Buddy, Can You Spare A Hundred Bucks?

My sleeping pattern has completely lost touch with reality at the moment. I seem to be getting more and more confused about what time of day or night it is, and my habit of biphasic sleeping doesn't seem to help. The original plan of sleeping four hours in the day and four in the night came from my rather unorthodox working hours - it seemed to be the only way to deal with a 05.00 alarm call! Lately though, I've not been sleeping properly either by day or by night, and just seem to be getting more and more tired as the days go on. The fact that this is one of the rare weeks that I'm working five consecutive days probably doesn't help matters. Neither does the fact that my natural sleeping cycle appears to be the complete opposite of what I need it to be - when left to my own devices I find myself going to bed about the time I have to get up for work...

This morning was sheer hell, as I staggered around assembling some sort of a breakfast after another night of broken sleep. "If only I could take six months off and get myself sorted out" I thought. That would probably be a great idea, to be honest. I've a few projects I could get done in that time, projects which don't seem to be getting anywhere at the moment. I find when I wake up after my four hour naps, I'm not really in the mood to do anything - I don't even want to watch TV or play poker! Just staring into a screen for hours aimlessly websurfing is not a productive way to spend one's time, and yet I seem to keep doing it at the moment.

Mmm - six months off - that would be nice. Maybe followed by changing jobs to something with more natural working hours - more natural for me that is. I actually thought about applying to be a croupier when the new casino in town was being built, that seemed perfect - until I looked at the salary they were offering and worked out I'd be taking a 33% pay cut! But then, there's no point in both me and GroupieGirl being between jobs - they're still hard to come by. So, I just had to grit my teeth and drag myself to work once again...

I'm glad I did though, because something strange happened today. Some surreal things seem to happen in my life from time to time, and now I've got another thing to add to the list. Walking down the street today I saw what appeared to be some money lying in the road. OK, I've found money in the street on several occasions in the past... but never American money before. I looked again - it was a one hundred dollar bill, on the street in my town, on the other side of the Atlantic from its home country. How on earth did it get here?

With no-one around, I picked it up, and put it in my pocket. Maybe it's a sign of some sort. Perhaps something to do with America is in my future. Who knows?

george michael

brother, can you spare a dime?

songs from the last century 1999