Reduplication

Just finished rough-typing the first 3,000 words or so of the final confrontation between Hertha and Christine (up to the end of the third notebook; there are a few pages of overflow into another book). Reading this immediately after answering reviews on the final chapter of "The Daaé Case" rather highlights the fact that I've reused the trope (and pretty much the same wording!) of the one character protesting that Raoul ought to be be 'told' something for his own good, and the other one remaining insistent that he is better off not knowing... :-(

Given that the two scenes were written about five years apart, the echo was rather less obvious at the time of composition than when reading the chapters one after another, alas!

Restless legs

My newly-acquired (within the last ten years or less, I think) restless legs syndrome seems to be a sure-fire alarm clock that prevents me from sitting up late at night (although not from *staying* up late at night...)

Once I get to a certain level of tiredness, if I'm sitting in a chair my knees just go into spasms at frequent intervals and start lifting and bending my legs. It's not entirely involuntary, but about as involuntary as a sneeze; I feel a violent urge to do it, which is temporarily alleviated by the movement, but unfortunately not for long. I have a feeling it is to do with pressure on the underside of my thighs from the edge of the chair, but since I have noticed that it occurs exclusively late at night it seems to have more to do with lack of sleep than with sitting still for too long in ergonomically unsuitable furniture.

It does not, however, seem to happen if I am lying or sprawling on my bed or elsewhere...
[Edit: now that I'm taking note, I realise that it *does* happen when I am lying down, but manifests simply as an unremarkable flexing of the calf muscle rather than a convulsive backwards kick!]