Synched, Sank, Sunk

I may have mentioned Someone once or twice around here.

And a friend or two in the Blue Nowhere may have mentioned their curiosity about Someone.

I won't be satisfying that curiosity today.

However, I wouldn't have part of this blog post if it weren't for him. Read on.
~~~~~
I have occasional bouts of insomnia. Sometimes they don't last long, maybe a night or two. Sometimes I'll go years sleeping perfectly well, up to ten hours a night standard. I have no idea what triggers it. I know experts say stress, and I've certainly had a fair portion of that lately, both negative and positive. Usually, I ride it out for a day or two and get on with life.

Once in a while, though, the insomnia gets the better of me for weeks, maybe months, on end. I'm not talking about missing an hour or two a night - I'm talking about maybe getting an hour or two a night and feeling lucky to have it!

Once, many years ago, I went two months with almost no sleep at all. No kidding...I counted the hours I got each night/day (naps included) and for several weeks I managed maybe eight hours. For the week. You do the math.

In those worst of times, I didn't go out much - I was afraid to drive. I saw flashes of light and little squiggly lines crawling through my peripheral vision. Colors were all funny and even sound played games with me. No one much noticed a difference - I've always been a bubble off plumb, anyway.

Lately, I am not sleeping much at all.

Oh, I've tried to get to bed at a reasonable hour. I'll lie there, staring at the ceiling, at the walls, at anything but the clock. My mind will run around and around on its hamster wheel, and I'll wait for it to wind down. Hours pass, and there I lie.

Although I don't drink much by way of caffeinated beverages, I cut them when I'm bad off.

I don't watch TV in the bedroom, or read, when I'm sleepless. It becomes a shrine to the hope of sleep. Vain hope, that.

Eventually, I must give in to the inevitable - I am not going to sleep yet. I get up, turn on the TV in the living room, and clear the TiVo of cached shows. I write. I read. I lurk in the Blue Nowhere and pounce on new blog posts, writing comments that seem lucid in the moment but are scattershot after a bit of shuteye. I clean or crochet or read or research or play games online. I do these things until my eyes drift closed, then stumble down the hall hoping it's not a false alarm, that I really will go on to the land of nod, drift with Morpheus awhile.

It's usually around three-thirty in the morning when I'm abed.

And five or six mornings a week, without fail, I wake up a couple of hours later. Seemingly just after I sank into blessed sleep, I am fully awake. At five-thirty. Yay. Why? Not the dreams, although they have been odd, of late. Not a strange noise, and certainly not because I've had enough sleep and am ready to greet the sun. No. I blame Someone. I'm waking up just when he is rising in the morning. I am awake for a good half hour, just as he's getting ready for work. When he is walking out his door, I finally drift back to sleep.

It's a queer sort of synchronicity, and not intentional. I've just...synched up with him. I told him about this waking of mine, and he allowed that yes, indeed, I was waking when he was. I offered the opinion that he needs to work banker's hours so I can get more sleep. He laughed.

What makes this more amusing (and, despite an almost desperate need for slumber, I do laugh about it) is that he lives in another time zone, a good day's drive away from where I live - it's not like he's right next to me, waking me with his noise, his alarm clock, his morning busyness.

Usually, I can get back to sleep after a little while, but not for long. I'll wake once or twice an hour and it can take twenty to thirty minutes to go back to sleep. I have to be careful not to let my mind engage, shift into gear and start running hot and fast, or I'm sunk - no more sleep for a while. With any luck, I'll get to sleep until ten or so, and my cumulative sleep for the night will be four hours give or take.

Add to that the hour nap I might manage in the afternoon, and I am sitting (or sleeping) pretty - six hours total on a banner day!

Of course, I'm rarely that lucky. The phone rings. A cat meyowls. The Evil Genius wakes early and wants to cuddle (which actually means play, wrestle, and bruise Mommy's anatomy for an hour before scuttling off to find breakfast). Life, in short, demands I begin my day at a more regular hour than my lack of sleep would dictate. Life will have its way.

