This evening I made lemon sugar cookies and wrapped up a pair of tiny, tiny pink baby shoes with ducklings to take to a baby shower for a workmate tomorrow night. Late last year she and I went out drinking with a few other workmates and ended up at the Dixon St toilets at 1am on a Friday morning, drunk off our faces and eating pies. In a few weeks, she's going to be a mum. I really like her and her partner—they're a really sweet couple who got together when she was 23 and he was 18—and I think they're going to be awesome at the parenthood thing. It's weird, though; she's by far the closest to me in age in my team (and, actually, she's 30, and there are maybe 5 staff members in the entire office in their 20s out of a staff of 85ish).

The lemon sugar cookies are really good.

I have been sleeping shittily for the past few weeks, getting about 6 hours sleep on worknights. I don't know. It takes me forever to get to sleep because my toes are cold or my nose is cold or I'm thinking about, like, the tragic/hilarious Mary-Sue of the Week and her life drama. And then I wake up every morning at twenty to seven when my alarm goes off, overheated and cranky. Sigh. I'm currently planning out my annual leave for the rest of the year. I've a week off in late August, during which I'm going to Auckland to visit my parents and jessikast, and with the 14 other days of leave I'm vaguely planning adventures.

I am downloading - have mostly downloaded - a semi-tragic dancing movie in which the dance of choice is burlesque. Part 4 has failed twice already, and now I am in the strange place of wanting to wait up until it has finished downloading just so I can see the scene which got cut off halfway through. It's probably going to take at least another hour. This isn't actually that good a plan.

So for dinner tonight I had a slice of banana cake with cream cheese icing and a bowl of gingernut icecream and a honey lolly that tamarillow gave me when I asked her very VERY politely and now I am TWITCHING WHEE and I have to go to bed soon so I can get up and go to work in the morning and I have a test on Friday and an assignment due on my freakin' 25th birthday which is pretty fucking shitty if you ask me but not as shitty as the time I graduated from university for the first time 4 days after I turned 20 I was pretty pissed off about that let me tell you and let me tell you something else: I still am. WHEE.

Secret: I love this icon. But I always feel bad about using it for main posts as a lot of people will have it show up on their flists and I don't want any of those people to think that I think that they're all sluts, either singularly or as a collective. It's like those tee-shirts that say "fuck off"; I always think those people are ASSES. But WHAT THE HELL, right?

There is Alanis Morissette on my ipod at the moment, and Blondie and the Pretenders and the Pixies and, uh, FOB and PatD and a whole lot of random pop and some world music and some classical and a little opera I don't think there's any jazz but there is some Bollywood. Including a song called Dard-E-Disco, which translates to "Pain at the Disco" or "the Pain of Disco" - I forget which - and every time I hear it it makes me think of PatD and then I LAUGH. The movie it is from is FANTASTIC and I will buy it someday.

Whhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy am I still up and at my computer? I've been so tired all week, and I KNOW this is because I've been doing ridiculous things like getting six hours sleep a night, and I KNOW that I'm not going to get much sleep on Saturday morning by virtue of it being BOOKFAIR DAY, and on Sunday I have an assignment to write, and. And. OMG.

Also work today was pants: just really wearying and I left feeling like I'd spent most of the afternoon making a damned fool of myself. Which, you know, I did achieve what I'd been asked to, but it involved a lot more fluffing round and confusion on my part than usual, which was not cool. Stupid world.

IDEK, we're looking at a house in Karori tomorrow night and I think something is happening on Friday? But I don't know what. And then the weekend of the 12th-15th it is test and assignment and blah blah blah curses.

I kind of wish I knew how to do, like, maths and science and shit so I could build a smiting glove which would spark out electricity when I pointed at people. If I had a smiting glove, my life would be aces and rainbows.

Wow, I totally had grand plans to go to bed earlier tonight, goddamn. *fails*

Update: went to work drinks on Friday, got home c. 2am Saturday morning in relatively sober state and then slept for about twelve hours; got up and went to see the Hulk with tamarillow and had satay at the satay place in Courtenay Central; came home and did... something; slept another 10 hours or so on Saturday night and then spent Sunday doing... something, maybe laundry and computer games.

Work today was hilarious and also incredibly stupid: some people in another department LOST three fucking sets of um. Something they really shouldn't have lost. So we reprinted, which took basically no effort on my part and yet was still completely irritating. I randomly met up with tofulope at lunchtime whereupon she bitched about how the students are all conspiring to ruin her life (trufax) and I bitched about how Addled Lady continues to be generally annoying and also doesn't seem to have grasped some of the fairly important bits of legislative formatting, mainly What The Quotemarks Do.

