don't mind me, i'm hardly even here.
...For you, this is a one-issue week...we are dealing with a very big issue. One that has implications at almost every level of your life.
Oil is now $30 a barrel. When was the last time it was $30 a barrel? What's different between now and then, economy-wise?
(Don't send me your answers. This is just a little way to expand your horizons. Honest.)
I thought I was so clever on Saturday. I bought all those boxes and started boxing stuff up. Probably did a little too much, you know? I felt more tired than I had in quite a while. I had a few physical reactions (like severe cramping-that's-probably-really-Braxton-Hicks-contractions) that made me wonder, Oh no, have I sent myself into labor?
Mostly I was just tired.
Darin and his friends played their D&D game until 8 and then sat around and talked some. I excused myself at 8:30 when I realized that I could fall asleep on the couch if only Brent would stop talking. Since the living room/dining room is the appropriate place for conversation, it seemed wise for me to go elsewhere. I went down to bed. I read for an hour and turned off the light at 9:30, totally exhausted.
I proceeded to wake up at 10:30, 12:30, and 2:30, which is when Darin came to bed. We sat up and read for a while, and then at 3:30 he went back to sleep. It was not to be for me -- I tried going back to sleep, and eventually gave up, went back upstairs, and read for a few hours.
At 6:30 I went back to bed. Whereupon I woke up at 7:30, 8:30, 9:30, and finally 10:30.
Not a particularly effective night of sleep. I dreamed once or twice. I don't understand exactly how the stages of sleep work -- if you want to, you can explain it to me here -- but evidently dreaming means I've gotten through the 4 stages of sleep. I can't imagine how. And it didn't particularly feel like useful sleep to me.
This morning I was pretty much a zombie. I was there, but not there, you know? Mike and Al showed up and I mumbled a few things at them. The rest of the D&D group showed up for some more gaming and instead of hanging out with them or boxing up some more stuff, I just went back to bed. It was a pretty fruitless quest -- I read a book and closed my eyes a few times, but no deal.
Maybe I was hungry, I thought -- food's usually good for making you sleepy. I went upstairs, made a sandwich, saw how the game was going, and then went back downstairs, where I proceeded to fall asleep. For all of about 90 minutes. A loud noise upstairs woke me up and that was it, it was time to get up again.
Oy.
I went up and rejoined the crowd. They brought in vast quantities of food for dinner. The game broke up around 8 again, and at 9 we watched the X-Files that was done in the style of Cops. It was pretty funny. Then we watched our recorded 60 Minutes and decided it was time for bed. Darin was yawning and I was pretty tired.
It's now 3:30 in the morning, and I haven't been able to fall asleep. I'm yawning, that's a good sign. But I think I'm just going to stay up until I'm able only to drag myself back to the bed and nothing will keep me from falling comatose. (Until Darin gets a 10am wake-up call from one of the guys he works with, that is -- I always know when it's 10am by when the phone rings on Monday morning.)
I'm confused and disoriented -- sleeplessness doesn't make you tired, it makes you stupid. (One of the best descriptions of sleeplessness ever is in One Hundred Years Of Solitude -- yes, periodically I read litt-ra-chur -- and shows how a character suffering from chronic insomnia becomes more and more forgetful, finally having to put the names of things on the things themselves, such as labeling a chair "chair.) I can't carry on a conversation to save my life -- those times when I joined the D&D group, I didn't say much, I just sort of drifted through like a slightly sleepy ghost. I can't get comfortable. I have to go to the bathroom constantly -- no sooner do I get done going once than I have to go again, literally: there have been several times where I've finished peeing and gone to wash my hands, only to realize I've got to pee again.
I am friggin' exhausted and I can't do anything about it.
I'm wandering the halls of our house like a spirit roaming the halls of some ancient castle, except nothing in Los Angeles is allowed to be ancient and I'm rather more flesh-and-blood than I care to think about at the moment. Therese told me that when she was pregnant with Elinor she would wander the aisles of Sav-On. Except for the fact that I'd have to get dressed and get behind the wheel of a motorized vehicle and I don't want to leave the house at 4am, I'd go do the same damn thing right now.
I am told that I'm supposed to save up on sleep now, as if I came equipped with a sleep battery. Let's just say if the baby wakes me up every 3 hours, I will be sleeping more than I am now.
And if you need to talk to me, please do not ask to do so at 10am.
Forum: Got any suggestions on how to help with my insomnia?
I can't sleep and I can't have a coherent conversation with my husband or some friends to save my life, but I can remember a bit from a novel I haven't read in 17 years. Welcome to the state of my mind.
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Copyright 2000 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com