Only on his days off, when Someone gets to sleep in, do I manage a reasonable lot of uninterrupted zzzzzzz...

Huh, wha...? I wasn't dozing...I was studying the insides of my eyelids...

So obviously it's all his fault. Nothing to do with my misfiring neurons. All...Someone'szzzzz...

Keep Your Hands and Arms Inside of the Ride at All Times

If I've seemed a touch off-kilter to you lately, well...I am. I mean, more than my regular off-kilteredness. What? Did I make up another word? Oh, well - you'll get used to that.

I'm not getting enough sleep (bitch, bitch, bitch) - between the mattress giving up on the whole idea of support, reading or writing until all hours of the night, the Evil Genius' insistence that he must eat more than once or twice a week, and the relentless barrage of phone calls from bill collectors (Excuse me, the bill was due yesterday. For cryin' out loud, ease up a little!)(Why don't bills ever come due in sync with payday?? It's a conspiracy, I tells ya!), computers desiring my vote and calling day and night to tell me about it, and cats who think they ought to be in possession of the bed during daylight hours, I'm getting maybe four hours a night. If that. Oh, and there's also the insomnia, that queer state of "I'm exhausted but I just can't sleep" that occasionally comes to call and then claims squatter's rights.

Lack of sleep makes for more than the usual crazy. Just ask the mother of a newborn.

Lose enough sleep you get into sleep debt, and eventually sleep bankruptcy, wherein a sheep frowns at you and grills you on why you can't meet your sleep responsibilities and lectures you on sound slumber practices and...umm...

Wait, where was I? For that matter, where am I?

Lack of sleep makes my brain funny. Funnier, I mean. I get loopy and grumpy, I get hot and cold, I'm not hungry but I want to eat constantly, I am at once impatient and slow to grasp simple things, and Starbuck's is my friend!! Aren't they?

Small things irritate the crap out of me, and I am more prone to thoughts of violent response to the irritation.

I also tend to drop my basket more. Isn't that a nice little euphemism? "Drop my basket" sounds so much nicer than "Lose my shit" or "Get nuttier that squirrel poo", I think. The OCD lurks in readiness for these occasions, happy for its chance to shine.

In short (too late), I am not fit company for anyone.

T isn't stupid - he knows that here there be dragons. There's no charting these waters, because they're different every time we sail through them. Mostly, I think he tries to lay low and go unnoticed until the danger's past. Hah!

Last night, he valiantly tried to right the mattress trouble by placing an old pillow under the worst saggy part. Bless his heart. He also tried to assuage the grumpy bitch in the bed with talk of using the next tax refund (yeah, we plan waaaayyyy ahead around here)(we have to - the only way we can buy big ticket items is to wait for the refund)(we suck) to purchase a mattress set from Hampton Inns (if you don't know their new beds, you really should get acquainted) instead of trying to take a vacation (we were thinking of going on a family cruise). Sweet, huh?

Can we make it until February? Stay tuned - it's bound to get interesting!

Insomnia

Insomnia sucks. You don't appreciate the simple pleasure of sleep until it wriggles from your grasp and mocks you with the deep, peaceful rest of everyone in the house - cats included - but you.

It would help if my mattress wasn't completely worthless at this point, and if I had a hope of a new one soon. It is, and I don't, dang it.

I would like to get some sleep, Universe, if you please. Even if you don't please. Something more than an hour or two punctuated with back pains, neck pains, and the occasional crazed-kitty perforation of my skin. Also, I'd like some sleep because despite TiVo and nine-million channels on the TV, I can't find anything to watch, I've read all my usual blogs twice, and my eyes are all wiggy so I can't play games on Bob the Wonder Computer...plus, he's overheating and I think I burned my knee holding him. Sigh.

I'm going to the gym tomorrow (or would that be later today??) and walking until the treadmill begs for mercy, and then maybe I'll get a bit of zzzzzzzzz...ssknnxxxxx...zzzzz...