supposed...

... to be sleeping. But I'm wide awake, so I'm up typing instead. I had a long nap this evening when I got back from walking Molly after work, and then a long luxurious bath. So I guess the current wakefulness should come as no surprise. It doesn't, really, even without the above-mentioned factors. I'm a lifelong night-owl and I've been indulging myself lately. I had such trouble breathing when I woke up this morning that I sucked on my inhaler and once my breathing returned to normal I just kinda went comatose for a few hours. That was great, in one way, because I needed the deep sleep to recuperate from all the struggling I've done with my lungs these past weeks. In another way, it meant I was three hours late to work and had to stay uber-late this evening to make it up. Even that was okay. I got it done, and luckily I had a task at work that was very well-suited to the quieter working evironment one finds at 7 PM in a near-abandoned office. More of the research I was working on last time I posted, actually...

Less okay is the reprimand I got from my pregnant friend about how long it's been since I called her last and the fact that I'm not going to her baby shower this weekend. Truthfully, though I love her dearly, she's a little difficult. We tell this story about ourselves, and we tell it in good humor, but it has a very real element of strain to it. The origin of the story itself is strife. She and I went to college together, and majored in the same thing, and for the last two years of our schooling had all but 1 class together (save summer school). When we were anywhere doing anything, we got along, unless we were in the car. It didn't matter which of us was driving, if we were in the car, we were fighting. We were not just "bickering" or good-naturedly ribbing each other, either. We were fighting like only two old people who've been married 50 years and know the darkest of ugly things about each other can fight. If I was driving, she'd try to tell me how to drive. I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE TELL ME HOW TO DRIVE!!! I'm all for a navigator. Strategically speaking, I want to know what street I need to turn on, that I have two blocks before I need to be in the far left lane, or that the restaurant is about 2 miles ahead on the right. Tactically, I figure out how to make those things happen, and woe betide the soul who thinks to tell me otherwise. So I nearly killed her on any number of occasions. I have never heard such violently ugly things come out of my own mouth (and to my own great surprise) as when she was telling me how to drive. I can think of only two other people I've ever really wanted to pound with my fists as badly as I wanted to hit her almost every time we were in a car together. She used to expect me to tell her the same stuff when she was driving, and I usually did so, albeit reluctantly. This didn't become a problem until she was the Designated Driver one infamous night in New Orleans. We were halfway back to our hotel and on some freeway bridge across the Mississippi River when she started hollering at me (who? quite intoxicated, eyeglasses removed, seeing sextuple me?) to sit up and help her watch for the exit signs. It was then that it became quite apparent to me that in our former lives, we HAD been and old couple married for 50 years. And one night, we were driving across a river bridge, and she started telling me how to drive (AGAIN) and I deliberately drove over the bridge railing into the river and killed us both to SHUT HER UP! That said, aside from our in-car experiences channeling our former lives, we get on great and I love her to death. I hate to disappoint her. Anyway, she's not thrilled that I'm missing her shower, but I've had this weekend in College Station planned for a lot longer than I've known about her shower and there are more folks I can't disappoint there.

In other news, I'm halfway through The Witching Hour by Anne Rice. Good book!

And now, back to bed. Ahhh, to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream...