Runners and Walkers
I'm quite badly tired out. I think it may be due to me not having woken naturally since the family arrived--I've been wakened every morning before ten by an overly cheerful voice, occasionally accompanied by a whap to the stomach (and, admittedly, my abdomen is sizable) or pats on the arm or back--my sleeping position is on my belly, limbs splayed out (right hand beside head, left arm around pillow, right leg curled up, left leg straight out), and apparently this is a position that greatly invites people to wake it by physical contact. While I generally hold no objections to physical contact (except from people I have some animosity towards, or am unfamiliar with, or simply don't usually touch), the circumstances make it somewhat less than appreciated. And add to that the fact that the kid brother and I have still been helping to move heavy objects around--although the weight is decreasing, the work is still tiring--and that we commonly stay up 'til 1am watching The Nanny--it's no surprise I'm heavy-lidded most of the time. I hardly talk at all these days, though the sinus and cough probably contribute to that. They're getting better, however: surprisingly a bit of Vitamin C and cod liver oil capsules did the trick for me--no garlic in the ear, thankyouverymuchpleasedon'tletthedoorstrikeyouonthewayout.
I've had a couple of rather... strange dreams lately--beginning last week, I think... I don't remember the exact day, and I forgot to write it down at once when I woke; but I still have a rough idea of the dreams.
Dream 1: I was in a dimly-lit place, wearing my usual attire, and for some reason it was hazy, though my breathing was unaffected. There were many other humanoid shapes around, though the bad lighting meant that I could not discern a single face or any distinguishing marks. They were all silent and roughly the same size as well. I was holding a hoe and the other figures were all holding various household implements--mops, brushes, etc; and suddenly I knew that we were in some sort of game or contest; though I couldn't figure out the rules or the prize, it seemed that we were in some sort of fight to the death. The shadowy figures began moving slowly about, and I whacked at a couple of the figures' legs with my hoe; they were soon defeated and, seeing no other figures near me, I sat down. Suddenly there was a bit of pain at the back of my neck, at the base of my head, and when I touched it I found I was bleeding, and I moved out of the way of the next incoming attack--somebody was attacking me with a bladed item, so I got up--it was not a deep wound, as I found myself moving with no difficulty, and tried to take their feet off too; but my strikes were curiously weak, and the shaft of the hoe kept on bouncing off its (I hesitate to say "his") arms. Then I woke.
Dream 2 occurred some days after Dream 1, and my memory of it is comparatively hazy: I only remember that the whole family was made up of army people--sergeants, corporals and the like--and for some reason there was an argument and somebody was threatening to resign their post, leading to a huge family feud about it, because it was peacetime anyway.
The Pig hasn't been replying my messages since he got back from the Peninsula--well, once or twice, but that was just after he got off the plane--I managed to predict, with some accuracy, the time when he would turn his phone on after leaving the plane (assuming, of course, that the plane had arrived on time and that he would obey the order to switch off electronic devices with communicative functions), and that was the last of our communication; I think he's out of credit, and I'd phone over to find out except that I have a sneaking suspicion that both his phones are being tied up talking to his girlfriend, or that she's around and he's not free to talk anyway. It's a bit of a pity since I'd've liked to see him again before leaving... I might be back in December, but that's so highly unlikely that I might as well admit I'm unlikely to reappear for the next year or two, and by then we'll both have graduated and he'll be off somewhere and I'll be off somewhere else. At any rate I've been spending the time with nobody but family and family's contacts--people from church, old acquaintances, relatives--I've gone nowhere without family around and truth be told, I'm starting to hanker after a day or two of uninterrupted time for myself to just sit back and do nothing useful.
