I don't feel well.
A big part of this is that last night, I once more dealt with a crippling bout of insomnia. I was exhausted, but I just couldn't sleep. Like, really couldn't. Not even with Daisy here. I'd doze off for ten or fifteen minutes at a time before I'd wake back up, completely wide-awake again. The cats aren't a great help in this scenario either, as with the three of them alone they sleep in the most awkward positions and places on the bed as it is, and with the three of them and Daisy here, they pick the worst places possible to try to sleep. They mean well, of course -- they just want to sleep with us and be with us, and I know that, but it can still be a pain in the ass at times. One time during the night, I awoke to find Pete sleeping between our heads, with the top of his head against my chin and his nose pressing into my beard and neck. Make no mistake -- this is fucking adorable -- but this is just one example of the bizarre places the cats sleep when Daisy is here as well.
I eventually fell asleep for good at some point. I don't know when, but it wasn't for longer than about two hours at the most. Monday and Wednesday nights are rough for me, and Wednesdays much more so because I teach at night, then have to get up early again in the morning to go back in and teach again. At least on Mondays, if I know I'm going to have trouble sleeping, I can take a sleeping pill and go to bed before it's dark outside. On Wednesday nights I don't have that option -- it's more like "get home from class, eat quickly, go to bed."
Of course, last night wasn't the typical Wednesday night, either, since Daisy was coming down.
As I wrote yesterday, Daisy planned to leave the house and time it so that she arrived here around the same time I got home from my night class, which would allow us to be able to eat a quick dinner and then we could go to bed at the same time. This is important, as regardless of what time she arrived, I still had to go to bed and be able to get enough sleep to get back up this morning without issue to teach my morning 102 class. She turned around her sleeping schedule this week so that she could sleep at night with me, as she knew that two of the 3.5 days she was going to be here would be days that I'm teaching (that's just her schedule vs. my schedule; not much can be done about that). However, since she operates on Daisy Standard Time, as predicted, she left the house late -- around 6PM. This meant that at the earliest, she wouldn't get here until about 11PM. Throw in unpacking and putting away groceries (which she always brings) and cooking something for dinner, and I was looking at not getting to bed until around 1...when I get up at 5.
As a brief aside, people ask me why I get up so early in the morning when I don't usually have to, and I tell them the truth: it's because I physically need that time to get up and actually be awake. I'm not one of those people who can roll out of bed, throw on clothes and jump in the car, and I never have been. I'm near-constantly sleep-deprived, and when I have to wake up in an unnatural way (such as by an alarm clock or what have you) it is a shock to my system. My brain needs time, coffee, and cigarettes to wake up. That's just how I work. Once my brain is awake and I have enough caffeine in me to force my body to function and go about its daily tasks -- something my body in no way wants to do naturally -- only then can I make it through the day without wanting to kill myself or someone else. This is why, on my days off, I can and will sleep for twelve hours straight sometimes, especially if I'm under a lot of stress/pressure and/or it's really cold outside. Both of those scenarios have been constants as of late, as you know.
Anyway. She apologized, of course, and I told her it was fine -- but that I would absolutely be eating something before she got here, because I hadn't eaten anything all day and wasn't going to wait until after midnight to have my only meal of the day. She said that was understandable, and got something to eat as well. I told her I'd wait up for her regardless, as I knew (and I was right) that she'd have her suitcase, the cooler with cold groceries, and bags upon bags of other stuff to bring into the house as well, and that she'd need my help to get it all inside.
With that, I got a shower and got dressed, and half-begrudgingly went to class. I was already tired for the day -- Tuesday, as you know, had been really long, and I don't remember what time I went to bed on Tuesday night. I'd slept until around noon or so yesterday, but even though I woke up naturally, it still wasn't enough. So, even for many of my waking hours yesterday, I was somewhat out-of-it.
Class was fine; I hadn't taught my 210 students in two weeks, as you know, since last week the school shut down because of the snow (and rightfully so). The lesson plan for last night was pretty simple -- collect the two assignments they'd been saving for me and give them their next one, show them the topics and how to do it/what I expect from them for it (it's a "business letter"), and then dismiss. Those students are cool, they're on-the-ball, and they're nice. In that class, I make no bones about how simple and straightforward the work is, and what they need to do for it. The books, the assignments, and my lesson plans lay it all out on the table for them. Many different majors require English 210 because it's so versatile and useful in many different fields -- all of the business majors, criminal justice majors, accounting majors, etc have to take it -- and there are a ton of those students at the university, so it's not like the class will ever have a shortage of students. I guarantee you that if I taught that class on the main campus this semester, I'd have a full 25 instead of 8.
