[Previous entry: ""These meatballs taste more like pork than beef.""] [Next entry: "Which side is the cock on?"]
04/07/2004: "Tuesday?"
I am losing track of time. Today is Wednesday. I've spent the last ten minutes thinking it was Tuesday. The names of the days of the week seem arbitrary at times like this. Perhaps we should get rid of them. Call Monday to Friday 'Meaningless'. Saturday and Sunday can be 'Respite'.
I'm wearing a charcoal grey shirt. It's covered in peculiar white patches. I'm covered in cat hair and scurf and smell like warm damp and old clothes. I forewent a shower last night to spend more time in bed. I've not been sleeping well.
I'm feeling more rested today than I did yesterday, but not rested enough. I'm still looking for places to kip here at work. My car won't do because I'll be spotted. The space benath my desk is unsuitable for the same reason. It's also a little cramped. (I tried it for size.)
Perhaps I should sleep in the toilet.
A week or so after the I wrote the first part of this article, I did end up sleeping in my car.
The night before my vehicular transgression I'd had, perhaps, three to four hours' sleep. This wasn't in one leisurely block of course. No, it was punctuated by shouts of 'SHIT!' and 'FUCK!' as my steroid acne kept me awake, throwing socks and trousers at my ceiling as the mice in the loft above me skittered about and a few abortive attempts at trying to cry myself to sleep.
Add to this nightmares about being responsible for some kind of military operation and that the left and right parts of my head were controlled by two opposing forces (Red and Blue) and, dear reader, you can understand why in the morning I was a fucking mess.
It took me an hour to drive to work and that hour was spent trying to keep awake; my head lolling forwards, my body collapsing sideways and down into the driver's seat and on several occasions my car weaving across a lane or veering dangerously close to the edge of the road. It's amazing I got to the office alive.
Once at work I managed to stay awake - and give some meagre impression that I was working - until noon, at which point I announced I was going for my lunch and headed to the car park.
When I'd parked my car, betwixt two buildings where there were no security cameras, the part of the car park I was in was deserted. I had hoped it would continue to be. It was hard enough reconciling myself to my going to sleep in a car - having to sleep in a car when people might be around would be almost intolerable.
Not only were there two other vehicles in the car park, one was a repair van whose owner was going to stay there in order to work on a colleague's car. It wasn't enough that the repair man would be there. Oh no. He had to be working on the car of someone I knew. I wondered how long it would take for stories of 'Hey, IDgaf's sleeping in his car!' to circulate.
There was nothing I could do. Nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide. I needed to sleep - onlookers be damned.
The car was surprisingly warm inside. I had thought I'd need my puffa jacket to keep me warm, but in the end I removed it and used it as a pillow. Well, as a good a pillow as possible when zips are tugging at hair and pimples are pushing against press-studs. I drew the rear windscreen blind and used a car seat cover as a curtain for the window of the passenger door the crown of my head rested against.
Either I'd grown or the car had shrunk because I wasn't very comfortable. I alternated between an 's' shape and the foetal position. Stretching out was impossible unless I stuck my feet through the window; I decided not to draw any more attention to myself than necessary.
I slept for about 40 minutes (including shuffling). It did me good, but I still looked and felt like a outcast from a zombie colony.
