A friend called me at 9:30 last night. I had to take my cpap mask off, and completely wake up to get the call. My heart rate leapt into the Empyrean, as it always does when the phone rings and it’s pitch dark. Has one of the fOlks suddenly taken ill? Is one of my children trying to get a lawyer subsequent to an incident of some kind? As I settled into dealing with the fact that I was now awake, my friend said, “Oh I’ll just let you get back to sleep then.” And she hung up.
This is a person who is familiar with my current sleep wake cycle.
Just so we’re clear, her error was not in calling me. My friends know they can call me, because I’ve said so, repeatedly. Her error was completely waking me up, rejecting my offer to communicate and denying my agency to do so because ‘I was already asleep’, and then hanging up on me. This filled me with a bilious fury and disgust during which I reviewed whether I even want this person as a friend at all, despite everything we’ve been through. As the night crawled on, I consoled myself with the thought that with any luck I’ll be given the opportunity to wake her up on the eve of an important event and completely screw her sleep cycle, but be too polite and thoughtful to actually, you know, do it.
I have an interview today and I didn’t get back to sleep until after one, and I was so messed up I couldn’t put the mask back on, so I’m underoxygenated and underslept. Jeff advised a nap, I’ll see if I can.
What a thing it is to have friends. I wish they would find other ways to test our friendship than messing with the few blissful hours each day during which I have no pain, and no worries, but when I think of how many people have no friends at all, I know I’m being quite unreasonable. Not everybody lives in a household where sleep is sacred, and I can’t expect the world to conform to my needs.
Finally done with the address to the troops, now comes the stitchery to put the second part together and a push to get 4-6000 words for the goodbyes and the beautiful crowning achievement that the whole book has worked towards, which will completely turn to dreck in the first two paragraphs of the sequel.
I got reddit gold a couple of weeks ago for a comment. Maybe two people who read this will care. It was about childlessness by choice.
I found the extension for my Mac charger. Life is somewhat more convenient. See what cleaning your room can do?