Anyway. Since the class is so simple to teach and it lays their work out for them quite easily, it's always a breeze -- in and out in about an hour, even when the class is scheduled to be almost three hours long. I've always told my students in all of my classes (but especially the night classes, and even more especially the night classes on West campus, where most of the students are non-traditional older students and are coming straight from work -- the classic "night school" stereotype) that I will never keep them in a classroom any longer than all of us need to be there -- I'm not the guy who will stand in the front of the room just to hear himself talk in order to fill time for three hours. No, if I've covered everything I need to cover for the day, and they've been given their assignment? We're done. I always use the phrase "my time is just as valuable as yours." Could I, if I wanted to, stand up there and read out of the book on how to craft/write the perfect business letter or memo or cover letter or what have you for three hours? Sometimes, maybe, I could. But telling students, some of them who are old enough to be my parents, how to write a business letter when most of them already work in a business field or an office setting anyway, and have been quite familiar with it for most of their professional lives? It's needless. Last night's class lasted forty minutes, and from the work I collected and glanced at as I collected it, these students do indeed know what they're doing and how to do it. I spent more time driving to and from campus than I did in front of the room. Usually it's about the same, or a little more skewed to time in front of the room. For the first half of 210, however, the class is pretty much on autopilot -- turn in your last assignment, here's your new one, here's how to do it, it's due next week, see you then.
I was not expecting, however, the messages I received when I returned home:
Um so I'm fine but I'm going to die earlier I was almost in a car wreck I just called my mother solving I'll tell you about it when I see you I'm fine I'm driving still love you
From Daisy. Shortly after I left the house. WTF. This was followed by another message from her shortly before I got back:
Take two: I'm in York now. I was using talk to text earlier. I got shaken up earlier and called my mom bawling is what I meant to say-- I miscalculated, went up over the medium, hit a pole, and spun my car.My neck and muscles hurt.I'm fine though.I hope class went okay.Love.
I didn't really know how to respond to that. Daisy's a good driver -- I've spent countless hours in the car with her over the almost two years we've been together now, to the point where she's the only person where I'd feel comfortable letting drive me someplace while I napped in the passenger seat (I don't nap in the car, but you get what I'm saying). Like me, she'd never had a car accident. But getting messages like that obviously sends me into a bit of panic mode, seeing as I've never had a car accident, but I've been in two or three (mostly) minor ones over the years, and, y'know, I know many people who have been killed in car accidents, including my sister.
I told her I was glad she was okay and asked if the car was damaged at all, as she drives a really nice, relatively new Hyundai (relatively is the keyword here, as my Monte Carlo is eighteen years old). She lost her passenger side mirror somehow, though she thinks it was there when she checked over the car after the incident, so she thinks it fell off while she was driving. Other than that, aside from a dented and slightly bent front license plate and very minor bending/scrapes on the lower part of the car's grille, there's not a mark or blemish anywhere else on the car. I looked myself once she got here around midnight or so. I told her that she was really lucky that the pole she hit (which was one of those mile-marker-like metal poles that have reflectors on them in the median for better visibility for drivers) didn't fly up and damage the lights, the windshield, take out her oil pan or anything else like that on the car. She said Dad asked her if she was leaking any fluids and had her check, and she didn't think she was.
"If you were leaking any fluids," I said, "you more than likely wouldn't have made it here, because they would've run dry or run low enough to put all the dashboard warning lights on in the car to let you know."
I'm sort of an expert on leaking or burning off fluids in a car, since the Monte Carlo burns through a quart of oil or so every two months, roughly, and even when the tank and radiator are completely full, the "low coolant" light is always on in my car when it's really cold or really hot outside. The Monte Carlo leaks oil a bit as well, though not all the time -- again, it's old. If its engine gets warm enough and there's enough coolant in the radiator to hit the overflow valve, it'll drip a little antifreeze occasionally as well. It used to do both a lot worse before I had all the work done to it.
