It's late...

It's late and I should have packed up and gone to bed.  In a minute, or five, I will. But I want a little moan first, and I think I need to do some explaining, too.

I'm struggling at the moment.  Ever since the 'flu I have been having terrible trouble getting to sleep, and sleeping really badly when I do.  I've tried herbal teas, I've tried valerian, I've tried a bunch of other things including some I possibly shouldn't talk about in a public forum.  I've read relaxing books and watched relaxing ballet and relaxing soppy movies.  I've gone out, I've stayed in; gone to bed extra-early; gone to bed extra-late.  No good.  Work is busy and I'm post-viral tired anyway, and this is just the living end, it really is.

Then, just to cap that, I'm struggling with the writing as well.  I'm working through the revising and typing up of "Gold Hawk".  I had a real battle to get through chapter thirteen, in which a character I'm fond of dies; now I'm working on chapter fourteen, in which we find out about something rather important and hopefully a bit harrowing that happened five years ago. 

I knew when I wrote it that the first draft for this bit really, as they say in the States, sucked.  I ploughed on and did the best I could at the time, and promised myself I'd get it into shape when typing-up time came.  But it is proving a real stinker.  So much so that I am playing about with anything else I can find, procrastinating, trying not to face it again.  I've written quite a good totally new short story (love-at-first-sight among post-apocalyptic crazy Highlanders, anyone?) in the gaps between tearing my hair over what really happened to David and Andrew Maple in the St George's Day terror attack in Cambridge.  Which never happened.

I can't make up my mind whether I need to take a complete break and give myself some space, try to get my head clear, come back to this in a week or two; or whether I need to plough on, fight through it, one way or another.  I can't make my mind up.  And I'm tired.

Moan over.  Tomorrow is Friday, which is one good thing, anyway.

Getting over the 'flu, slowly

I have been off work for a week with 'flu.  I went back on Tuesday, and haven't exactly been enjoying it as I still feel mortally washed-out and rubbery-legged.  But I'm terribly behind on all my stuff, just as my job starts to get into the busy time of year.  So I am putting my head down and getting on with it.  By five pm today I felt as though my frontal lobes had been replaced with large pieces of carefully folded felt.  CLRDUGGG UGH UGH... >staggers across Kew Green in the dusk like a lonely zombie<

I crept home, made an easy supper, and have spent the evening listening to music and chatting to TC on the 'phone.  TC is stressed, and I don't think I was brain-equipped enough to be much help.  Last night I watched two ballet dvds both of which I've seen a dozen times before - Alina Cojocaru being divine in "Sleeping Beauty", Ed Watson being tormented and sexy in "Mayerling".  I hadn't the spirit even to watch a movie with dialogue - the need to disengage my brain is far too great for that.  The only other thing I do of an evening is muck about a bit on Tumblr, licking my lips over a bit of hunk-fetishisin' photo-bloggin' harmless sexist fun.  Very sad, you are becoming, Ims.

So tired...

Last night I had another of those weird dreams.  If the real-life people one dreamed about really did connect with one in those dreams, they'd be left feeling pretty freaked out of a morning, sometimes.  This one certainly startled me a bit, though it has since set me to thinking "This has the makings of a short story...".

I dreamed I was one of a crowd of people defending a tower house – like a Pictish castle or something in the Mani – from assault.  Jeremy Renner was among the attackers and he slung a stone at me with a slingshot, but bizarrely it looped right past me, quite slowly, and I managed to catch it.  I fell down in surprise and one of the other defenders thought I’d been hit and raised up a scream for vengeance.  I sat up to show him I was unhurt and looked over the parapet to mock at Mr Renner - you know the routine, “Nah-nah-nahnahnah, you can’t hit me with your shitty sling, California boy!” - but when he saw me looking down at him, alive and uninjured, he looked incredibly happy and relieved; and I realised he hadn’t ever intended to hurt me at all.

So what the hell does that mean? 

And what will I dream tonight, I wonder?!

And it's Friday again already...

Actually my excuse this time is that I was off work sick (foul 'fluey bug) for several days. Very unwise of me as a new girl to be ill, but there was no way I was coming in to Kew - I could hardly make it as far as the kitchen (one floor down) last weekend. Greatly relieved to feel more or less myself again by today; I know one can take well over a week to recover from 'flu. Good news at work is that Julie has been replaced (well, in so far as the irreplaceable can ever be - oh, dear, no, that sounds as if she snuffed it whereas all she's really done is go to Durham). So when Roxana gets back from her long weekend off we'll have a full team in Visitor Info again.
However, my creative activities over the last week have been limited to sewing, which one can do sitting up in bed fairly easily. I've cannibalised a baggy sweater and made from it a sweater that fits me, and have nearly finished doing the same to a cotton suntop for next year. And I strung some beads. Strenuous stuff. Apart from that I have read a great deal, which is always good even when the circumstances are horrible; a Dorothy L Sayers I picked up for 50 pence at a Lifeboat Station Open Day books-and-junk-stall, a guide to Cuba and a fascinating book by a guy called Phil Cousineau about the philosophy of pilgrimage.
The washing machine still hadn't been fixed when I left for work this morning - that's three and a half weeks now of handwashing my socks and underwear - good thing I'm not squeamish (or leaky). I'm not used to it any more, though I've done plenty of it in my time, mostly many years ago when a student, in digs with no washing machine and no local laundrette.
Have drafted some material for my putative Creativity magazine but am now wondering if I was barking to moot the idea in the first place, as no-one I asked for input or suggestions has got back to me at all. Not even to say "You're barking." Hmmm. Watch this space. I'm sure every creative innovator has moments of terrible self doubt (says she, attempting to aggrandise a very unimportant issue). But after all, it may have been a really silly idea...
Hoping all are well; have a good weekend.