Time. Not just an awesome Pink Floyd song.

Tuesdays are my early days, when I have to be awake at 4 AM and out the door at 4:40 at the VERY latest, so I make sure that I get as much done as possible before bed. Lately, because I have rehearsals Monday night and we often don't get done until after 10 PM, I've been turning the bed down, laying out my pajamas and clothes for the next day, making breakfast, and setting alarms before I go to rehearsal so all I have to do when I get home is take off my makeup, brush my teeth, and crawl into pjs and bed and pray for deep oblivion for the next 5 hours.

Last night, I set my two regular alarms and slowly fell asleep, anxious that I wouldn't get enough of it. My radio went off at 3:45, as set, but I was confused because I had set my beeping alarm to go off just before the radio did. My beeping alarm clock is 25 minutes fast, so I always have to do a little groggy math before setting it so it goes off a few minutes before or after my radio. When the beeping alarm goes off, I check the time on the radio to see how much time I really have left, and either turn over for five more minutes or get out of bed. This morning, however, when I checked Mr. Radio against Mr. Beepy at about 4, Mr. Beepy was suddenly 35 minutes slow--it said 3:25 AM, and my confused brain thought "how odd that it's suddenly 35 minutes fast the other way". I looked over to Blue Clock on the dresser, which said it was 3 AM. It took a few seconds to register that something was wrong. Very wrong. How in the world could Mr. Radio be going off at 4, but Mr. Beepy hadn't gone off yet and Blue Clock was still at 3 AM?

It made no sense to me. None. Until I got up and checked my cell phone. Yup. 3 AM. A full hour before I had planned to get up, and only 4 hours of sleep in my brain. I checked my phone twice, just to be sure. Somehow, I had set Mr. Radio an hour ahead. I have no idea how that happened, but I had the alertness to set it back to its normal time, reset the alarm on both Mr. Radio and Mr. Beepy, and go back to a fitful sleep until 4. I was still confused and worried that maybe Mr. Radio was right and the other three were wrong. I almost turned on my computer as well, just to be on the safe side, but I'm glad I didn't because that would have meant another 10 minutes of being awake. I'm barely functional on 6 hours of sleep, let alone less than 5. That extra restless sleep made a difference today, but not much.

I am anxiously awaiting leaving work and hitting the hay as soon as possible, and annoyed with myself for not being able to figure out what was wrong this morning. Let's be honest, I'm also annoyed that I couldn't leave rehearsal early last night...it'll pass. It practically has. But as long as I'm tired and my stupid eye keeps twitching and stinging, I may break out into tears at any given moment today.

Let that be a lesson to you! Always make sure you clocks ALL have the same time! Too bad setting Mr. Beepy to the right time will just be confusing... *sigh*

I'm dead tired.

Baby, it's Cold Outside!

A few things to preface this rant:

I live in Utah.
Winters are cold in this part of Utah.
Right now, it is 36 degrees outside, and snowing.
Snow is made of frozen water--little flakes of ice are falling from the sky.
Last week, temperatures at my house (according to my outside thermometer) were less than 10 degrees some nights.

With those things in mind, can someone please tell me why people (especially girls, it seems) don't dress for the weather and then have the nerve to complain about the cold? I see girls wearing jeans, spiky heels, cute lacey tops, and hoodies, trying to navigate parking lots covered with half an inch of ice. Or they're wearing those obnoxious, ubiquitous, cheap knit skirts with high-heeled boots that look neither warm nor non-slip. They might look good, but they also look cold and in peril of breaking an ankle or wrist. Then there are the guys--some of them still wear shorts and t-shirts and flip-flops. In the snow. When it's 20 degrees outside.

Then, with all of that, they complain that they're cold.

Where is the logical disconnect? Which synapses need repair? It snows in Utah. Snow is essentially frozen water. Frozen water is called ice. Ice is cold. When it's snowing, it's cold. When it's cold, you should probably wear a real coat and perhaps some practical shoes, fashion be damned!

Now, I'm not advocating wearing a grandma coat (although they made good coats back then, and you'd probably be pretty warm), moon boots, and an ugly hat, but sometimes, for your own health and safety, you should do what it takes to stay warm and non-frostbitten. My sister's colleague at BYU-Idaho told her about a girl whose ears got frostbitten during the five minute walk from her apartment to her class because she didn't wear a hat and it was below freezing outside. If water is going to freeze, human tissue will also freeze eventually. You can't just thaw your ears like you can a bag of peas--the damage is usually a little more permanent.

Please, for your own sake, invest in a decent coat and some gloves! There are some really cute coats out there that are not only stylish but WARM. I, for one, wish we hadn't given away the bright pink, knee-length, down-filled coat I had 15 years ago, because it was WARM. I hate wearing socks, but I also hate being cold, so I wear them nearly all the time in winter, just waiting for the average temperature to be above 45 for at least a week before I take them off for summer. My hands get cold, so I wear ski gloves. I don't like wearing a hood because it makes my hair staticky, but I hate it when my ears are cold, so I wear a hood. Sure, my coat isn't all Abercrombie cute, but it keeps me warm. I don't care if people look at me funny because I know I'm warmer than they are and will probably only get the flu once all winter.

And, you know, that makes up for looking a little dumpy in my down coat and practical shoes.

Cripple Fight, or How Many Euphamisms for Money Can I Use in One Blog?

Not because I want to see cripples fight, nor because of the South Park episode which I must admit brought me great hilarity, but because every number key across the top of my keyboard except these two--5 6--is broken. BROKEN. I cannot even express my dismay and annoyance at this because I can't type an exclamation point. Nor can I make clever asides, as is often my wont, because the parentheses are equally as broken. Or borked. Depending on what lingo you savvy.

Either I need to cough up the dinero for a new keyboard, or take this one apart and clean the thingies. Contact points. Whatever they are. As it stands, I have a nice Benq flatscreen monitor in black and a bright pink tower and a drab, greyish beige greige keyboard. Perhaps this is a sign to me to spend a few sawbucks on a new keyboard. Or perhaps this is an exercise in saving my bread and learning to express myself without the ubiquitous exclamation point. However, socking away my pesos doesn't necessarily mean I can live without my AMPERSAND. AMPERSAND, people. Ampersand, asterisk, all are useless to me now. I think maybe I can justify spending some hard-earned bread on a keyboard. After all, I shelled out plenty of clams for my new shoes, and those aren't as necessary for my computer travels as a keyboard is, although my feet will probably kill me if I return their lovely new friends.

Is my genius being destroyed for lack of wampum? Am I being inhibited by my miserly hesitance to part with some cabbage? Is my gleeful shout being stifled because I don't really want to spend more beans on a good keyboard? For goodness sake, I got a new computer for Christmas. Well, new components to put in my existing computer. In any case, why shouldn't I just fork over the coinage and get it over with?

I don't know. I have some extra moolah in the bankroll. I just have to decide what color of black to buy...