Shark week is coming. WHOO.

Also also jessikast sent me some awesome BFF trinkets she bought someplace in Auckland and one of them has a MAGNET that probably connects to the other half of the necklace which she has and also a purple star and is made of translucent glittery plastic lacquer on top of chrome-coated tin. AWESOME. <3 There is also a yellow heart and an orange heart and a ring with pink lacquer writing saying either "best" or "friend" and something that isn't completely tacky and therefore which I cannot remember. Did I post about this already? I can't remember!

I had total intentions of going to bed, like, well over an hour ago: I'm tired! It's late! I have work tomorrow! But there was fic and then vids and then fic again, and at some point my itunes started playing bluegrass and I was listening to the banjos and trying to keep... I forgot how I was going to end this sentence.

I went to Johnsonville today and did not get lost on the train.

Ahaha. Drinking coke at ten to eleven is a really bad plan any day of the week, and I damned well know this. But I was thirsty!

Only, I've just remembered that I have to chair the support staff meeting tomorrow morning at NINE AM and ohgod I'm not even close to being tired enough to go to sleep.

Things I should be doing at ten to eleven on a work night: going to bed.

Things I am doing at ten to eleven on a work night: reading original fic (is it slash if it's original? Or just very, very gay?) and listening to Big Girls Don't Cry.

Today tamarillow and I made lamb and yoghurt casserole and apple tart. Then we ate these things and it was good. Also, I did laundry. Yay!

There is something decidedly pathetic about getting up at one in the morning to read Supernatural porn in the hopes that it'll lull you to sleep - something that cough medicine, four trips to the toilet, a dozen coughing fits or so, an hour listening to music, and being buried under your heaviest blanket in a state of confused warmth for two hours has failed to do.

Chances of me going to work in, Christ, six hours and fifteen minutes? Slim to none. God - it's bad enough being sick when I'm on holiday, but stupidly getting ill at the end of said holiday so that going back to work on time seems unlikely: that just fucking sucks.

Wah, angst, I'm very glad I found a good recs list.

We played dress-ups at work today; that is, there was some kind of competition whereby the best team could win some tickets to the Sevens by dressing up in costume and impressing someone who might've played rugby or something. Our team decided to go as angels - angels in cheap halos and plastic wings - and string fairy lights and paper clouds all over the place, heaven as a bureaucracy or vice versa. The Other Team decided to play opposite, with black sheets and white makeup - and won; they had a better budget and more inspired costume choices.

I decided to wear my halo for the rest of the day. It was fascinating walking round town a bit after work wearing it; the rest of my outfit was completely normal, jean capris and a red jumper, my brown-and-orange handbag of magnitude completing the outfit, and I wasn't wearing any makeup or jewellery apart from my standard watch-and-two-large-rings.

The thing is that normally I don't make eye contact when I'm walking around town; I'm not especially looking for it, which could've been part of it, but it was odd, being smiled at by various strangers. The bank manager pronounced it extremely cute when I went in (and, honestly, until she said something I'd forgotten I was wearing it); a couple of businessmen smiled at me as I wandered to the bus stop; I'm fairly sure I got a couple of double-takes. As a social experiment it was interesting and as a way of making me feel happy it was successful - it's lovely to get benevolent smiles from people you don't know and will probably never notice again.

But I don't know if I'd have the courage to do it again.

And I don't know why not.

And that saddens me, a little.

Dear Self,

Stop stomping your way through Smallville recs lists and go to bed. You don't have time to read anything long anyway; there are fifteen books, your handbag, a dirty towel, and various oddments on your bed which you want to move before you get very tired; and, for the love of God, you're not finding anything you haven't read five times before anyway.

GO TO BED.

Take the iPod if you must - you know you must - but go to bed.

Love,
Yourself

(No, for real, put down the internet.)

