yawn (twitch)

Last night the book I picked up to start reading was The Time Traveler's Wife. I finished it this morning at about 4:15. Then I was so wound up thinking about it I still couldn't go to sleep and I figured it was pretty late to take a pill, so I read another book for nearly 2 hours to get sleepy enough to actually doze off. All told, I got about 3 hours sleep.

Which is to say, The Time Traveler's Wife is a great book. I sort of avoid most modern fiction almost as assiduously as I avoid poetry. I really have no interest in reading a whole book probing a marriage, for example. It tends to be boring or make me feel like a voyeur, or worst of all, both. Man, I hate being a bored voyeur.

Anyway, I suspect that if I made the effort to go back and read the book slowly, there would be all sorts of wonderful things I'd find that I missed because I was gobbling it down so fast. Kinda like yesterday when I said I was eating my ice cream in about 1/2-teaspoon-size bites to make it last longer. That book has "book club" written all over it and has surely been analyzed to death. But ya know what? It's magic, and I don't want to analyze it. I just want to hold it next to my heart for a while.

tits impair brain function?

The "maintenance" man was just here to work on the dripping shower head and the plugged up tub. (Hmmm-- I probably shouldn't put the quotes around the word "maintenance" since all he seems to do is maintain whatever the status of the problem is--ie, nothing gets fixed.) He took his wrench and banged on the shower handles/valves for a while and decided that the cold water was the one that was leaking. I wandered by the bathroom door just after he made this determination, so he had to share his discovery with me. I was confused, since we'd already talked about it being the hot water that was leaking.

Ummm....no, it's the hot that leaks, I said.

No, hon, the water dripping out of the faucet feels cold, holding his hand under the shower to demonstrate. And see, this just turns around and around and doesn't shut off, he said, twirling the cold water valve.

Since (a) the valve wasn't turning all the way around without shutting off before he banged on it, (b)he'd been calling me "hon" the whole time he was here, and (c) was being very condesending, because obviously I'm just a GIRL, this was the final straw. Of course, being the Southern lady that I am, I don't lose my temper, exactly, but I could feel my face get hot. Well, when it's LEAKING and I tighten down the hot water tap, it leaks LESS, I say with some asperity. I don't know whether the red face, the tone of voice or (god forbid) the logic finally convinced him, but he wisely didn't argue the point. Of course, he hasn't made it stop leaking, either, so who knows? He has proudly announced that the cold water tap doesn't spin around any more, and it IS still leaking, so maybe he does belive me now.