something in the wires made the lightbulbs break

For some days, I've seen people mention the Martha Wells Humble Bundle offer and gone 'nah, I don't need it, I've got most of the Murderbot stuff, I DON'T NEED IT'.

And then someone posted that it has the short stories, and I nearly caved. And then someone shared it on Tumblr, and I don't remember what was said, and I was like 'it won't hurt to look, right'?

I will tell you that I did not cave because it has a Murderbot book I have either not read or have entirely forgotten reading (and may not, in fact, own). I did not cave because of short stories, for I noticed not the presence of said short stories. I caved because nearly the first thing I saw was The Emilie Adventures, which I know not if I will love, but has been in my wish list many many years (best guess: 2018, which is the copyright date of what I think is the first Murderbot book I read, which was at the time the most recent. The two Emilie stories are copyright 2013 and 2014, but by the time I tried to acquire them, no legal avenues worked).

So now I have 14 ebooks, some of which I have read and some of which are short stories, and I do not have the oomph to put them in the acquired books list (which has a gaping hole in it in which I either bought no books, or did not record them), along with the three that turned up ... yesterday (and one I really wanted is not sodding available and my money has been refunded. I hate this 'warehousing glitch' or whatever the excuse is, it happens so sodding often).

Today has brought the news of the passing of two more people - one I counted a friend, and one I knew more in passing. I've known both since the 80s.

David was a member of the dance group my mother and I joined in about 1984, and which I've intermittently been associated with since. I'm not sure if I ever had a conversation with them that wasn't about dancing. We were members of the same performance group, although I spent far fewer years in it than David. Other than folk festivals and dancing places, the only other place I ever remember encountering David was in one of the city queer pubs on a very quiet weekday afternoon. I never did find out if they were there because it was a safe space, or because it was their local pub.

Robert ran the Fremantle Music School, which I attended briefly in the mid 80s*. I've encountered Robert intermittently over the years, at various music events. They were involved in the Mandolin Orchestra, and I believe the Recorder and Early Music Society. We met up again when I joined the first of the two (very) amateur orchestras I've joined in recent years -- they have been the leader of the group in the years I've been there (two years? three?). In retirement, Robert became somewhat prolific in composing pieces, and I think we had one of their pieces at least every semester. We have one that is due to be debuted tomorrow, at a concert that is now going to be a bit fraught. **

* provided-by-school lessons ran to the end of year ten. I found a lovely teacher at the FMS, but when they moved away from the school roughly a year later, I followed them, mostly having lessons at their home.
** I really feel for our conductor, and for our other main organiser, both of whom have been dealing with calling telling people one on one throughout today.

At my last psych appointment, I reported back that while getting my evening tasks done earlier was great, and for four nights I'd successfully gone to bed at a reasonable time, it hadn't lasted. I had continued to get the tasks done (most nights) but had lost the ability to then go to bed afterwards -- I'd adjusted to the new normal, and 'finish my list' was no longer 'and it's bed time' it was 'and it's time to read fic / flirt with tumblr / etc'.

(aside: the expression on the psych's face was priceless. They said approximately 'You did the homework?! only teachers do the homework!?'. And here was me feeling that I'd half arsed the homework. Which, yeah. )

Building on that success, I've moved my bedside lamp down from the top of the bedside shelf (say, 1.1m up) to the shelf that is the same height as the bed. This enables me to read in bed with just the lamp on, and not have a really bright room. And it will surprise no-one who knows about sleep and light and screens, putting the screen away and then reading in low light on paper? My insomnia is dramatically reduced.

I'm now waking up before the 7am alarm more days than not. But what I'm not feeling is rested. I'm obviously getting 'enough' sleep in some way, or I wouldn't be waking, but I'm not sure I'm getting enough sleep cycles. Or maybe it is that I've got a lot of stress happening, and I'm just burning through all the oomph I have.