[00:19] Jess Weaselmouth: Dear me: Celtish is not a word. No love, Me.
[00:19] zanne monkeypants: oh, jess.
[00:19] zanne monkeypants: *still reading*
[00:19] zanne monkeypants: *needs to go to bed*
[00:19] Jess Weaselmouth: *looks at time* ....you really, really do.
[00:20] zanne monkeypants: this is so bad
[00:20] zanne monkeypants: but only htree capters kljsdfklxjdfsdjkl to go
[00:25] Jess Weaselmouth: You=addict.
[00:25] zanne monkeypants: god i know.
[00:25] Jess Weaselmouth: Sad, sad addict. Next thing you know, you'll be a dirtry heroin whore, only with fic instead of drugs.
[00:25] zanne monkeypants: i am a dirty heroin whore.
[00:26] zanne monkeypants: jess, i am reading a fic where harry has had sex with: his pimp/dealer, some johns, snape, almost remus, voldemort, draco, ron, colin creevy, lucius malfoy, a random hufflepuff called timmy, and all the death eaters.
[00:26] zanne monkeypants: i can't sink any lower than this.
[00:26] Jess Weaselmouth: SERIOUSLY, WHO HASN'T HE FUCKED?
[00:26] zanne monkeypants: girls.
[00:27] Jess Weaselmouth: Bwahaha. Any way that there's going to be a sex-change spell in the later chapters, and Harry has sex with...um...Hermionus, and Ginndar and Laury Lovegood?
[00:28] zanne monkeypants: nope.
[00:28] zanne monkeypants: alas

Really should be in bed. Aren't.

Will regret this in the morning.

I didn't intend for it to be, but this weekend has ended up being fairly busy: dinner round here with Alessan on Saturday night; meeting up with dryadwoman on Sunday afternoon for hot chocolate before going to Tawa for a party; playing Heroes of Might and Magic V for ten hours today interspersed with doing the dishes, doing laundry, and making dinner. The latest I managed to sleep in was ten.

I still hardly ever get to sleep before midnight. When I mention this to people at work (I'm invariably not-awake-enough when I start work at eight), they give advice: drink hot chocolate before you go to bed; go to bed earlier (you'll go to sleep eventually!); don't force yourself to stay awake so late online! I try to explain - I've done the turning-the-lights-off-before-I'm-tired thing before and it's always ended badly, with me lying awake in bed musing over really stupid things (the difference between interrupt and interject, for example) for hours, clockwatching every fifteen minutes or so and counting down the hours until I have to get up. It sometimes seems as though I belong to a special little club of People Who Stay Awake And Can't Help It, this network of people who are still functional at midnight. Perhaps there should be a support group.

I'm just babbling, really.

God. Have the sense and sensibility of a dead rabbit. *facepalm* On friday, a workmate lent me Sims II and Civilisation III - god, I can't even remember if I've posted this before. Anyway? Me? Slightly addicted to playing god, and like I have been playing these two games since five o'clock this evening and my hands are trembling and I am fucked like whoa.

I totally tried to burn these Disney songs that I nicked from C a while back, and accidentally burned podfic by rageprufrock instead. This is not to say that I wasn't planning on burning these at some stage but it is after one in the morning and I want to listen to disney on my discman and then go to sleep. Mostly I just want to go to sleep.

God. I slept until like half past eleven this morning. Stupid new shiny computer named Greta.

I have to get up at six am tomorrow morning, which is the earliest I've had to be up in probably a couple of years. And this is where I am absolutely fucked by my current sleep cycle: there is no way in hell I'm going to be asleep before midnight. It just doesn't happen.

On the other hand, it's a preliminary interview, the consultant is probably going to be tired as well, and once I get home at half past six in the evening, I have nothing to do. Er, except for tidy the living room and vacuum/wash the floors and do a load of laundry, but I can do these things while gossiping about my day with my flatmate, and it's not as if I have to be properly awake to tidy.

Still have a Secret Circle fic to write for the LJ Smith fic fest, have six days to write it in, and still have no clue what to write. I'm sure it will be fine, except for the thing where I'm almost certain it won't.

jessikast, I would say I'm going to bed right now, but I'd be lying. Like a donkey.

So, really, what the fuck am I still doing awake? I mean, sure, it's only half past one, and I don't have to rock on out of bed till half ten tomorrow, so it's not like I'm going to miss out on all that much beauty sleep by not going off to the land of slumber, but, seriously, what the fuck?

I'm reading due South fanfiction and there's this fic that's, like, over a thousand KBs, and I'm so going to start that as soon as I've finished reading the fic I'm reading at the moment, and am I crazy? Like, am I?

I'm also chewing on paper, but that's not quite so stupid.

I am tired and sick (sick and tired), and I should have gone to bed half an hour ago, so naturally I'm online, reading Stargate: Atlantis fic. I've never actually seen an episode of SGA, and have only the faintest, fanon-based understanding of who the characters are and why they're fucking each other, but it seems as though they have good sex, and I'm easily brainwashed into believing that Male Character A and Male Character B are sekritly in love.