After all that's what the parents tend to look at when time is being spent: the usefulness of it--whether whatever is being done will make one a more useful member of society, or a better (read: higher-scoring) student, or a more skilful worker, or a healthier person (from any aspect you care to think of)--and I tend to consider activities in terms of Required or Interesting, and while the parents are around and the Internet's on restricted access, I've been doing a lot more Required things than Interesting ones, which is not to say that the entire holiday time with the family around has been a dreary affair--merely that they tend to consider "What Needs Doing" first and then forget "What Might Be Enjoyed Doing". It's probably something to do with their growing-up process, which sounds like it was full of hardships the way they tell it--you know, the tales of "I woke every day at 4.30am to walk half a mile in the dark to strip trees for bark which I had to stomp and process into wood pulp which I then soaked before walking to school three miles away without breakfast, and then after that I had to walk back to the farm and plant things/harvest things until night when I would do my homework by the flickering light of fireflies that we caught by hand in the fields and then I'd lay out the wood pulp to dry so I could make rough paper out of it for the next day's homework". Which of course probably is entirely true, but has coloured their thinking to a certain extent and now I can't sit around the house playing the Wii or watching TV or reading fiction without being told to grow up and do useful things like prepare for next semester's exams.
I suppose one can't go through life without a healthy amount of doing Required things; I just don't like the way the world seems structured so that Required things and Interesting things are necessarily segregated; duties, yes, wonderful things, world wouldn't turn without 'em, but goodness gracious do they have to take up the whole day and can't we loll about for an hour or two spouting nonsense?
The walks by the beach are still ongoing; just that now they're a whole-family affair, and I usually walk in the bit of sea where the waves gently lap around my midcalf while the rest of the bunch go jogging around and the mother walks along in the far rear, sedately staying un-sweaty and un-wet. I always end up walking alone, because they like running and I don't; so I walk in the waves, watching the crabs scurry for cover and the jellyfish and so on--you already have a comprehensive description of what the beach tends to be like during my walks on it. I found a dead turtle washed up on the sand a few days ago; it seemed fresh, since I didn't smell any decomposition, though it had stopped bleeding from any wounds it might have had. It was on its belly, and I didn't want to turn it over, so the only wounds I could see were a rather deep-looking stab on the top of its shell, slightly to the lower left of the apex (if you were standing at the tail and looking towards the head) and a slash into its left rear flipper, which had pretty much entirely taken the flipper off (it was floating freely in the waves, unlike the other three flipppers) and appeared to have gotten into the insides, because there were tendril-like bits of meat also floating in the water. The turtle was quite a large one, too, though the parents (I told them about it and the whole family came to see it--they'd been jogging and hadn't noticed it) said it wasn't quite full-grown yet. The poor thing was piteous, so we took photographs of it.
I've had a couple of rather... strange dreams lately--beginning last week, I think... I don't remember the exact day, and I forgot to write it down at once when I woke; but I still have a rough idea of the dreams.
Dream 1: I was in a dimly-lit place, wearing my usual attire, and for some reason it was hazy, though my breathing was unaffected. There were many other humanoid shapes around, though the bad lighting meant that I could not discern a single face or any distinguishing marks. They were all silent and roughly the same size as well. I was holding a hoe and the other figures were all holding various household implements--mops, brushes, etc; and suddenly I knew that we were in some sort of game or contest; though I couldn't figure out the rules or the prize, it seemed that we were in some sort of fight to the death. The shadowy figures began moving slowly about, and I whacked at a couple of the figures' legs with my hoe; they were soon defeated and, seeing no other figures near me, I sat down. Suddenly there was a bit of pain at the back of my neck, at the base of my head, and when I touched it I found I was bleeding, and I moved out of the way of the next incoming attack--somebody was attacking me with a bladed item, so I got up--it was not a deep wound, as I found myself moving with no difficulty, and tried to take their feet off too; but my strikes were curiously weak, and the shaft of the hoe kept on bouncing off its (I hesitate to say "his") arms. Then I woke.
Dream 2 occurred some days after Dream 1, and my memory of it is comparatively hazy: I only remember that the whole family was made up of army people--sergeants, corporals and the like--and for some reason there was an argument and somebody was threatening to resign their post, leading to a huge family feud about it, because it was peacetime anyway.
