Struggling along

I’m having some problems getting myself together this week.

At the moment, I only have one aim in life, and this is it: to get into work before nine o’clock. Yesterday: 9.26. Today: 9.11.

To be fair, on Monday night I was still awake and staring at the wall at 3am. There’s not much pattern to my occasional insomnia, but in this case it’s probably low-level anxiety about not having done various things that I ought to have done. Like phoning the wedding-dress lady; doing some proper research into courses for next year – and applying for them; sorting all my financial bits of paper; working out when I can see the D.B.; that kind of thing. Nothing major, but enough to keep me from my sleep. I’m not that great at hauling myself from my pit at the best of times, never mind when I’ve only had four hours’ sleep.

I don’t get into trouble if I’m late in, but since I’m on flexitime, every minute I’m not in the office has to be repaid later. I had collected three hours of credit, and it feels just awful to fritter it away sleeping. I mean, three hours is an afternoon off. Granted, until recently I had every Friday afternoon off, and I mostly spent them in the gym or vaguely bumming around town rather than writing an award-winning novel or anything constructive like that, but still.

Despite my sleep-deprived state I did get to the gym on Tuesday. They’ve been renovating the place for months now, and this was the first day I’d been there when the new cardio suite was open. The old one was in a smallish, basic room, with only 28 machines, but with windows opening to the outside. The new one looks fantastic, has loads of brand-new machines with TV screens on them, and fancy light-fittings and stuff, but is in the centre of the building. Therefore it’s rather hot – at least it was on Tuesday.

If you’ve been here and here (and if not, why not?), you’ll have seen some of the recent discussions about the wonders of iPod playlists. It was my birthday on Friday and I was surprised to receive one of these. I had thought it would be nice to have one, as my otherwise splendid Walkman doesn’t like treadmill rhythms (they cause it to stop). Tuesday was the first time I’d taken my new blue baby to the gym, and certainly the music made the run seem shorter (though not easier). It was strange, though, that I seemed to want to slow my pace to match the beat of the music. This is fine when on the crosstrainer, not so good on the treadmill. It’s never been a problem with the music they have playing in the background, so why is it a problem with my own music? Maybe I pay more attention to it.

The run was hard going. It may be that the new treadmill is slightly faster than the old ones, but I kept finding myself gradually moving backwards on the belt. Usually I run at a steady 5.6, with the occasional break to walk if I need it, but I had to keep tinkering with the speed to find a comfortable and sustainable pace.

Today’s been a dullish sort of day, the kind where you keep finding yourself staring out of the window. By teatime I had built up a fair degree of weltschmerz, possibly mildly hormonal, and couldn’t really work up any great enthusiasm for going out with some friends from a drama group I’ve been involved in. On the other hand, I haven’t DONE anything other than work and the gym for ages, so I am smothering this feeling and going anyway. And I discovered today that Monday is a public holiday (don’t know how I missed that one), so have got myself on the net, acquired a cheap flight and am going to see the D. B. That should sort me. I haven’t seen him for over a month.