good morning starshine -- now with updates!
Hi peoples. It is 12:14am and I am at work. I should have been on the 12:06 bus. Does this sound familiar? Does this feel like deja vu? Yeah...
Only this time, I don't get to leave at all because this time the graveyard guy is actually, completely not coming in and I am working a double. Poor, poor pitiful me.
Here's what a nice girl does when she realizes at 10pm that she's going to have to stay awake at work all night: she orders a pizza because she is hungry and can't go home for a snack. She also appropriates fifty cents from the workplace and buys herself a Coke.
You know, regular Coke is made from completely natural ingredients (if you consider corn syrup natural). That's how I justify drinking it every now and again. I try to forget that you can pour Coke on a corroded battery and it will eat the corrosion away. My stomach lining is not a corroded battery.
Fortunately, I have about 400 pages of Brothers Karamazov left to read. And also, everybody went away so I'm alone in the Drop in Center. No more talking, no more noise, no more people asking for stuff. That's good. Even my coworker disappeared. She has a headache and went to take a nap. Uh, yeah, don't mind me, I've only been here a whole shift already, I'm certainly not interested in a nap, no sirree bob, not me.
Ok, I'm gonna go read my book before this devolves any further. I'll be sure to check-in during the height of my sleepless delirium... like maybe around 4:30 -- that's usually when the crazies start to kick in... if I remember correctly...
UPDATE: 1:10am -- Just when I thought I was free from all the talkers, the phone rang. I was excited. I thought maybe it was an on-caller who finally checked his messages and wanted to come in and work. No such luck. Instead, it was a blast from the annoying past: a really long-winded client who used to live here a long time ago and who would have been really happy to talk my ear off for the entire duration of my shift. Oh my god. I finally got him off the phone after about 20 minutes. WHY'S HE CALLING HERE PAST MIDNIGHT? Attention people of the world: go to bed!!! I would, if I could...
Also, I ate too much pizza... :-(
UPDATE: 4:02am -- I just played an epic game of computer pin-ball. The amphetamine addicts have all finally gone away. They've been pacing and talking to no one and shadowboxing since around 1:30. Once they finally receded, I realized they woke up the old lady on the couch. I could hear her tiny stream of mumbles coming from under the blanket. Every time the front door opens and is left to drop shut, it rattles all the windows. When this place is quiet, it becomes obvious how loud everything really is.
The four o'clock hour is the last hour during which nighttime feels like night, before it starts feeling like the next morning. To me, the four o'clock hour is the weirdest, most mysterious, most unknowable, most not-real hour of all the 24 hours in a day. Maybe even more liminal than sunrise or sunset. The four o'clock hour is the truly transitional hour. In my opinion.
Oh, the amphetamine addicts are back.
I hate everybody.
FINAL UPDATE: 8:41am -- Home now. So, so sleepy. My coworker came down from her nap just after I posted that last update, and so I went up and took my turn. Unfortunately, I couldn't sleep. Just vibrated and hallucinated for 2 and a half hours. Came down at 6:30 and found my coworker at the computer. She said "come use your law degree, look over this and tell me what you think." It was some convoluted contract she'd written up full of unconscionable and unenforceable conditions. I gave her a hundred disclaimers that I'm not licensed and can't give her advice, but I did point out the parts that weren't enforceable. She tried to get me to change the language for her, but I said no way. Meanwhile, my head was swimming with sleeplessness and I wondered how she could sit there asking me to do something so complicated when she knew I was so sleep deprived. She's a jerk, that's how.
Now I'm going to bed. I still hate everybody, but I'm hoping I can sleep that off.
Only this time, I don't get to leave at all because this time the graveyard guy is actually, completely not coming in and I am working a double. Poor, poor pitiful me.
Here's what a nice girl does when she realizes at 10pm that she's going to have to stay awake at work all night: she orders a pizza because she is hungry and can't go home for a snack. She also appropriates fifty cents from the workplace and buys herself a Coke.
You know, regular Coke is made from completely natural ingredients (if you consider corn syrup natural). That's how I justify drinking it every now and again. I try to forget that you can pour Coke on a corroded battery and it will eat the corrosion away. My stomach lining is not a corroded battery.
Fortunately, I have about 400 pages of Brothers Karamazov left to read. And also, everybody went away so I'm alone in the Drop in Center. No more talking, no more noise, no more people asking for stuff. That's good. Even my coworker disappeared. She has a headache and went to take a nap. Uh, yeah, don't mind me, I've only been here a whole shift already, I'm certainly not interested in a nap, no sirree bob, not me.
Ok, I'm gonna go read my book before this devolves any further. I'll be sure to check-in during the height of my sleepless delirium... like maybe around 4:30 -- that's usually when the crazies start to kick in... if I remember correctly...
UPDATE: 1:10am -- Just when I thought I was free from all the talkers, the phone rang. I was excited. I thought maybe it was an on-caller who finally checked his messages and wanted to come in and work. No such luck. Instead, it was a blast from the annoying past: a really long-winded client who used to live here a long time ago and who would have been really happy to talk my ear off for the entire duration of my shift. Oh my god. I finally got him off the phone after about 20 minutes. WHY'S HE CALLING HERE PAST MIDNIGHT? Attention people of the world: go to bed!!! I would, if I could...
Also, I ate too much pizza... :-(
UPDATE: 4:02am -- I just played an epic game of computer pin-ball. The amphetamine addicts have all finally gone away. They've been pacing and talking to no one and shadowboxing since around 1:30. Once they finally receded, I realized they woke up the old lady on the couch. I could hear her tiny stream of mumbles coming from under the blanket. Every time the front door opens and is left to drop shut, it rattles all the windows. When this place is quiet, it becomes obvious how loud everything really is.
The four o'clock hour is the last hour during which nighttime feels like night, before it starts feeling like the next morning. To me, the four o'clock hour is the weirdest, most mysterious, most unknowable, most not-real hour of all the 24 hours in a day. Maybe even more liminal than sunrise or sunset. The four o'clock hour is the truly transitional hour. In my opinion.
Oh, the amphetamine addicts are back.
I hate everybody.
FINAL UPDATE: 8:41am -- Home now. So, so sleepy. My coworker came down from her nap just after I posted that last update, and so I went up and took my turn. Unfortunately, I couldn't sleep. Just vibrated and hallucinated for 2 and a half hours. Came down at 6:30 and found my coworker at the computer. She said "come use your law degree, look over this and tell me what you think." It was some convoluted contract she'd written up full of unconscionable and unenforceable conditions. I gave her a hundred disclaimers that I'm not licensed and can't give her advice, but I did point out the parts that weren't enforceable. She tried to get me to change the language for her, but I said no way. Meanwhile, my head was swimming with sleeplessness and I wondered how she could sit there asking me to do something so complicated when she knew I was so sleep deprived. She's a jerk, that's how.
Now I'm going to bed. I still hate everybody, but I'm hoping I can sleep that off.
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 12:14 AM
1 Comments:
you poor thing, i hope you don't have to do this very often
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