Organic cutoffs fill the waste chamber. I need to take it out to the municipal unit before it starts to smell. But I’m tired.
Dust has gathered over surfaces in the hab again, and there’s an ever-present threat of mould, birthed from a humidity level that is slightly higher than I’d like. Not a lot I can do about that, it’s down to the location and build of the unit. This is a wet and cold winter, and this is an old hab.
I sometimes dream of living in a new-build. Large windows, spacious floors, enough electricity outlets. No mould. But I don’t; all down to credits, again.
Bed sheets need their regular wash, too. They’ve been stripped off and put through a cleaning cycle, pillows and blanket thrown on the floor while their covers are cleaned. I tonight I’ll hang them and turn up the hab’s heating. Trying to dry them before I need them. I have a second set, jammed into a container somewhere in the hab, but I prefer these.
The landlord is due to send over a maintenance crew tomorrow, a regular check-in on some under-floor machinery in this place. Means that I’ve got to dig out everything hidden under my limited set of furniture, just so they can get to the access hatches. Clutter is all that it is, stowed away for another time. Unused in years. Still not thrown away or sold off. Not much value in it, so I leave it be.
But they crew arrived early. Today. While I was out. I watched them on the remote camera as they worked. I felt strangely violated, as the unit wasn’t expecting a visitor. Watched my stuff being moved around, pushed aside, my exercise gear still out, the bedding strewn on the floor. I feel like they must think I’m a slob. I wonder if that means that I am. Are we what others see when we are at our best, or what others see when we didn’t expect them?
I may have a guest tomorrow night. Don’t know yet. But maybe. Comm has been pinging promisingly. I looked around the unit last night and wondered how I’m going to sort everything out in time for a visitor. I grimaced, internally. So much to do, just to keep on top of life; clean, scrub, dispose, wash, tidy.
The week-day routine is promising healthy dividends, if I can keep it up, on top of the life maintenance. Got to tweak the intake to ensure a calorie deficit but, otherwise, the health plan might work. It’s not leaving me much time to do anything else in my day, though, before I have to retreat to the bed and rest. If I push myself too late into the night, I’ll not have time for recovery sleep. And without recovery time, I’ll hurt myself or burn out. The opposite of what I’m trying to do.
I’m sure, with more discipline, I can fit more into the hours between getting home from work, and climbing, exhausted, into bed. Got to cut down on the stim-streams, they are too easy to lose hours to. Slumped back on couch, locked into a trance by the blue light of the terminal, a flickering glow in a darkened room. The only other movement: the steady, distracted, scroll of the data feed on the comm. You know what I mean, you’ve done it, too.
Got to keep ahead of the grind. Got to keep on track with the health routine. Got to add something that helps me learn… something. The brain calls out to me for stimulation, and the entertainment streams shouldn’t be my only answer. Need to flex it, or lose it.
I’ve seen people lose it. You probably have, as well. You see them on the social feed, ranting on the hill they chose to die on, repeating false or half-truths from external actors, drip fed to them because it is what they want to hear. Critical thinking can easily die, in our information saturated lives. The answer to so much input, from sources with dubious or unknowable intent, isn’t to give up and only read what you want to hear, to just give over and surrender to their plan. Their false rage, their fake virtue. That’s the easy way out.
Read more. Listen more. Think more.
Just got to find the time. Just got to switch off the stim.
Cyber Noir 2020 