Category Archives: sleeping

On a hot summer night

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Last night I couldn’t get to sleep at all, to coin a phrase. It is summer, course, and this is what summer is about: not sleeping because it’s just too hot–the bed is hot, the room is stifling, and no matter what posture you adopt, it is uncomfortable. Your neck is sweaty and sticky. Your head pounds just enough to keep you awake. You roll onto your side, trying to find that perfect posture that will bring sleep. Nothing. The minutes tick by. Maybe you should get up and read for a bit? Maybe a cold shower? Maybe you should eat something? You ponder all of this and all of a sudden you realize you have been in bed for an hour and you are still awake. The summer insomnia of a hot July night has you in its grasp, and you are helpless to escape. Once you realize what is going on, you not only can’t get to sleep, you now know that you can’t get to sleep. You have become self-aware of the problem, and sleep has sailed away into the night, leaving you on the shore of consciousness with no hope of getting off of that beach anytime soon. You obsess with being awake, which, of course, just aggravates the situation. In the meantime, morning is getting closer and closer, the night is still hot and humid, and now you are the only one still awake except for a few night creatures who wake up after dark. The garbage truck comes by. A few partiers are finally returning home after a long night debauchery and dissidence. You should be asleep. You should be doing your best simulacra of death, but you can’t, and you catch of glimpse of Phoebus nudging up to the horizon.

On a hot summer night

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Last night I couldn’t get to sleep at all, to coin a phrase. It is summer, course, and this is what summer is about: not sleeping because it’s just too hot–the bed is hot, the room is stifling, and no matter what posture you adopt, it is uncomfortable. Your neck is sweaty and sticky. Your head pounds just enough to keep you awake. You roll onto your side, trying to find that perfect posture that will bring sleep. Nothing. The minutes tick by. Maybe you should get up and read for a bit? Maybe a cold shower? Maybe you should eat something? You ponder all of this and all of a sudden you realize you have been in bed for an hour and you are still awake. The summer insomnia of a hot July night has you in its grasp, and you are helpless to escape. Once you realize what is going on, you not only can’t get to sleep, you now know that you can’t get to sleep. You have become self-aware of the problem, and sleep has sailed away into the night, leaving you on the shore of consciousness with no hope of getting off of that beach anytime soon. You obsess with being awake, which, of course, just aggravates the situation. In the meantime, morning is getting closer and closer, the night is still hot and humid, and now you are the only one still awake except for a few night creatures who wake up after dark. The garbage truck comes by. A few partiers are finally returning home after a long night debauchery and dissidence. You should be asleep. You should be doing your best simulacra of death, but you can’t, and you catch of glimpse of Phoebus nudging up to the horizon.

On insomnia

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Couldn’t get to sleep at all last night–to coin a phrase. The creepy part of jet-lag is not that you can’t wake up or stay awake, it’s that you can’t get to sleep at night. I tossed and turned last night and nothing was comfortable, not the pillow, not the mattress, nothing. The hours ticked off–one, two, three, four, and I still couldn’t conjure up sweet dreams. The sandman would not visit my house. The worst part is that everyone else in the whole place was sound asleep. Insomnia is a solitary past-time in which the dark hours of the early morning pass slowly and painfully. Oh, one might find something to eat, read a book, or watch an old movie, but you are really missing out on all that rejuvenating sleep which totally eludes you. Sleep is the antidote for the stress and work of the day. To close your eyes and drift into unconsciousness is the only way to deal with being bone-tired, stress out, and sleepy. Yet, when sleep eludes you as if it were tiny fish in big pond, one suffers from a strange sadness, excluded from a world of dreams in which every other human being has taken refuge. Insomnia is a mean, hard, unfriendly sort that makes friends with no one. To sleep the sleep of the just plain tired is one of the priceless luxuries that no one can keep from you, but insomnia can. You can feel tired, you can feel like you should be be asleep, and you can still be wide awake. Every bone and every muscle in your body will ache, but sleep is a foreign country where you don’t have a visa and you’ve lost your map.

On insomnia

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Couldn’t get to sleep at all last night–to coin a phrase. The creepy part of jet-lag is not that you can’t wake up or stay awake, it’s that you can’t get to sleep at night. I tossed and turned last night and nothing was comfortable, not the pillow, not the mattress, nothing. The hours ticked off–one, two, three, four, and I still couldn’t conjure up sweet dreams. The sandman would not visit my house. The worst part is that everyone else in the whole place was sound asleep. Insomnia is a solitary past-time in which the dark hours of the early morning pass slowly and painfully. Oh, one might find something to eat, read a book, or watch an old movie, but you are really missing out on all that rejuvenating sleep which totally eludes you. Sleep is the antidote for the stress and work of the day. To close your eyes and drift into unconsciousness is the only way to deal with being bone-tired, stress out, and sleepy. Yet, when sleep eludes you as if it were tiny fish in big pond, one suffers from a strange sadness, excluded from a world of dreams in which every other human being has taken refuge. Insomnia is a mean, hard, unfriendly sort that makes friends with no one. To sleep the sleep of the just plain tired is one of the priceless luxuries that no one can keep from you, but insomnia can. You can feel tired, you can feel like you should be be asleep, and you can still be wide awake. Every bone and every muscle in your body will ache, but sleep is a foreign country where you don’t have a visa and you’ve lost your map.

