Red alert
Fell asleep to an owl crying like an audible beacon through inky-black silence. Woke up at 2.15am to a nauseating stench violating the stillness. Sat up straight in bed, switched on the bedside lamp for fear of treading in a pool of cat wee or a dismembered rotting creature and followed my nose into the hall, into the bathroom, back into the hall, through to the kitchen. Searched for telltale signs in the corner where the matriarch once succumbed to a bout of gastric flu. It was winter, the night was cold and the tiles warm and well… you can imagine the rest. Lost the scent and returned to the bedroom, where it accosted me again like an olfactory furnace. Scoured every square centimetre of the floor and under the bed for evidence, prodded the LDR awake purely out of spite, because I knew he’d say “I can’t smell anything. Turn off the light and go back to sleep.” He did. Got back into bed, curled up, nested head into pillow and fell asleep almost immediately. Woke up in the same position to cold crisp clean air. Wondered whether I’d imagined the whole thing.
I’ll be sharing a bed with Maria the weekend after next. I’m a popular bedfellow with most of the people I’ve shared with: they invariably report that I’m a neat sleeper, requiring little space. I don’t move a lot, they say, and never snore. I sometimes talk in my sleep, in a language no one understands. It’s fortunate that I sleep small: the LDR sleeps big. He has a tendency to kick and hit out without warning. That’s why the boy cat, not usually such a quick learner, sleeps between my feet rather than his. I instinctively sleep with my face turned away.
I miss my old blog, and the blog before that. I wish I’d stayed at Squarespace and hadn’t deleted them. There’s a link to a website in a post from last December that I need and can’t locate. (I might have stumbled across it a couple of months ago, but couldn’t figure out how to unzip it. Oh, and my C drive is showing up red and I think my laptop is on its last legs - this is unfortunate, because I don’t have the spare funds for a new one right now. It might turn me into someone who goes into an office to work, which would mean I’d have to find the self-discipline to work like a normal person or spend evenings and early mornings there, which I don’t fancy.) It’s got me wondering, not for the first time, why I’m so careless with my own words. I cherish and collect others’ words and treat my own like yesterday’s news (which of course they are). So just know that if I read you, I do so because I find enjoyment and wisdom in yours. Mine don’t count.
