Wide Awake and Fully Alert

Of all the times to be on the computer! 4.30. in the morning!
 
I can’t sleep, which is unusual for me; normally I could sleep on a clothesline with the northern lights blazing and jumbo jets taking off all around me. But tonight I can’t stop my mind from whirling round, so in an exorcism attempt, I shall talk them all out here.
 
I still haven’t heard anything from my daughter and she’s not acknowledged either the birthday or Christmas gifts I sent her. I also haven’t seen her come online on msn. I have a strange thing here – I very rarely chat on msn, I’m always on “appear offline”, but I still log in so I can see who’s around. Daughter would normally sign in quite frequently and it was kind of nice to know she was still around. I know that if there was any bad news, I’d hear about it; distance has made her father more human and he does talk to me now if it’s ever necessary. Last time he spoke to son (at Christmas), he said, “everybody’s fine.” But knowing this doesn’t stop my mind spinning, even though logic tells me she’s probably just changed her sign in details – and there’s no reason she’d tell me that, as we never talk on msn anyway. Thinking back, she’s never acknowledged parcels I’ve sent her in the past, either.
 
I’ve booked to go to Egypt with Lauren when she returns on 28th March. I’m also taking son and his friend and that’s whizzing round in my thoughts too. I took son and friend to Toys’R’Us today to get a new Wii controller and they were brats! Pure and simple brats! Behaved like kids of 8, not 18. So in these wee (deliberate pun) small hours, I’m wondering if I’ve done the right thing by taking son’s friend as well. My mind knows it will be fine. The friend is actually a great lad; they’re great friends and will probably be more interested in the water sports stuff than the dodgy nightlife. But at 4.30.am, everything’s a potential disaster.
 
Then of course, work is looming. My fellow tutor, Jackie, came round to me and we’ve re-schemed our work with the AltEd groups until Easter. We’d done it all before, but young people don’t always do what we’ve planned for them, so we have to adjust. Our first session is on Monday with the most difficult group and I know I have to do some extra preparation and get Plans B and C ready – just in case. So I’m thinking about that; coming up with ideas, discarding them, and so on.
 
Mingled in with this work stuff is my other job. I’m organising our annual presentation and celebration evening for next Friday and the list of things to have in place is going round and round like a moebius strip. Never ending. Shut up, brain. It’s all sorted!
 
As if that isn’t enough to keep me awake, I’m also beating myself up about the amount of unnecessary food that I’ve eaten over the last couple of weeks. I know that half the western world has probably also overeaten at this time too, but I was determined before Christmas that I wouldn’t. Needless to say, I did and I’m pretty fed up at my lack of self-control – especially as I didn’t just eat too much of the things that I adore and are worth having a bit of a gorge for, I ate too much of everything for no better reason than it was there. I need to find another fat club!
 
The last thing keeping me wide-awake is the recollection of the final thing I did before going to bed. Unblocking the toilet. All son’s (or friend’s) fault for using too much paper and the memory of operation straightened-metal-coathanger and the resulting slurry in the bowl is not exactly sleep inducing…
 
Correction for the record. The final thing I did before going to bed was to thoroughly wash my hands twice!