THE DAILY DIVERSION

IS THIS REALLY SPRING?

With the way the weather has been these first two days of spring I've been thinking it's still winter. I know, I shouldn't complain about 50 degree weather in mid-March, but it's already been in the 70's a couple of times. Also, it's just dreary. It's been rainy and cold in the mornings, which makes it so difficult to crawl out of bed. It doesn't help that I've been exhausted from packing and getting ready to move.

Anyway, I had a new song in my head this morning. I also had one I've already had before, so I'll make a little mention of it. So, here we go...

Song of the day #1: "Shine" by Collective Soul from Hints, Allegations, and Other Things Left Unsaid.

Good song. It's kind of old now, but still pretty nice. I've been thinking about my boo a lot lately. I can't wait for her to get down here on Thursday. The days can't go by fast enough! Anyway, this is a song that she wanted me to get for her so she could put it as a ringtone on her phone. I think it was just my way of thinking about her.

Song of the day #2: "Cold (but I'm Still Here)" by Evans Blue from The Melody and the Energetic Nature of Volume.

I know exactly where this one came from. It really has nothing to do with the song though. It's been amazingly cold in my apartment. So much so that it's starting to drive me nuts. I've got the heat on 75, but the windows aren't sealed very well, so they create a horrible draft. My bedroom feels no warmer than 55 degrees at any time during the day. It's like a meat locker at night. I woke up several times last night shivering, so I finally grabbed another comforter and put it on the bed. My heating bills have been pretty high this winter, and I only have an electric heater. Imagine if I was using gas? I'd be in the poor house!

I don't remember my dream from last night. I did when I originally woke up this morning, but I fell back asleep. I need to quit doing that, especially when it's after 7 am when I first wake up. I think part of it was waking up so much throughout the night (see above). So, I'll talk about something else this morning.

I've never been a sound sleeper, for as long as I can remember anyway. I don't know how I ever sleep deep enough to dream, so that's even crazier.

When I was a kid my Mom drove a Ford LTD. Remember, this was back before these silly seat belt laws and "child seats". I could sleep in a car like it was nothing. If it was just Mom and I, I would rest my head on her lap and sleep that way. If my Sister (or anyone else for that matter) was with us, I'd crawl into the floorboard of the back seat (where it had the big "hump" for the drive train) and I'd sleep with my belly on the "hump". I don't know what happened to those days, because I can't so much as close my eyes when I'm in a car, unless I'm absolutely exhausted, and even then it's tough to not be aware of my surrounding.

Maybe I've gotten paranoid in my "old" age? I'm not sure, but it's rolled over into my regular sleep too. It seems like I sleep with one eye open all the time, and I hear everything. Both of these things lead to not very restful sleep, nightly.

When I first moved down here my sleep was okay. However, downtown is pretty brightly lit at night, and there is a ton of noise, all the time. I've tried a couple of things, but to no avail. Like the little girl I am, I bought one of those sleep masks that you always see rich people wear on TV or in the movies. Mine was black satin! Ooh, so sexy!! Actually, my fiancee got it for me, and she hates it. She thinks I'm a big dork for wearing it, and believes I should wake up when nature tells me too.

Well, honey, when it always looks like it's daylight in your bedroom, that doesn't work. However, I've weaned my way off it. I haven't used it since back before Christmas, and I've slept pretty good.

Now, onto killing the sound. I bought some earplugs, but I was always worried I wouldn't hear my alarm clock, so I can't sleep with them in for very long, due to worrying about oversleeping. So, I brought those to work! (I'll discuss that later). I ended up buying a little cool mist humidifier (Yeah, like you need even more humidity down here in Memphis!). This nice little piece of equipment puts out a perfect little "purr" all night long, which drowns out all of the street noise, sans the garbage trucks destroying the bins they pick up. There's nothing that can soften the blow of the "WHAM! WHAM!" sounds those things make. Yes, they like doing it at 3 in the morning too, so that's always fun to wake up to.

So, I've partially solved my sleeping problems. I usually sleep a few hours nightly. Some nights it's a battle to get to sleep, no matter how tired I am. It seems that I'm absolutely worthless in the mornings, which is why I'm usually late to work, and can't get any "real" work accomplished until after 10 am (so I usually write this in the morning). However, my brain is cranking out the hits at 11 pm, every single day. If you were to call me and ask me for the cure to cancer or for peace in the middle east at that time, I could probably come up with a good solution. My brain just works that well at night, unless I'm drinking, then it works even better. Just ask my fiancee!!

I said I'd come back to the point about bringing my earplugs to work with me. There's a really good reason for that. The guy that's in the office next to mine (actually, we're a cube farm, but I like to think I have my own office. There's only one actual office on the floor and my boss's boss occupies it) has to be the loudest person on earth. Now, realize, I'm a pretty loud person myself, but I know how to tune down for certain things, especially in the office, where other people are trying to work also. Well, I don't believe he has the ability to realize this, like the rest of us on the floor. The sad thing is he's been "talked to" about it multiple times. Still no change. It really wouldn't be that bad, if he didn't use his speakerphone 99% of the time. You always feel like you have to talk a little bit louder when your talking to someone on speakerphone, so he's at a full bore yell.

It was so bad when we were on the 2nd floor (luckily he wasn't next to me then) that he was somewhat reprimanded over it. Let me explain the setup of the second floor first. The second floor was really only half of a floor. Part of the floor (where he was) overlooked our lobby, where the tellers and new account representatives take care of business. My office was across a little bridge tucked back in a corner. I'll talk about that crap-hole at a later date.

Anyway, he had a cube that wasn't right along the wall that overlooked the lobby. Truthfully, it was only a half-wall, and yes, if you screwed around, you could fall to your death in lobby of our bank. They've since put up a 3/4 wall that is made of sound proof glass, so it's still aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

Man, I'm getting off subject... Okay, so one day he's "yelling" at someone on speakerphone when his boss gets a call from the teller line (obviously this wasn't the first time his boss had received this call) telling him that the customers are all wondering what is going on and where the "shouting" is coming from. His boss has to actually take him into the conference room to have a "discussion" about the volume of his voice.

Let's just put it this way, the best days for me are the days where he's on vacation, he sick at home, or he's sick and can't talk. Those day's I actually have peace and quiet. I have a nice little speaker unit set up for my Ipod, and, in the old days on the second floor, I used to use it all the time. It was never loud enough to bother my neighbors, so it was cool. That does not work anymore, because he easily drowns out my speakers, and I don't want to turn it up so much that it bothers my co-worker who's on the other side of me. Instead, I've brought in my headphones, and I just listen to them all day. I hate sitting in my office with my headphones on when my boss walks up, but what choice do I have. It's gotten bad enough that my co-worker (2 spots down from him) has brought in his headphones too and wears them all day.

Such is life on the farm!