On snoring

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A nasty thing to do, but not all of us can control the fact that we snore. Personally, I would prefer to not snore, pass the night in total, sepulchral silence. Because the night is for total, blackout silence. Maybe a cricket, maybe a ticking grandfather clock, maybe the creaking of centenary Victorian home. No one should get up in the night. Snoring is an interruption in the peace of the night. Snoring is non-lineal, unpredictable, chaotic, torturous. If sleep and rest are about restoration and redemption, how can snoring be anything but trouble? I have startled myself awake from snoring too loudly. Luckily, this has only happened once or twice. My snoring is annoying, but it’s not consistent. Many nights I pass quietly in the arms of the sleep angels who watch over this simulacrum of death that we call sleep. Snoring is an ironic and bitter development that interrupts that sweet rest which restores and rebuilds after a hard day at work, or just a had day. Given the right circumstances, we all snore: a cold, allergies, to many drinks, too tired, crabby. So this is the dilemma: who sleeps on the sofa? Snorer or snoree? If the paint is coming off of the ceiling, or the wallpaper is pealing, perhaps the snorer should be encouraged to seek refuge in another room and leave the poor suffering victim to enjoy the bed alone, especially if earplugs are not an option.

On snoring

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A nasty thing to do, but not all of us can control the fact that we snore. Personally, I would prefer to not snore, pass the night in total, sepulchral silence. Because the night is for total, blackout silence. Maybe a cricket, maybe a ticking grandfather clock, maybe the creaking of centenary Victorian home. No one should get up in the night. Snoring is an interruption in the peace of the night. Snoring is non-lineal, unpredictable, chaotic, torturous. If sleep and rest are about restoration and redemption, how can snoring be anything but trouble? I have startled myself awake from snoring too loudly. Luckily, this has only happened once or twice. My snoring is annoying, but it’s not consistent. Many nights I pass quietly in the arms of the sleep angels who watch over this simulacrum of death that we call sleep. Snoring is an ironic and bitter development that interrupts that sweet rest which restores and rebuilds after a hard day at work, or just a had day. Given the right circumstances, we all snore: a cold, allergies, to many drinks, too tired, crabby. So this is the dilemma: who sleeps on the sofa? Snorer or snoree? If the paint is coming off of the ceiling, or the wallpaper is pealing, perhaps the snorer should be encouraged to seek refuge in another room and leave the poor suffering victim to enjoy the bed alone, especially if earplugs are not an option.

On sleet

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Sleet is one of those easy metaphors for the difficulties life drops on your head: frozen rain. Walking in the sleet this afternoon, I was reminded that you cannot only not predict what might happen at any given moment, but that life is a tenuous adventure at best. Sleet stings as it hits your face, cold and icy. In vain, you put up your hands to block this icy sand that hits your tender skin. Sleet is anti-aesthetic. Snow gently falls on valley and field, horse and rider, but sleet just piles up in the corners like so many dead crickets. Sleet is death-like, the bottom pit of winter. It freezes on your windshield, turns into shiny ice on overpasses, turns steps into a death trap. Whatever is bad and evil and uncomfortable about winter is embodied in those stone-hard pellets of ice that tumble aimlessly through the sky and hit you on the head. Sleet seems to be an outcast of Hell, even unworthy of one of Dante’s circles. Cars spin madly out of control, people slip and slide wildly in a surrealistic comic ballet, and your tulips develop a shiny death glaze that will leave them brown and wilted. The birds hide, the peach blossoms fall off, and the squirrels sleep the sleep of the just plain tired.

On sleet

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Sleet is one of those easy metaphors for the difficulties life drops on your head: frozen rain. Walking in the sleet this afternoon, I was reminded that you cannot only not predict what might happen at any given moment, but that life is a tenuous adventure at best. Sleet stings as it hits your face, cold and icy. In vain, you put up your hands to block this icy sand that hits your tender skin. Sleet is anti-aesthetic. Snow gently falls on valley and field, horse and rider, but sleet just piles up in the corners like so many dead crickets. Sleet is death-like, the bottom pit of winter. It freezes on your windshield, turns into shiny ice on overpasses, turns steps into a death trap. Whatever is bad and evil and uncomfortable about winter is embodied in those stone-hard pellets of ice that tumble aimlessly through the sky and hit you on the head. Sleet seems to be an outcast of Hell, even unworthy of one of Dante’s circles. Cars spin madly out of control, people slip and slide wildly in a surrealistic comic ballet, and your tulips develop a shiny death glaze that will leave them brown and wilted. The birds hide, the peach blossoms fall off, and the squirrels sleep the sleep of the just plain tired.

On missing the end of the show (because I fell asleep)

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Have you ever woken up to find you had missed the end of the movie or show? Not that it happens often, but sometimes a long day can take its toll on my ability to focus and stay awake. You don’t even know it, really, until it happens: All of a sudden you are looking at and listening to other characters doing other things and you are wondering what happened to the show you were watching. Perhaps I’ve seen way too much television, perhaps I can predict almost any plot twist possible, perhaps I need my sleep more than I need to watch another police procedural show. Yet, it makes me mad to miss the end of the show–I want to find out who did it. It makes me mad that I couldn’t stay awake long enough to make it to the end of an hour show. By falling asleep I am reconfirming that most television is only sleep-worthy and that we are all wasting our time with most of what’s on the tube. By falling asleep, I am reconfirming that I don’t sleep enough at night, and I need to change my sleep habits. By missing the end of the show my subconscious is suggesting that most television is not worth watching and that my time would be better invested in sleeping. I fall asleep and miss the end of the show, waking up with a sore neck, a hazy sense of reality, and a lost hour or so. It takes a little while to get one’s bearings when coming up out of the black hole of sleep. So I miss the end of the show, no problem, it won’t be a rerun for me in three months when I see it again.