Is it really only enough for less than a minute?

This morning, it was only -4C outside, that is to say, four centigrades below freezing. This turned out to be enough that the hotwater pipe to my shower had melted during the night.  I now had hot water in the shower!  For a few seconds.  By the time I was actually inside, the water was barely even lukewarm and it went downhill from that.  OK, perhaps this was to be expected when I had the faucets dripping all night.  So I turned them off, what with it being so mild and all, and went to work.

I was rather late at work for a number of reasons.  First off, the low quality of sleep is catching up with me.  I still woke up at 7, and spent half an hour with LifeFlow 2, the 2Hz brainwave entrainment track.  As can be expected, I slept most of the time.  Actually that may be just as well, since I am mostly using this for the health benefits rather than as meditation.  It will be many years, if ever, before I can naturally meditate during deep dreamless sleep.  But the track is definitely working even when I sleep.  Usually when I sleep in the morning (and this holds for most people) I dream a lot.  The proportion of REM sleep increases over the course of the night, and the long bouts of intense dreams in the morning are actually exhausting.  (Although they probably fulfill important psychological functions, since people who are “starved” of REM sleep go a bit crazy.)

Anyway, when I put my headphones on at 7, I don’t dream even if I fall asleep.  I saw some kind of picture in my mind’s eye early on this time, but once the entrainment took fully hold, there was simply a kind of inner silence, which is ironic since it is created by sound. Still, I was horribly tired even after 30 minutes this was, so I gave up on the first bus and spent 40 more minutes with the delta wave entrainment.  I was STILL tired, but once I got up I felt fine.  I did another 20 minutes or so on the bus.  I don’t think a relative newbie should do more delta than that in a day, seriously.  After all, people my age probably spend only an hour or so in slow-wave sleep naturally.

So anyway, I went to the second bus, but didn’t manage to stop it.  Perhaps because I was standing together with a flock of garbage can.  Today is garbage day here, and the next is two weeks from now.  Not that I could have delivered any of my garbage today even if I had the foresight to sort it and put it in the bin:  The road was still full of snow drifts, to the point that it was pure guesswork where there had actually been a road, except for a few spots.  I had managed to spade a path through the snow this morning, but these garbage cans are more than twice that wide.  So that was out.  But the neighbors, whose roads are cleared more frequently, had their bins there, taking up nearly the whole bus stop. The bus did not even slow down even though I stood there with my bus card.

So I took the next bus again, but it was not in the city until close to lunch.  Conversely, I worked two hours later in the afternoon.  Then I went to Nodeland, shoveled a path to that house as well (luckily much, much shorter) and cleared the steps, then a path to take the garbage cans to the half-open shed where they normally stand.  Yes, garbage cans seem to weigh heavily on me today.  I put back a rug I had briefly borrowed, and took with me home the bathroom scales and the content of the physical mailbox.  The post office should start sending my mail to my new address by the end of the week.  I was a bit delayed because their online service claimed my address did not match my postal number.  (Kind of like a zip code, for those in the former colonies.) My neighbors have this number though, so I think it is right.  Plus I already get mail to that address in my new mailbox.

I came home around 22 (10PM) and took a warm shower. It lasted almost a minute. OK, perhaps not quite that long.  But almost certainly half a minute at least, I think.  With no dripping faucets. Is the hot water tank really that small?  That just doesn’t seem right. Anyway, by now the temperature outside had dropped to -10C, and is still falling. So it’s either dripping or freezing for the water again.  I could use the wisdom of Solomon now.

But right now, I think wisdom is going to bed.  We have a video meeting early tomorrow, and I can’t reasonably expect to suddenly have perfect sleep quality after just a couple nights. The train, after all, is still not racing past.  Plus, I have a randomly (?) occurring pain in my right side from time to time today, which may wake me up if it continues into the night.

But that which does not kill us, gives us something to write about!  Are you soon fed up with these slices of life now?