Better Than Dead

Random quote of the day:

“DAWN, n. The time when men of reason go to bed. Certain old men prefer to rise at about that time, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach, and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the others who have tried it.

—Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Bert and Ernie, Celine Dion, or the Band of the Coldstream Guards. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“I love sleep because it is both pleasant and safe to use. Pleasant because one is in the best possible company and safe because sleep is the consummate protection against the unseemliness that is the invariable consequence of being awake. What you don’t know won’t hurt you. Sleep is death without responsibility.”

—Fran Lebowitz, Metropolitan Life

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.”

—John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“The witchcraft of sleep divides with truth the empire of our lives.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Demonology”

 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“Well enough for old folks to rise early, because they have done so many mean things all their lives they can’t sleep anyhow.”

—Mark Twain, Notebook, 1866

 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day: 

“Even sleeping men are doing the world’s business and helping it along.”

—Herakleitos, quoted in 7 Greeks Translated by Guy Davenport

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“In all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless, wild-beast nature which peers out in sleep.”

—Socrates, The Republic, Book IX, tr. Benjamin Jowett

 

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

1. There has not been much to report except the same old same old so I haven’t reported.

2. I continue to poke at The Numberless Stars, my Old California fantasy. Not really writing. I’m poking online research, specifically about the El Camino Real and the Los Angeles River and stuff. I’m obsessed with learning as much as I can. Considering that the bulk of the novel has nothing to do with these things, it seems a bit excessive, BUT I maintain that knowing that stuff, whether I use it or not, enriches the story.

3. I’m the girl who once read three books and countless partials on Robert Clive’s India for what wound up being one paragraph in my novel, Blood Geek. BUT, I do think all that informed the character of Jeremy Jones, the hero, so it wasn’t a waste.

4. I did a trip count Monday on the miles I drive on Monday and Wednesday when I come to work, go home at lunch, pick up Mom, take her to dialysis, come back to work, finish my shift, go home to feed the cat, go to pick Mom up at dialysis and thence back home. 52.4 miles on these days. I knew it had to be significant because I really notice the difference in my gas tank. Thank the gods it’s only twice a week.

5. I really must stop waking up at 4 a.m. and not being able to get back to sleep. I’m usually a champion sleeper, but things have been screwy this week.

Why is it always 3 a.m. when the smoke detector starts beeping for a battery change?

And it’s not like you can ignore it. The sound isn’t as skull-numbing as the actual alarm, but it’s shrill and persistent. It keeps going and going and going…like the battery bunny, only it wants its fix, damn it. You better give it to me or else.

Min goes under the bed to hide and I stumble into the hall where it’s shree-peeping. I lumber out to where the batteries are kept, rummage until I find the right ones, then shuffle over to the step ladder. If I’d been fully cognizant, I would have gone for the step ladder first and just pulled the old battery out to shut it up, but my mind isn’t really functioning. I climb up, yank the old battery out, put the new one in and the damned thing still peeps several more times, as if giving me one last neener-neener-neener before I can go back to bed.

I fall back into bed, Min comes out of hiding, and we drift off again, feeling virtuous for accomplishing a mission even in 3 a.m. sleep-bedraggled state.

Until 4:35 a.m. When the @##$$%^&&&^!! thing starts peeping again. Min goes back under the bed.

Okay, this time I’m just mad. I am not a pleasant person when sleep deprived. I get the step ladder, I crawl up it and yank that wanker right off the wall. I’m standing in the hall and I’ve got it in my hand and I’m thinking of chucking it out the front door onto the lawn when I hear the peeping again.

From overhead.

It’s the carbon monoxide monitor which resides about five feet away from the smoke detector. I stumble back to the battery stash, get another battery, get back on the step ladder and, see, this is where things go seriously into the hash. I’ve got enough brain cells firing that I remember there’s a certain trickiness to changing the battery on the carbon monoxide monitor. The smoke detectors are easy. You just click the door open and the battery is right there, but pull and prod and poke as much as I can, the CM monitor will not open.

It does not cease from peeping though. Fool, I’ve beaten you. Hahahaha. And, btw, neener-neener-neener.

So I rip it off the wall. This time I seriously am going to throw it onto the lawn because I know I haven’t got the brain power to deal with the bastard. A tiny bit of adultness still left in the raging plain of blankness that is my mind persuades me to unlock the garage side door and place it on the workbench where I won’t have to listen to it. I go back to bed. When my alarm goes off at 5:45 I hit it several times before I manage to get out of bed. In the shower, when sufficient quantities of water have revived at least some of my higher cognitive abilities, I remember that you don’t open the CM monitor. You slide it up off its track to take it off the wall, flip it over, slide the panel off the back to reveal the battery compartment, and uh…

In the sitting room, the closest room in the house to the garage, I can still hear that piercing peep, and when I open the front door it’s screaming like some demon bird to be fed. Min has gone back under the bed. I go outside, make my apologies to the monitor, and change its battery. The peeping ceases. I now have two monitors which will have to be reattached to the wall, and while I’m at it, I think I’ll change the batteries in the other smoke detectors. Just in case.

You know, they encourage us to use the battery operated detectors rather than the hardwired ones because if there’s a fire in your electrical system, they’ll never go off and you’ll die a horrible death. So batteries are the logical way to go. But at 3 a.m. in a sleep-bedraggled state, that logic is a very hard sell indeed.