Sensible is the new boring

Home last night at seven, fed myself by eight, and played Gran Tourismo till 10, then went to bed, read for an hour, and went to sleep. So I got about 7 and a half hours of sleep, and getting up at 6.15 wasn't as hard as it was yesterday.

I wasn't really bored. Buying a PS3 was my own ironic take on my single status - I knew that I was going to be spending much more time sitting around playing with myself. Gran Tourismo is one of the games I was playing 15 or so years ago, and the new-ish version is still recognisable to me. I don't tend to play it systematically (the ostensible goal is to get lots of money and the flashest cars and win all of the races). Instead I buy cars I like the look of, piddle about in the easy races and hum along to the soundtrack.

I've decided that an hour or so of reading before sleep also has to make its way back into my routine, since I sleep better after a good read. The jury is out on whether I can read on the iPad before sleep, or if that counts as more screen time (which doesn't help me sleep).

My brain seems to be taking advantage of the extra sleep time to do some filing. I had a long and detailed dream about my ex-wife on Sunday night, and another about a more recent ex last night. Neither of them was particularly distressing, it was just strange to be on holiday with Susan after almost 10 years.

I managed to get the train to work this morning, and walked the last stretch to the office listening to the New Orleans influenced tracks from Steve Earle's last album. So I arrived at my desk with a cheery grin, and a determination to laissez les bon temps roulez - because that's the way I roll.

Today seems to be a poetry day...

For My Grandmother, Knitting

There is no need they say

but the needles still move

their rhythms in the working of your hands

as easily

as if your hands

were once again those sure and skilful hands

of the fisher-girl.



You are old now

and your grasp of things is not so good

but master of your moments then

deft and swift

you slit the still-ticking quick silver fish.

Hard work it was too

of necessity.



But now they say there is no need

as the needles move

in the working of your hands

once the hands of the bride

with the hand-span waist

once the hands of the miner’s wife

who scrubbed his back

in a tin bath by the coal fire

once the hands of the mother

of six who made do and mended

scraped and slaved slapped sometimes

when necessary.



But now they say there is no need

the kids they say grandma

have too much already

more than they can wear

too many scarves and cardigans – 

gran you do too much

there’s no necessity…



At your window you wave

them goodbye Sunday.

With your painful hands

big on shrunken wrists.

Swollen-jointed. Red. Arthritic. Old.

But the needles still move

their rhythms in the working of your hands

easily

as if your hands remembered

of their own accord the patter

as if your hands had forgotten

how to stop.

Liz Lochhead