequently surprises me, and I'm very happy to watch things that do that.
**We're alternating this with Breaking Bad, which otherwise I find too stressful. Nearly at the end of season three of TNG, and most of the way through season one of Breaking Bad.
***Julie got to hear it first. Sometimes, being married to someone with editing skills is incredibly useful.