I have to get up in less than eight hours. I feel like I'm trapped in an endless cycle of stay up too late, whine about it to my flist, whine about it to my friends and every person I work with, get tired and cross, rinse and repeat. The obvious solution is to, y'know, go to bed earlier, but the unfortunate thing is that I just don't get tired, and once I am tired I'm normally in a happy place where I'm staring at something that I actually want to read and going to bed seems like too much effort.

I have excuses, it seems, for everything.

My eyes, they burn. I should be in bed; I have to get up in eight hours and go to work. I still have a headache from much earlier today, centered above my right ear and blooming like wildflowers right along that side. For all that, though, I don't feel tired; my body is giving up the ghost far earlier than my mind. I forsee a lot of lying in bed with my eyes shut waiting for my brain to switch off.

Also, I have new icons, and they are VERY PRETTY. This is Abby. Sheissocool. I have another Abby icon, a Ducky icon (funny, I wanted to spell that eyecon), and three Kill Bill icons... this leaves me with two spots to fill. Yay for paid time! Yay for jessikast for giving me said paid time in the first place, and all because I pouted and looked unhappy.

It is half past one and I am reading Clex smut and eating a slice of lemon teacake. Really, I should go to bed, for I am tired, and I keep walking away from the fic every five minutes to roam around the living room (nervous energy, I get like this late at night), but. Fuck.

Just. Seriously. I'm not very clever. Also, I'm sneezing a lot.

IT'S ALL ABOUT ME. SERIOUSLY. I AM AT THE CENTRE OF MY OWN DAMN UNIVERSE.

The clex smut is very nice.

I have a headache.

I microwaved the teacake coz it's nicer warm, and now it's just sitting by the computer growing cold, coz I keep typing, even though I REALLY VERY CLEARLY HAVE NOTHING. TO. SAY.

Edit: Three oh four in the morning and jesus christ what was I thinking? I'm really quite, quite pathetic, except not quite pathetic enough to drag myself off to bed, where there would be the comfort of flannel sheets and flannel pajamas and soft pillows and heavy blankets and why aren't I there? Really.

The lemon teacake wasn't actually all that satisfying, what with it being a little bit soggy from the microwaving, and it being half past one in the morning anyway, and me being entirely not hungry and only actually eating because that's one of the things I do when it's half past one in the morning and I can't focus enough to read, along with drinking milk or water and spinning in the middle of the living room floor. I guess everyone has weird habits.

I can't really focus all that well, but there is fic to read, and I must read it. It's not like I had anything planned for tomorrow (tomorrow being the time period which starts when I wake up after going to bed today) anyway.

It is late - or early - and I have now been awake for twenty hours. I don't think twenty hours is a particularly long time, but I've been tired for the last four and Why The Fuck Aren't I In Bed? for the last two and a half, and. I'm not known for my cleverness.

I think I'm taking a break from HP fandom again, not that I'm very involved in it anyway. It's not a big deal; it's just that I realised that every fic I was reading felt tired, and it wasn't just that I was reading crappy fic - it was that the characters bored me. So I think I'm just kind of going to ignore it for the next few weeks, until Book Six comes out and I can be all squeeish again.

Tonight I've been listening to disco, mostly: ELO, ABBA, my Disco Fever compilation. Also, Goldenhorse, but that's not disco. Um. I think I turned my discman off about an hour and a half ago - I was tired of the headphones, and there wasn't really anything I wanted to listen to. So...

I really am tired. I really should be going to bed. But it's not as though I have anything to get up for (and aren't I glad about that?), and my only plans for tomorrow (the day starts when you wake up, you know) are to go to the dairy and buy a bus card and milk. And chocolate. And probably pie. Mmm, pie. Oh, and I might make brownies, or ginger slice. I haven't made ginger slice in a while, actually.

It disturbs me that I can still type this quickly and accurately even though my eyes feel like they're sinking into my head and I haven't had any interesting thoughts for five hours. I suppose it's just a skill, and that if I was just a little bit more tired I'd lose the ability, but it's still kind of weird. Also, I'm not looking at the keys at all, but I am kind of looking at my hands, and they look weird from this angle. It could be that my eyes aren't switching focus very well anymore, though.

I wonder if this will seem at all interesting to me in the morning? Or in two years time? Will I look back on this post and be glad that I've created this snapshot of what I was doing at three twenty-two in the morning on a day I didn't need to get up early? Or will I just think that I'm, like, a giant geek loser with no life, because there are far more interesting things to do at three twenty-two in the morning if you know where to look? Ah, bah.