domestics and other things beginning with 'd'
yesterday we completely failed to clean the flat, although managed to spend a collossal amount of money in morrisons. oops. front room is looking slightly better, but that's only because i took everything that didn't look particularly important and threw it in a big black binliner.
last night at about 11, mike and i had just gone to bed when the downstairs neighbours started their door slamming and screaming again. only this time, we could actually hear every word they were saying and it started escalating fairly quickly. then we heard the woman screaming "get out, get off me, you're hurting me!!!", by which time we were out of bed and mike was ringing the police. i talked him out of going downstairs himself, even though he's 6'2 and the french bastard is small and weasely looking. i think in those situations, it's better not to personally interfere.
about 15 minutes later, the police show up on our doorstep, ring the bell and lift the little letter slot/flap thing, then rap on the door shouting 'police!' (very subtle, i thought.) so mike went downstairs to indicate that it wasn't actually him beating the stuffing out of someone, but the wanker who lives below us. so now, thanks to the commendable discretion of the west midlands police department, the psychokiller downstairs knows we called the police on him, but at least it means he knows that if he does it again, we won't be too hesitant about doing something about it.
to balance out all the bad karma that was emanating from downstairs, we rolled a bedtime biff and stayed up for another hour.
as a result of the above, i had a crap night's sleep, kept jerking awake, and had really horrible, disturbing dreams involving an exboyfriend and something to do with trying to stop people's ashes (as in, cremation ashes) being washed down a sink. it was one of those dreams where you're trying to do something but there's just too much of it and it overwhelms you. all the ashes i was trying to save were washed away. oh, go and analyse that, then! :)
the buses are continuing to piss me off, having waited fruitlessly from about 7:55 to 8:15 at the bus stop in the freezing cold, only to go back to the flat to pick up the car. i could've had breakfast!! i could have had a cup of tea!! instead, i got frozen toes and almost run over twice.
hmm, i have just found out that the falling sensation and jerking awake just as you're dozing off is called a hypnic jerk, and it happens to most people. i have also found out that those half-awake, half-asleep dreams are called hypnagogic hallucinations, and are usually extremely vivid and disturbing. those two things combined might explain what was going on yesterday. i'm like a self-diagnosing sleep therapist.
i read something in the observer yesterday which said something along the lines of today officially being the most depressing day of the year. judging by the conversation going on in the office at the moment, this is very true. my boss' father is in hospital and in a rather bad way. he is very old, but that doesn't make it any easier to come to terms with having to say good-bye. for some reason, this has prompted everyone to join in with a 'i knew so-and-so who died and was only aged such-and-such'. there's almost a feeling of tragedy one-upmanship and it's making me feel a bit sick.
sorry about that chronicle of doom and woe. don't blame me, it's the date.