Follow-up III: More on my current situation (and complaints about politicians)

Early in the morning, I went grocery shopping—to find that my bank card did not work. (Fortunately, I had enough cash with me.)

Later in the day, my smartphone, used for my Internet connection, suddenly decided to spontaneously turn on WIFI and try to connect to a commercial WIFI network that I have not used in more than a year. This, of course, did not work, leaving my computer without an Internet connection; equally of course, the source of the problem was not obvious and I wasted minutes troubleshooting on my computer* before I concluded that something must be wrong with the smartphone and/or its connection.

*Which has been prone to lose the connection. (Otherwise, I might have been more suspicious of the smartphone earlier.) Both my old and my new computer tend-ed/-s to interpret a minuscule movement of the USB-connector as “someone has just pulled the plug and immediately re-inserted it”, with an ensuing loss/restart/whatnot of whatever service is involved.

After I turned off the WIFI bullshit, I found the USB-tethering interrupted and failing to automatically reconnect (which it should have done). Only after I physically detached and re-attached the USB cable did the tethering work again.

Nevertheless, on the whole, it felt like a good day, for some reason. I did not dare attack my mail, obviously, but spent a few hours watching old episodes of “Chuck”. The sun was, by the standards of February, shining, and it felt like spring. For the first time in several weeks (!), I found myself spontaneously smiling—and I realized that I had even forgotten the feeling of a spontaneous smile. I felt that everything would be alright, after all, that I was far enough in my recuperation from the construction noise and other problems that I would soon be OK.

I was very tired, as my sleep pattern was out of order, and I went to sleep sometime between 13 and 14 o’clock.

At around 14:30 I was torn out of my sleep by … construction noise.

It only lasted for around an hour this time around, but this was still enough to thoroughly ruin my sleep, my day, and my hopes, because now I do not know what will come next. This might have been a one time event, it might have been a once-every-two-weeks-event, or it might have been the renewed beginning of daily terror.

I managed to go to sleep again a few hours later—only to be awakened again by some type of ruckus from an idiot neighbor.

This is the worse as an involuntary awakening not only risks a further sleep disturbance, but also leaves the body in a very different state from a “natural” awakening, with a degree of tiredness and lack of energy that makes any type of intellectual activity (often even non-intellectual activities) harder or even, especially with an existing sleep deficit, impossible for hours afterwards.

Looking at just sleep, I realize that there can be no guarantees in the daytime. But: in this house, there are no guarantees at any time of day or night. The spans between midnight and 02 respectively 06 and 07 are particularly likely to see disturbances during the last few months. Note well: These are disturbances with a non-trivial likelihood* of waking a sleeper in another apartment (!) who wears ear plugs (!).

*I do not know what proportion of these disturbances have ruined my sleep, as I have not always been troubled when asleep at these respective times (if so, because I slept through a disturbance or because there was none?), but it is often enough. I have certainly often had stretches of consecutive days when I have not been able to sleep past 06-something-or-other because of some ruckus somewhere in the house.

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