home from work

I was having strange dreams all night and slept about 12 hours. I stayed home from work today with a stomach flu. It is my first sick day in a long time and I forgot the combo of liberation and guilt that a sick day can bring.

It's grey outside. I woke up as the sun was coming up (11:15 today) and it'll be going back down at 3:30 or so. I went through a while of being okay with this, but yesterday I realized it was bothering me again. I never feel quite awake here, I am always walking in a dream. I get to work and work in the dark for a few hours and right after it's gotten light we go to lunch down the hill together. And the amount of "light" we get is never that bright, the sun clings to the horizon in the south and usually is covered with clouds.

In better news, Christmas season here is in full swing, and Iceland is about as pumped for the 'mas as a volcanic island nation can be. Even the milk cartons have special-edition versions for Christmas, featuring cartoons of some of the 13 Icelandic Christmas gremlins (jólasveinarnir). In Icelandic Christmas lore, a new santa comes down from the hills every day for the 13 days before Christmas. Then they leave in reverse (LIFO) order until the 6th of January. They have special 2-way calendars depicting this.

Anyway these gremlins come down from the hills and in the old days they terrorized the kids. They have scary names - to me the scariest is "window peeker" - the goblin who looks in on sleeping kids with his huge eyes. I have been keeping my own eyes open for them but haven't seen any yet.