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Monday, August 3, 2015

To Thrash, Perchance to Sleep

                       The Blowhard © 2009 cindypackardrichmond.com

   In The Hours, Michael Cunningham writes "How was your sleep, he asks, as if sleep were not an act but a creature that could be either docile or fierce."
   I have met that creature, we go toe-to-toe nearly every night.  It has met my husband as well.  Neither of us sleeps well.  My husband has a snuffagufalous embedded in his sinuses that gets feisty when he lies down.  As near as we can figure, it is very rare for both of us to be asleep at the same time.  We compare notes in the morning.
    I don't drink because I think that may be tied to the Sleep demon. My husband refuses to give up beer.  I take a sleeping pill, melatonin and a benadryl at 8:30.  We go to bed about 10:30.  He falls asleep, I toss for about a half hour, then admit  Sleep is not on my dance card.   I go downstairs to watch TV.  If I eat something it will add to my woes later, but at that point I can't say I am entirely logical when it comes to peanut butter.  I try to manufacture yawns.  Back upstairs for a warm bath.  More enforced yawns.  Back to bed, thrash, thrash.  I pull on compression knee socks, hoping to quiet my crazy legs syndrome.  Nothing.  I go to the guest bedroom and thrash.  I sit up and peel off my compression socks.  I read.  Feet tingle.  Slap on some Salon Pas pain relievers on my arches  and hope my left foot won't seize up in a charley horse.  If it does, it's back to the bathtub to run very hot water over contorted foot.
   Round about 1:30 I finally nod off.  My husband's shift starts at two. I wake up as he is nodding off at 4.  Why is Sleep so bloody complicated?

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