lying alone with my head on the phone

Aargh. Technically I love structure, I'm a genre theorist and administer degree rules for a living. But this new boss exemplifies the particular kind of adherence to structure which is all about systems for their own sake, and which manages to divorce itself entirely from the human realities they're supposed to shape. She works in a weird management-speak idiom which I suspect is rooted in the British system where she's been working, and which doesn't really seem to connect in any meaningful way with the realities of our degree structures. She's going gung-ho into giant descriptive structural projects which seem, from where I'm sitting, to simply duplicate, in an esoteric and not entirely accessible form, what we have already. I contemplate the time-suck this is going to mean, and quail in my boots. While eating chocolate digestives, which helps.

Chocolate Digestive Biscuit watch! I'm still addicted, only partially as a coping mechanism for my Troublesome Boss. McVitie's are still my favourite, although they have the drawback (other than the excessive price) that their delectably crumbly biscuit is very messy and sprays crumbs in a wide area. (Note how I cunningly blame the self-propelled biscuit crumbs rather than my own careless munching). I am desolated to report that the Baker's Bettasnack oat and dark chocolate ones have changed their chocolate formula, and it now tastes Really Odd. This is a pity, because I rather like the dense, crunchy texture of the oat-infused biscuit. Next up to try: those miniature Woolworths ones.

The holes in my leg are apparently healing well, although they don't much like me to wear jeans, which seem to chafe enough for the wound sites to actually ache a bit in a way they haven't done at all up until now. Also, apparently sleeping habits are ingrained on a subliminal level which causes some quite distinct angsts if they're disrupted. I sleep on my side, slightly curled up. During the night, and particularly during the hour or so it takes me to fall asleep when I first get into bed, I switch between my right side and my left side fairly frequently and with an approximately equal distribution. Since I have an eight-stitch wound just under my left hip at the point of maximum pressure for a body sleeping on its side, I can't currently sleep on my left side at all. I actually wake myself up with aborted attempts to turn over, and while lying awake trying to drift off I suffer from these weird compulsions to turn over which I have to resist, and which I feel almost like a physical itch which I can't scratch. I don't know how much this is affected by actual physiological pressures - i.e. whether my heart is up or down, or which organs are pressing on each other - but it's a very strange feeling. We are creatures of habit. Strange habit.

My subject line is quoting Air Supply, more or less by random association. I am a child of the 80s, and unrepentant. Also, Air Supply, like a lot of ballady 80s pop, is incredibly good fun to render lushly on the piano.