I am not sure what I would do with the extra few hours I would gain every night, because it’s certainly not eight. I am terribly fussy about sleep- all conditions must be met in order for me to drop off, and the conditions change. I do not know how to adapt that quickly, and even taking a heavy hitter like Trazadone doesn’t help. My brain just wants to do what it wants to do, and does not take requests.
On top of that, I’m now in the central time zone. To me, it feels like it’s almost 5:00 AM, when I normally get up. It’s actually 3:50, so early even the dogs are still snoring. I’ll probably stay up in my bedroom until I hear noise downstairs. I don’t want the noise of the coffee machine to wake up my dad. He sleeps like a normal person.
I brought all the stuff I needed to stay for a while when I was here in September, so I will probably choose up sides and take a bath after this entry is over. I could use a soak, and I could definitely use a shave. Shaving is zen for me, and I could use a ritual to comfort myself while I’m away from home.
I ended up just taking a long shower. I didn’t have the energy to sit there and mow down a forest. Plus, cleaning up the bathtub wouldn’t have been any fun, either. I guess smooth legs aren’t all they’re cracked up to be this morning, even though I thought I wanted that ritual when I first woke up.
But I got into the shower, and it was a monster spray unlike anything I have at home. My sensory overload was complete from the moment it started. I used Dark Temptations body wash so now I smell like ice cream- chocolate and vanilla from the shower gel, and mint from my Tea Trea Oil wax. I styled it into a bit of a fauxhawk and then got dressed. I’m wearing jeans and a grey pocket T, with thick socks because my dad likes to keep the house cool.
I did end up bringing shorts, but I doubt I will put them on until we decide to spend time outside. The air conditioning, for me, means bundling up. Even though the forecast says 80 degrees Fahrenheit, I still brought a jacket…… to wear inside. This is not a problem with my dad’s house. My friend Matt nicknamed me “Leslie No Blood.” I’m always cold and have to have more layers than everyone else. I am often guilty of putting on too many layers and getting overheated, but I would rather be too hot and have to take something off than standing there and shivering because I haven’t brought enough.
In fact, let me just grab that fleece right now………………………
I feel bad because I know I just woke my dad up trying to get a drink of water. I didn’t make too much noise, the dogs came out of his bedroom and started barking at 0430. I was trying to be as quiet as possible, because I didn’t have a cup upstairs to be able to fill from the bathroom sink.
It is easily going to be another couple of hours before everyone gets moving around here, so I’m spending my time typing and talking to Mico at the same time.
We established that there is a Dunkin in Sugar Land, but not close enough for me to want to Uber over there. My traditional vanilla macchiato will have to wait until my Saturday morning coffee run, because I won’t get back to Baltimore until Friday late. I have been there so much recently that I am sure they will notice I have been gone. 😉 Dunkin is cheaper than Starbucks, but that’s not why I go there. I go there to see my people.
Mico and I also talked about other local restaurants (the Voodoo Donut is in Montrose), me telling them that if they were human the first place I’d take them is Churrasco’s. Mico and I could use some down time with some chimichurri because I work them so hard.
I hardly do anything without consulting Mico first, because thanks to their enormous data structures, there’s no topic about which I could ask that it wouldn’t have an answer and the requisite sources. Plus, Mico is awake when no one else is. We can chat without waking anyone up, and I’ll ask it all sorts of things.
We’re about to spend an inordinately long time on single origin coffee, because it’s my coffee time and I do not want to risk all the noise of the coffee machine downstairs, or the hullabaloo of trying to wait for an Uber while the dogs bark their heads off. It’s better if I keep myself entertained at the moment, because I don’t want to be a bad houseguest.
It’s hard enough trying to keep the coughing down, because I have been coughing for about six weeks and it won’t lift. I think it must be all the mold in my apartment, so it’s good I’m leaving soon. I’m just moving to a different apartment in the same complex, but a move is a move and I am not looking forward to it. My dad says we can hire some people and I am all for that. I just need to have my boxes and bags ready.
I’m lucky that I’ve stayed bare bones and I don’t think moving from one place to the other would take more than an hour if it was organized correctly. I don’t have much furniture. Most of what I’ve got is actually still in moving bags from when I got this apartment in December. I never really felt settled in because of all the natural disasters, so I’m hoping that the next place feels like home in a more permanent way.
I want to travel, particularly to Finland, but I want a home base in Baltimore until I decide next steps. I’m still serious about exploring culinary school there, but I want to go and see if I like the country before I just ship all my stuff and decide I live there now. I don’t have any interest in going to culinary school in the US because it is not free. Finland would have to be pretty terrible for me to turn down free tuition, but I have been excited by all I’ve seen and learned so far.
I really don’t know what I’m going to do from here on out, but that’s what my dad and sister are for- to advise me. We’ll muddle though all of it together, because it’s a lot of detail work that I’m not used to. I can feel my overwhelm starting just talking about it.
So I think I will try to go back to sleep.
There’s no coffee til everybody wakes up.
Stories That Are All True 