Up early...

I'm up early this morning. I think after going to bed so early last night, and despite being up in the middle of the night, I'm ready to be awake now and start the day. As a matter of fact, I feel in a jolly good mood and I can't wait to get the show on the road. It is with pleasure that I sit here and drink my coffee. I will be fun to hop in the shower and get dressed and walk Tyke while it is still dry, though I will keep my fingers crossed, because it looks like it is going to rain any minute now.

I'm sitting here in my tank top and not much else, because it is warm in the apartment and I haven't got the back door open yet. I will in awhile and open the kitchen window too. It should cool off quite a bit then, but it is too early to do that now. It is barely light outside and the sky looks threatening. We are expecting rain today and if it rained like it did yesterday, it will be another deluge. It came down in buckets as if it was a tropical monsoon and there were big puddles in the street.

I'm expecting the Exfactor today and I'm looking forward to that, because I haven't seen him since last week on Tuesday. It will be nice to sit and have a cup of coffee with him and have a chat, although our chats can be very boring and be about nothing important at all, but about motorcycles and his work. I'll have to give a different twist to them and talk about politics and vegetarianism and the bio-industry. That ought to make it more interesting. He is also going to do the groceries for me, so I can't make our talk too exhausting, otherwise he will not have the energy to do them.

The domestic help is also coming and I have to make sure I clean up the apartment before she comes. Now, that's not any real cleaning that I do, but just picking things up and generally getting things uncluttered and put away or thrown in the trash or the used paper box. I don't actually clean things before she comes, like in scrubbing the toilet or in dusting the furniture. That would be foolish.

I feel like dressing up today, but I think it's going to be too warm to wear many clothes. It's going to be 22C and inside it is warmer. I've washed some clothes and they should be dry now, so I have a lot to choose from. I like nothing better than wearing newly washed clothes, because of the nice scent of them. I do try to keep all of my clothes clean and do a load of laundry as soon as I have one. Sometimes I wash clothes just to get the nice scent back, even though they aren't dirty. I like it when I open my closet and my clothes smell good. When you smoke, that's hard to achieve. You always have a tendency to carry that smell of tar and nicotine with you.

Actually, 22C isn't all that warm, come to think of it. It's only about 71F, so that's not very warm at all. It's not like a heatwave.

The garbage men have been here, so that Monday morning ritual has been taken care off. They sure make a lot of noise early in the morning, but other than that they work quick and efficient. I hope they get paid well, because there must be nothing worse than dealing with trash all day long and than smelling it while dangling off the back of the truck all the time, especially when it's hot and the trash smells rancid.

On that socialist note I'm off to take a shower. I will walk Tyke first and breathe in the early morning air. It looks like it will be dry for a while yet.

Have a good day!

Ciao,
Nora

After midnight...

I went to sleep real early last night, it was still light outside, but I didn´t care. I was yawning and tired and ready to go to bed. I couldn´t think of a better place to be and all I could think about was how nice it would be to stretch out under the duvet and read my book. It had rained all evening, sometimes very fiercely, and I hoped it would keep on raining during the night. No such thing happened, though, and now it is only lightly cloudy, but it is still 20C outside and warm.

Needless to say. because I went to sleep so early, I woke up after midnight and was wide awake again. That´s when my sleeping pill stops working. I should say, my fall asleep pill, because that´s all it is. I won´t get real sleepy again now for a few hours and then go back to bed. You could say that I´ve had a long nap.

I googled my boots and found a picture of them, but they were the wrong color and didn´t look nearly as elegant as they are, so I´m not going to post it after all. Maybe I will take a photo of them when I get them tomorrow. I can take pictures of Tyke and Gandhi at the same time and post them too. You will finally get to see what Tyke looks like with his short haircut.

Every once in awhile a dark thought crosses my mind. It is like a dark cloud crossing in front of the sun. It only lasts for a minute and then it is gone again, but for that minute I am steeped in moroseness and I am reminded of what it is like to be depressed. I hope these dark thoughts are not harbingers of a depression and I´m trying to treat them lightly and not take them too seriously.

I do want to be alert to the signs, though, and not be taken unawares. They are increasing in occurrence and that´s what I want to prevent from happening. I may have them due to circumstances. I am the support system of my younger sister, who wants advice, but who will listen to none of it and keeps making the same mistakes over and over again, no matter how much input I give her. I´m now to the point where I want to withdraw my support and let her find her way on her own. This is a hard decision to make, though, but I´m disheartened enough to make it.

I never want my mental health to be dependent on that of other people´s. It can´t be so that I have to pay the price for the foolishness of other people´s actions. I´m sure that it´s not how it´s meant to be. I do think we should help each other, but when it stops being help and turns into an exercise in futility, you have to stop putting in the energy and the effort.

I don´t know if this is the cause of my dark thoughts. I may have them all on my own regardless of this. It may be that time of year when it is approaching autumn. The weather sure has been like it and the days are getting shorter, especially with the rainy days. I have to turn the lights on early in the apartment, gloomy as it is when the sun doesn´t shine.

Tyke has misplaced his tennis ball and I can´t find it anywhere. I have been on my hands and knees looking under all the furniture, but it has disappeared. I´ve been in every room. He keeps coming to me asking for it, but I have no idea where it is. It´s very frustrating and I hope he finds it himself, but he is as stumped as I am. He loves that ball and I should get some more.

I think it´s time to go back to bed. I´m ready now. I´ll get myself a glass of milk and be off.

Have a good morning when you get up.

Ciao,
Nora