The Price of Democracy
Posted: 23 Apr 2004, 15:16
I was fifteen minutes late to work today. Luckily my boss is stationed too far away at some conference thingy to notice, but a conscience can be a weapon of self-destruction when unleashed on a sleep-deprived, caffeine-free Friday (and St. George's Day, apparently).
Why sleep-deprived, you ask? Well, it didn't start out that way I can assure you. Last night was of the mild and balmy kind--we've had a string of those lately, so I left my window open to savour the breeze. My windows face the back garden, directly beneath a sizeable wooden deck replete with fashionably plastic deck furniture. Having fallen asleep at the wheel--book in hand, The Clash blaring from the stereo, light curiously off; old age is a right bitch when one slows enough to be caught by it--I proceeded to dream long of houses and sunshine.
Leaving me to rest for a minute: the back story goes that one of my housemates (sweet girl, bit of a slob) tends to bring home neighborhood strays on occasion, providing food, water, and my couch to sleep on for a night. She generally refers to them as 'friends,' and as I have seen some repeat offenders in recent months, who am I to question?
I was awoken about 1:30am--stereo quiet, book wrapped in sheets like a dreamtime birthday present--by the sounds of loud talking and plastic deck furniture being dragged to and fro across the wooden deck directly above my window. Still half asleep, I surmised it was a be-kind-to-strays night, unwrapped the book and threw it on the floor, and rolled over and went back to a now fitful, disturbed sleep.
At approximately 3am I was jarred awake by a familiarly loud voice saying, 'The thing about Bush and Cheney....' Now, I was willing to let it go before, but no one wakes me up with political discussions in the middle of the morning on a school night when they don't even live in my gawddamn house. I rushed (well, stumbled--I have bad eyesight) up the stairs, flung open the door to the back garden, truned my face in the general direction of a couple of human-shaped blurs and asked them--very nicely, I thought--to bring their 'party' inside, i.e., not directly outside my open window.
So instead of listening to politics, I got to listen to two grown boys stomping around on my ceiling for another forty-five minutes ('Oh sorry...we thought we were being quiet'). And I don't know about you, but once I get out of bed it takes me hours to get back to sleep. So that was pretty much the end of my night, hence my difficulty in rising for work at 7am. And I just can't shake the suspicion that I could have handled this much more efficiently, allowing myself to get a decent night's sleep, and into work on time.
For future reference, I ask my fellow Heartlanders: what should I have done?
Why sleep-deprived, you ask? Well, it didn't start out that way I can assure you. Last night was of the mild and balmy kind--we've had a string of those lately, so I left my window open to savour the breeze. My windows face the back garden, directly beneath a sizeable wooden deck replete with fashionably plastic deck furniture. Having fallen asleep at the wheel--book in hand, The Clash blaring from the stereo, light curiously off; old age is a right bitch when one slows enough to be caught by it--I proceeded to dream long of houses and sunshine.
Leaving me to rest for a minute: the back story goes that one of my housemates (sweet girl, bit of a slob) tends to bring home neighborhood strays on occasion, providing food, water, and my couch to sleep on for a night. She generally refers to them as 'friends,' and as I have seen some repeat offenders in recent months, who am I to question?
I was awoken about 1:30am--stereo quiet, book wrapped in sheets like a dreamtime birthday present--by the sounds of loud talking and plastic deck furniture being dragged to and fro across the wooden deck directly above my window. Still half asleep, I surmised it was a be-kind-to-strays night, unwrapped the book and threw it on the floor, and rolled over and went back to a now fitful, disturbed sleep.
At approximately 3am I was jarred awake by a familiarly loud voice saying, 'The thing about Bush and Cheney....' Now, I was willing to let it go before, but no one wakes me up with political discussions in the middle of the morning on a school night when they don't even live in my gawddamn house. I rushed (well, stumbled--I have bad eyesight) up the stairs, flung open the door to the back garden, truned my face in the general direction of a couple of human-shaped blurs and asked them--very nicely, I thought--to bring their 'party' inside, i.e., not directly outside my open window.
So instead of listening to politics, I got to listen to two grown boys stomping around on my ceiling for another forty-five minutes ('Oh sorry...we thought we were being quiet'). And I don't know about you, but once I get out of bed it takes me hours to get back to sleep. So that was pretty much the end of my night, hence my difficulty in rising for work at 7am. And I just can't shake the suspicion that I could have handled this much more efficiently, allowing myself to get a decent night's sleep, and into work on time.
For future reference, I ask my fellow Heartlanders: what should I have done?
The old man in the apartment above mine is deaf and he likes to watch a 24 hrs a day news-channel before going to sleep, with the volume maxed. More often than not he falls asleep with the tv on, not hearing the loud noise himself. The sound of constant news-commercials-news-commercials travels down to me, all through the night. I can't bang on his door either, since he's deaf he won't hear me knocking. It's torture, but I try to solve the problem by ignoring it. It takes some practice but it works.