The Pig hasn't been replying my messages since he got back from the Peninsula--well, once or twice, but that was just after he got off the plane--I managed to predict, with some accuracy, the time when he would turn his phone on after leaving the plane (assuming, of course, that the plane had arrived on time and that he would obey the order to switch off electronic devices with communicative functions), and that was the last of our communication; I think he's out of credit, and I'd phone over to find out except that I have a sneaking suspicion that both his phones are being tied up talking to his girlfriend, or that she's around and he's not free to talk anyway. It's a bit of a pity since I'd've liked to see him again before leaving... I might be back in December, but that's so highly unlikely that I might as well admit I'm unlikely to reappear for the next year or two, and by then we'll both have graduated and he'll be off somewhere and I'll be off somewhere else. At any rate I've been spending the time with nobody but family and family's contacts--people from church, old acquaintances, relatives--I've gone nowhere without family around and truth be told, I'm starting to hanker after a day or two of uninterrupted time for myself to just sit back and do nothing useful.
After all that's what the parents tend to look at when time is being spent: the usefulness of it--whether whatever is being done will make one a more useful member of society, or a better (read: higher-scoring) student, or a more skilful worker, or a healthier person (from any aspect you care to think of)--and I tend to consider activities in terms of Required or Interesting, and while the parents are around and the Internet's on restricted access, I've been doing a lot more Required things than Interesting ones, which is not to say that the entire holiday time with the family around has been a dreary affair--merely that they tend to consider "What Needs Doing" first and then forget "What Might Be Enjoyed Doing". It's probably something to do with their growing-up process, which sounds like it was full of hardships the way they tell it--you know, the tales of "I woke every day at 4.30am to walk half a mile in the dark to strip trees for bark which I had to stomp and process into wood pulp which I then soaked before walking to school three miles away without breakfast, and then after that I had to walk back to the farm and plant things/harvest things until night when I would do my homework by the flickering light of fireflies that we caught by hand in the fields and then I'd lay out the wood pulp to dry so I could make rough paper out of it for the next day's homework". Which of course probably is entirely true, but has coloured their thinking to a certain extent and now I can't sit around the house playing the Wii or watching TV or reading fiction without being told to grow up and do useful things like prepare for next semester's exams.
I suppose one can't go through life without a healthy amount of doing Required things; I just don't like the way the world seems structured so that Required things and Interesting things are necessarily segregated; duties, yes, wonderful things, world wouldn't turn without 'em, but goodness gracious do they have to take up the whole day and can't we loll about for an hour or two spouting nonsense?
The walks by the beach are still ongoing; just that now they're a whole-family affair, and I usually walk in the bit of sea where the waves gently lap around my midcalf while the rest of the bunch go jogging around and the mother walks along in the far rear, sedately staying un-sweaty and un-wet. I always end up walking alone, because they like running and I don't; so I walk in the waves, watching the crabs scurry for cover and the jellyfish and so on--you already have a comprehensive description of what the beach tends to be like during my walks on it. I found a dead turtle washed up on the sand a few days ago; it seemed fresh, since I didn't smell any decomposition, though it had stopped bleeding from any wounds it might have had. It was on its belly, and I didn't want to turn it over, so the only wounds I could see were a rather deep-looking stab on the top of its shell, slightly to the lower left of the apex (if you were standing at the tail and looking towards the head) and a slash into its left rear flipper, which had pretty much entirely taken the flipper off (it was floating freely in the waves, unlike the other three flipppers) and appeared to have gotten into the insides, because there were tendril-like bits of meat also floating in the water. The turtle was quite a large one, too, though the parents (I told them about it and the whole family came to see it--they'd been jogging and hadn't noticed it) said it wasn't quite full-grown yet. The poor thing was piteous, so we took photographs of it.
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