Tag: moaning

#oneaday Day 481: I have returned

I have returned! And I'm in a foul mood, apparently, but that's nothing unusual after having to do that drive. I set out at 5pm and got home at about 8.40pm. That's not fun. Granted, I did stop to have some dinner at the South Mimms services in an inevitably vain attempt to try and avoid the worst of rush hour on the M25, but still. It would be lovely to be able to leave my place of work and be home in a duration of time that is less than multiple episodes of a podcast. Although at least the journey does afford me the opportunity to actually listen to podcasts, which I otherwise don't really make much time for.

I am also in a less-than-charitable mood because the whole trip this time around felt a little bit pointless. It is always nice to see my colleagues in person because I like them, but the only real benefit of me actually being in the office today was that I could participate in a meeting by sitting in an uncomfortable chair near everyone else instead of sitting in my own comfortable chair via Teams. The rest of the day I was just sort of… there, and don't really feel like I achieved much that I couldn't have done from home. In fact, I generally feel like on my trips into the office I achieve significantly less than I do with a day working from home.

But oh well. This is the world we live in, and it's not that much of an inconvenience to have to do this once a month. Just enough to want to have a little moan about now and again. But now I am home, and I can see my cats (literally, they are both sitting staring at me as I type this) and be with my wife and play Final Fantasy Tactics, which arrived in my absence.

So I think that's probably what I'm going to spend the rest of the evening doing. I haven't played Final Fantasy Tactics through properly since the PS1 original, so it will be nice to do so with a translation that makes sense and the new voiceovers. I will do my best not to power through just to get to the bits with Ben Starr in, but I am making no promises.

On that note, it's time to get isometric and turn-based. Normal business will resume tomorrow. Probably.

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#oneaday, Day 2: Flubag

I can always tell when it's the holiday season. Because the holiday season is the Time To Get Ill. Almost without fail every single year, at some point around Christmas/New Year, my body goes "Nope! Had enough. Here's some snot. Happy Christmas!" and buggers off for a few days.

This year is no exception. I thought I'd escaped, because for the whole time I was over in California visiting my brother for the holidays, I was fine, despite everyone around me gradually sinking into a mire of barking repeatedly like someone with Spatchcock's Ever-Coughing Syndrome. Including the dog. Who was actually barking, not coughing.

On the plane ride on the way home, though, I felt the illness hit. Several other Spatchcock's sufferers on the flight coupled with yummy delicious recycled air being pumped around the cabin meant a breeding ground for germs. And sure enough… "Had enough. Here's some snot. Happy Christmas!"

Well, you're late, illness glands. And, you know, you really didn't have to get me anything this year. I just got you a bunch of pills, and I know you don't really like them that much.

The most irritating thing about suffering with Spatchcock's Syndrome is how difficult it makes sleeping. When you lie down in bed with Spatchcock's, you are constantly in one of two states: mouth-breathing, or coughing.

The mouth-breathing comes because your nose is so full of juicy snot that if you didn't mouth-breathe you'd suffocate and die, and suffocating and dying because of snot would just be embarrassing. If you do happen to get to sleep whilst in the mouth-breathing phase, your snores will qualify as some of the most disgusting noises on the planet and will probably involve bubbling. If you are sleeping with anyone at the time, this is a sure-fire way to find out if they really love you or not.

The coughing usually comes when you manage to clear your nose a little bit, and inevitably brings up more snot to join the party. The noise and the irritation in your throat wakes you and anyone in the same building up, and once it passes you're back to mouth-breathing again.

So you probably end up not sleeping until your brain is so devoid of power that it goes into laptop-style hibernation mode and fails to wake you up until lunchtime the next day. And because you slept at a weird time, you end up feeling crappy the next day, which compounds the whole situation further.

Eventually you just decide to not sleep any more until this dratted pox departs your system, during which time you gradually slip into a hallucinogenic fantasy which you can't quite decide whether is good or bad or somewhere in between and then you die. Possibly.

I am grateful for one thing, though: at least it's not full-on achey joints flu, which I've only been struck down with once at a time that happened to coincide with a Christmas I was set to spend alone in my house due to holiday retail work commitments and the rest of my family doing other things. Elsewhere. Without me.

Remind me why I want to get a job again?