Aw Diddums

Mood: More alert
Listening to: Ghost song in my head: 'Seasons in the Sun'

I've been busy editing - that's not an excuse, it's a reason. It disrupts the chain of thought and leaves little room for anything else. I did try writing this a few days in, but didn't have time to post it.

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"Will you be finished tonight?" enquired M.
"Only if the next report is a short little one," I said.
I opened it up and it had 60 pages, largely complex tables and forms. I tried updating the Table of Contents, just in passing, and Word froze up and had to be force-quitted.

I went all the way to Planet Zog and now I'm forcing myself home for a visit. All around me: clouds. can you see them? They're a bit white - not black and heavy. I'm deeply absorbed in editing and it's quite frightening. I'm vaguely aware I'm at my computer desk at Mum's, but it's the desk I used so much at home that I feel I'm back there in the little pink room at the corner by the fuchsia bush. The curtains were wide open and it was dark, and I thought - it was more a subconscious 'seep' than a thought - that all the neighbours and passers by would see me working there unless I broke off to close the drapes. Eventually I glanced up, and outside the long window were just treetops. Oh yes. No people.

Sometimes I believe I'm alone in the house and am disturbed to hear Mum's footfall in the background - even though she's been there all along and I knew about it. If she comes in, I'm not quite sure what she might be coming to talk to me about or if I'll be able to rally enough to pay attention, and the confusion throws my stomach into turmoil.

When I'm working, I don't know what time it is or where I am; I've forgotten to walk the dog next door, put the washing out, get food, watch The Eggheads (the clock has ticked on past). And when I do drag myself down to eat and watch The Eggheads, my thoughts are so much elsewhere I can barely comprehend what the questions are.

I woke up enough to observe CJ - I don't know what to make of him. I like him, and at the same time not really. I think he would be constantly shocked at my ignorance. I woke up even more when someone (not an Egghead) said Paddington was the Bear with Very Little Brain. In the very next quiz (or maybe the one after that) somebody said she had no interest in children's books - and suggested Mildred Hubble was from A Little Princess (I'm not sure I'm remembering right so it might have been another book - certainly not The Worst Witch).

I remarked to Mum that folk don't understand why I still read children's books, then they sail off to quizzes and are stumped when presented with questions every three-year-old knows the answer to. But now I'm as superior as CJ. I would be every bit as lost if asked about Eastenders or Coronation Street.

Sharky says he misses me. He come over from the sofa at the back of the room and paws me with increasing desperation. He says I'm not quite all there and he can't talk to me any more.

I need to sleep now, though things are just as bad there. Half asleep, I think about the sofa I'm lying on and the layout of the sitting room, then realize it's a proper bed, in a small bedroom upstairs. I'm still not where I think I am.

Just rolling over and going to sleep in that state of confusion is not good, and I need to get back in touch with the here and now. Hence the scrawled blog post at 2 a.m.