insomnia; desert rats; large pine-scented scratching post.
Hrrrmm, it seems I'm not fated to sleep tonight, even though I actually went out and DID stuff for a change, rather than just sitting inside and thinking about all the stuff I needed to do, and not getting around to doing any of it. Maybe that's the problem, then? Maybe I've been overstimulated by having a semi-active day? In any case, I went to bed just before midnight, and while I usually find myself nodding off after about ten minutes of bedtime reading, tonight I was still hard at my novel nearly four hours later. So I've got myself up again in search of some distraction, but obviously there's sod all on telly. Even Dave, my trusty standby of late, has turned into home shopping. Pah.
I've been so rubbish at LiveJournalling again lately, and am wondering whether I shouldn't oughta have another shot at posting something everyday, regardless of quality or content, just to get myself back into the habit. The fact that I got burgled about a week after starting my last attempt at this isn't too encouraging, mind. Anyway, since I last posted, I've been preoccupied either with (a.) having a horrible, horrible headcold, (b.) being busier than I can cope with, but with largely uninteresting stuff or (c.) being hideously depressed and crying like a wet.
In the meantime, I haven't managed to get to sleep yet tonight. I did manage to find this on the BBC news website, though:
It's the long-eared jerboa! An elusive rodent found in deserts in China and Mongolia, and recently recorded on film for the first time. There are two excellent video clips of it here, one showing it hoppity-hopping about like a tiny kangaroo,1 and another in which the little creature is burrowing in the sand. In the latter you can see its tail, every bit as extraordinary (to me, anyway) as its ears - so very long, with a stripy tassel at its tip, that it looks almost like a bell rope. Lawks.
I know that the cuteness or otherwise of animals is far from the most important thing about them, but really, this little animal is breathtakingly darling, with tail and ears of such striking proportions when compared with its tiny frame, that it looks like a real life Pokémon creature or something. I like it exceedingly.
* * * * *
Later
Hooray, from around 6am I managed to get some sleep in. Only about four hours, because I wanted to try to get up at a semi-sensible time, rather than sleeping the day through as is so easy with days as short as these winter ones, and yay! I'm glad I did, because it's actually dry and sunny out there for a change! The idea of being able to leave the house without taking my ark with me is greatly appealing, I must say.
First, though, I've got to a have a quick look for Christmas deckies. I know I brought a few over from Norman Street when I moved here, but so few that they wouldn't have warranted an entire box to themselves. God knows what they got packed with, and God knows where they've ended up now. But I'll have a look. Thanks to the kindness of the sister with the car, three_wishes, I ended up going out Christmas tree shopping yesterday arvo with her and LK (J's uni friend with whom we'd lived in a house share in my 2nd year of uni), and now have a 5 foot Nordman fir at one end of my living room, still arrayed in its naked greenery :-) My first Christmas tree of my very own! Somewhat amazingly, neither of the cats has tried to scale it yet. This may however change when I load its branches with tantalisingly trailing lengths of spangly stuff, and baubles which wink and twinkle as they catch the light...
1 I had a pair of Mongolian gerbils as a young Jackson, aged 10 - 13 or thereabouts, and always said that there was something kangaroo-ish in their bearing. I knew what I meant, even if no one else did, so hooray that Actual Proper Zoologists make the same comparison of their long-eared cousins. It makes me slightly less fanciful, anyway.
I've been so rubbish at LiveJournalling again lately, and am wondering whether I shouldn't oughta have another shot at posting something everyday, regardless of quality or content, just to get myself back into the habit. The fact that I got burgled about a week after starting my last attempt at this isn't too encouraging, mind. Anyway, since I last posted, I've been preoccupied either with (a.) having a horrible, horrible headcold, (b.) being busier than I can cope with, but with largely uninteresting stuff or (c.) being hideously depressed and crying like a wet.
In the meantime, I haven't managed to get to sleep yet tonight. I did manage to find this on the BBC news website, though:
It's the long-eared jerboa! An elusive rodent found in deserts in China and Mongolia, and recently recorded on film for the first time. There are two excellent video clips of it here, one showing it hoppity-hopping about like a tiny kangaroo,1 and another in which the little creature is burrowing in the sand. In the latter you can see its tail, every bit as extraordinary (to me, anyway) as its ears - so very long, with a stripy tassel at its tip, that it looks almost like a bell rope. Lawks.
I know that the cuteness or otherwise of animals is far from the most important thing about them, but really, this little animal is breathtakingly darling, with tail and ears of such striking proportions when compared with its tiny frame, that it looks like a real life Pokémon creature or something. I like it exceedingly.
* * * * *
Later
Hooray, from around 6am I managed to get some sleep in. Only about four hours, because I wanted to try to get up at a semi-sensible time, rather than sleeping the day through as is so easy with days as short as these winter ones, and yay! I'm glad I did, because it's actually dry and sunny out there for a change! The idea of being able to leave the house without taking my ark with me is greatly appealing, I must say.
First, though, I've got to a have a quick look for Christmas deckies. I know I brought a few over from Norman Street when I moved here, but so few that they wouldn't have warranted an entire box to themselves. God knows what they got packed with, and God knows where they've ended up now. But I'll have a look. Thanks to the kindness of the sister with the car, three_wishes, I ended up going out Christmas tree shopping yesterday arvo with her and LK (J's uni friend with whom we'd lived in a house share in my 2nd year of uni), and now have a 5 foot Nordman fir at one end of my living room, still arrayed in its naked greenery :-) My first Christmas tree of my very own! Somewhat amazingly, neither of the cats has tried to scale it yet. This may however change when I load its branches with tantalisingly trailing lengths of spangly stuff, and baubles which wink and twinkle as they catch the light...
1 I had a pair of Mongolian gerbils as a young Jackson, aged 10 - 13 or thereabouts, and always said that there was something kangaroo-ish in their bearing. I knew what I meant, even if no one else did, so hooray that Actual Proper Zoologists make the same comparison of their long-eared cousins. It makes me slightly less fanciful, anyway.