More than that, with the way she told the story, I think it's remarkable she didn't blow out a tire, bend an axle, throw off her alignment, or even throw a wheel cover. She doesn't know how the mirror came off, or how she struck the pole to make it come off, but I told her on newer cars like hers, the mirrors are breakaway mirrors anyhow -- they're designed to come off cleanly if they're hit. My car's not like that. If something takes off my mirror, I need an entirely new door panel (since it's attached).
"I've just never misjudged a distance like that before," she said. "I don't know what happened. I was up in the median, and I felt the car tip up and I was hitting the pole and..." she trailed off. "That car has really good handling."
She's right, it does. So smooth.
"Sometimes these things happen, babe," I said. "Nobody's perfect. Your car probably 'tipped up,' and it has good handling because...well, it's light. It's a newer car. Most of its body panels, bumpers, etc...they're molded plastic. My Monte Carlo, since it's old, is all steel. All of it, with the exception of the bumpers and the spoiler. Its dry weight, without any gas or fluids or anything in it? 3,330 pounds. That's more than a ton and a half, love. Your car doesn't weigh anything near that. It's a feather in comparison."
Of course, after I said that, this morning I did a search on the dry weight of her exact car -- same model, same year -- because I was curious...and it was 3,292 pounds. So maybe there's more metal in that car than I thought. Far be it from me not to admit when I'm wrong.
She was pretty shaken up, obviously. I don't blame her; I would have been too. We got all of her stuff inside and put away the groceries, then almost immediately went to bed. It was probably 1AM before we even got downstairs to go to bed, though I don't exactly remember; while I was physically exhausted, I was quite mentally awake...which is why I fought my insomnia (mostly unsuccessfully) all night long.
The weather is changing too, obviously. Slowly but surely, anyway. It was 37 yesterday afternoon, and sunny -- a lot of the snow and ice began melting off. Today it's supposed to be about ten degrees warmer, and by the weekend it's going to be in the high 50s and low 60s again. Of course, when the weather changes, it sets my allergies off, and I end up spending most of the day coughing, sneezing, and nose-blowing.
While Daisy is downstairs sleeping now (she came upstairs briefly when I got up) and will sleep through my class this morning, we have a somewhat long and/or interesting day ahead of us once I return home from West campus...regardless of how tired I may be. Normally on Thursdays, I'll come home, eat something, and go back to bed. I can't do that today; today, we have to go deal with my paycheck stuff and pick up some grocery items. I'm going to cash my check first (because, regardless of what I do with it otherwise, it still needs to be cashed) and then we're going to try the Western Union thing. I'll check MoneyGram at Walmart to see if they can send money directly to a bank account like Western Union can, but if they can't, I'll just use Western Union and see if I can do it that way. Then, this afternoon, we're planning to go on our "movie date" for Valentine's Day, doing it today to beat the rush of people who would do it tomorrow, before having a quiet romantic dinner at home tonight.
No, we don't yet know what movie we're going to see. As much as I'd love to go see the Robocop remake, I doubt she'd be into it.
"All I want to do on Valentine's Day is cuddle," she told me last night. I'm fine with that. Aside from making a meal, that's all that's really on the docket for tomorrow anyway.
As for her replacement engagement ring, it has not arrived yet. Today's the first day of the "estimated delivery" date for it, though that doesn't really mean anything. I still don't have tracking for it, so we wait.
Apparently, Dad sent down a ton of pants in my size for me to see if I wanted them -- he's lost weight and they're too big for him, but no matter how much weight I've gained or lost over the years, I've always had the same waist size in pants since I was in middle school -- 42. Hell, I still own and wear some pants I bought in middle school/high school, especially a few pairs of shorts I bought during that time. I have a remarkable amount of clothing from my younger years that I still wear; for example, today I'm teaching in my Eagles "Hotel California" t-shirt...which my mother bought me for my 18th birthday. I turn 32 this year. So, I'll look through Dad's pants and see what I find; whatever I don't want or need will be donated to charity anyhow, and (ironically) today I'm already wearing a pair of shoes the man gave me over Thanksgiving when I was up in Omaha.
So, on that note, I bid you good folks adieu until my next post. I have to finish getting ready, as I'll leave the house in about half an hour (quietly, mind you). I'll let you know what happens with the paycheck thing and what movie we go see.
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