gate

Staff meeting at 11am on Monday of this week. Business as usual...

Then our Chief Exec, who is a) a Dame b) I see as a mentor c) have the utmost respect for d) feel so badly for her when she needs to address things like this:

The topic was introduced as something that needs to be discussed because it had been addressed internally by someone to HR, and now our HR officer had started a new job elsewhere so needed to be taken up by our C.E. So sheets of paper were circulated to everyone with two columns: a) acceptable b) not acceptable. First comments made by member of staff: what are skorts?

Apparently someone had said something to HR about someone wearing clothes they felt were inappropriate (umm, did I choose the absolute wrong day to wear shorts, I spent the rest of the day hiking them down. In my defense, they're dressy, and I wore them all day with a blazer). But I don't think it was these shorts which were the tip-off, but my leather shorts (they are loose fitting, again dressy). Oh dear god. Nothing is worse then deeming Draconian law over workers in a casual attired place- and horror of horrors, jeans are deemed unacceptable. So I'm thinking a) my leather shorts have clearly offended someone b) I need to quit my job if I can't wear jeans. Anecdotes were shared on the last time, pre-2002 when our C.E. had to address a man wearing tight short shorts and she's never discussed dress code since. Thankfully jeans made it back to the acceptable list, but I'm never wearing shorts again.

I returned home from work that day (chaffing on my legs from the constant tug down the thighs), and folded up the leather shorts and put them into the third drawer of my dresser. As I closed the drawer, I heard a small wimper and a gasp for last breaths.

thrown

So as you may be aware, but maybe not, there's been this guy who shot his ex-girlfriend through a window, didn't kill her, but killed her current partner, then shot a police man, then wage war on police, he's been on the run in the north east of England, a considerably distance away. Anyway, it's terrifying, and people do truly go insane when it's hot and sunny in this country. The point is that I haven't been able to sleep very well over the past few evenings because of it, and because I'm the biggest baby.

When I was younger, it was a cardinal sin to wake my parents up, for whatever reason, fear, wet the bed, couldn't sleep because I watched the Exorcist and I was afraid the bed would convulse etc. I've very scared shitless in bed, at 12, and just had to grin and bear it until it was light outside again. I remember once hearing these weird horns and resolving myself to believe that it was ghosts in the attics. Realised the next morning it was my sister playing on this toy saxophone. But that's neither here nor there. Just an episodic replay of my irrational fear of the night.

But like most, because it's hot, I tend to have feverish dreams. So the other night, just having dropped off asleep, in my dream, I was sleeping towards the wall, and saw a man all dressed in white blending in with the paint colour. I then threw myself onto Chris, incoherently saying, Chris there's a man... So he started stroking my back so it was ok, and that's when I woke up to the feeling my heart pounding against his back. Still scares the shit out of me thinking back to that. And you can never fall back asleep after your heart races like that, and because you're afraid to fall back asleep and have a scary dream. So I asked Chris to stay awake until I fell asleep, which was of course yes. So I rolled back over, and he rubbed my back to calm me down. Not even five minutes later, I had to wake him up because he was snoring so loudly.

I emailed him the next day saying that I was really tired because I hadn't slept well. He said, oh no bad dream, don't worry, I can stay awake again until you fall asleep tonight.