Rowan Tree and Red Thread

Odd sensations I have felt this morning.

• The sound of the alarm going off and waking to it. My daughter Rowan is usually awake before the alarm, and almost always awake before either Sam or myself. This morning, I was the first to consciousness and surprised by the silence once I switched the alarm off. The twin pulse of my daughter and wife breathing was hypnotic.


• The feel of the bread under the bread knife as I prepared a sandwich. For whatever reason, the bread was softer than I expected and the knife failed to cut. The resulting wobbly doorstep of a slice had to be consumed to hide the evidence.


• A single drop of water, from the reservoir on my head (gathered in the rainfall alluded to by the subject line), rolling down the side of my face as I stood in the lift (elevator). It seemed to run down my face at the same pace as the lift rose to the 4th floor. I know this was only an illusion, but I was suddenly entranced by the image of a raindrop suspended in the liftshaft, the rest of the world moving by it.

Am I more or less awake this morning that these things are in the forefront of my mind?

This "sex ID test" at the BBC website is both more time consuming and more rewarding than most of the gender quizzes I've seen. As usual, I've scored about the average for a woman in the test, which makes the full beard and pattern baldness all the harder to explain. [Insert traditional "lesbian trapped in a man's body" joke here.] I fully expect my wife to score more male than I did, just to keep the gender balance in our household.

Sam made sushi for dinner tonight. The lashing rain don't mean squat when you've tasty fish and hot green tea.