Nocturnal Activities

After the Webster reading and party, I decided to go grocery shopping at 12:30 in the morning. It may be difficult to find good supper in a small university town, but it certainly is possible to buy milk, toilet paper, or even a lawn-mower at three in the morning if that's what you want. As a bug-eyed, midnight-oil-burning graduate student, I certainly appreciate the convenience of these large grocery stores that operate 24 hours a day. Fewer customers, friendly (imagine that!) employees, and fresh products.

I ran out of milk, and I need to have milk with my cereal every morning. People function on caffeine; I function on lactose. Milk, cheese, half & half, whipped cream - my essentials. I get squirmish if I don't have cheese in the fridge. So I picked up milk and a bunch of other things that weren't originally on my list.

I seem to be awake in the middle of the night more often now. Two nights ago, I woke up to the sound of the fire alarm. I thought at first that I'd set the clock for a pre-dawn working session. It was about four in the morning and the alarm went on for a while, then stopped, then went on again. I tried sleeping, thinking it was just a malfunction. Ten minutes later, I heard doors banging. Were people going out of the building? Should I? And then the sirens. I stared out the window; the fire engines were coming. I groggily dug out my fleece and ski pants and walked outside. I didn't smell any smoke and I didn't see anyone else outside, but I did see apartment lights on. The firemen were on the third floor so I didn't bump into any of them, but I could hear them working. Walkie-talkies; someone exclaiming there are a lot of locked doors and they need keys; sliding sounds. I was in busybody mode, but not so much that I wanted to walk up to one of the busy fireman and ask what was going on.

I just went back to bed and stared at the ceiling. Later, I heard some vacuuming sounds. Maybe someone had been smoking weed and they set off the alarm. Maybe someone had left the stove on by mistake and then went to bed. At any rate, my sleep was truncated, and I doubt I'll be catching up on that very soon. It's Friday night, I had my two hours of party-mode, and now I'm going to read some prose for Monday's workshop.

Five and a half more weeks to end of term. Eep.

Posted by Monoceros at March 12, 2005 1:17 AM