I'm thinking maybe I need a new bed again. This isn't the first time I've had this thought. My super-cheap,
get-me-through-university bed has outlasted its expected lifetime. It's pretty uncomfortable, even with eggcrate foam
and a mattress cover. I also have a futon, but that's less comfortable. I tried putting the futon on the bed and
discovered that good ideas in theory often don't pan out in practice.
I'd feel better about spending $1000 on a new bed if I had somewhere to put it. As I've mentioned before, I've abandoned
my bedroom for the smaller computer room. There is enough room to get my double bed in there, but it's pretty cramped.
So I'm basically procrastinating. I think maybe I can hold out on buying a new bed until after I've moved into a house
or something. This would be a good idea except that I'm probably not buying a house any time soon, and I almost
certainly won't have any money after I've bought a house. So maybe I should get a new bed now.
The other option is to get a twin-sized futon to tide me over. This would have the bonus of being able to transform into
a chair (transforming stuff is cool!), so it wouldn't be that much of a waste if I chose to spring for a real bed later.
The problem is, given my previous futon experience, I doubt it would be much more comfortable, thus defeating the
purpose.
Most of the company's off at a charity golf tournament thing. I didn't want to go, just 'cuz golf doesn't really turn me
on. Well, not really. I'm going to go to the dinner thing afterwards. I should really get going if I am, though. I'm
procrastinating on that one.
The office is pretty empty. I can here some chatter over in Support, and some clicking in another cube, but I don't
think there are too many people around. I think I'm waiting for somebody to come over and say "Are you coming to this
dinner thing?" To which I'll smile and say "Sure, do you need a ride?" or something. I feel less comfortable just
showing up. I think I need reassurance that I'm really welcome. That's pretty ridiculous, because they want everybody
there and I RSVPed and so forth.
I've got some work to do, but nothing I can't catch up on. Most of my stuff is working, and there's nothing really
urgent on the horizon. I'm mostly just surfing and IMing people. The day's done. So why am I still here?
Maybe I should have done the golf thing. I think I have to get myself out of this funk soon.
I forgot to check my mailbox when I got in last night.
It's not great sleeping weather. My fan helps, but sleeping with it on has its own problems. I got to bed sometime after
midnight and lay sprawled and sweaty until I somehow drifted off to sleep a while after that. I slept fitfully and woke
up once or twice in the night. My alarm went off at 8. And again at 8:09. Then I turned it off and turned the radio on,
laying half-asleep listening to people talking about whether there's too much coverage of the September 11th anniversary
in the media. I turned the radio off and sort of fell asleep again.
This horrible whining noise started. I thought maybe my fan had gone wonky, but it wasn't coming from the fan. It was
coming from the fire alarm thingy. It didn't really sound like a fire alarm, though. After I'd stood around for a while
debating whether I should evacuate or just have a shower, the alarm started making more alarm-like noises. I made up my
mind and lazily pulled on some clothes and sat around the back porch.
It turns out it was just a test--something hinted at by the fact that my landlord's truck and some alarm service van
were parked outside the building. Nobody else was out there and it took a few minutes before somebody inside noticed me
wandering around outside looking forlorn and flagged me in. I told him what apartment I lived in and he said they'd
already been through there, testing the smoke detectors. They'd locked me out, so I had to get the landlord to let me in
again. It was a little mortifying. If I'd known, I'd have cleaned up the kitchen a bit.
On my way out to the car, I noticed there were some things in my mailbox: some unimportant-looking government thing and
a slip of yellow paper telling me they'd be testing the fire alarm at 9 am today.