Sleeping Late

"The bed is a bundle of paradoxes:

we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret;

we make up our minds every night to leave it early,

but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late."

-- Rev. Charles Caleb Colton, 

Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words:

Addressed to Those Who Think

Dismantled alarm clock 10-1-14

"The alarm in the morning? 

Well, I have an old tape of Carlo Maria Giulini conducting

the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in a perfectly transcendent 

version of Schubert's seventh symphony.

And I've rigged it up so that exactly 7:30 every morning

it falls from the ceiling onto my face."

-- Stephen Fry

"If people were meant to pop out of bed,

we'd all sleep in toasters."

-- Unknown

Something To Help Me Fall Asleep

"O sleep, O gentle sleep,

Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,

That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down

and steep my sense in forgetfulness?"

-- William Shakespeare, Henry IV

Polymer clay head 8-12-14

"Many things -- such as loving, going to sleep, or behaving unaffectedly --

are done worst when we try hardest to do them."

-- C.S. Lewis

Because sometimes I just can't do it on my own, no matter how hard I try.

Good Sleep Hygiene

"I cannot alter the past, but the future is very much in my hands."

-- Mary Lydon Simonsen, 

The Perfect Bride For Mr. Darcy

Self portrait 7-17-14

"Good 'hygiene' is anything that helps you to have a healthy life."

-- The American Academy of Sleep Medicine

Sleep hygiene isn't a very sexy topic.

It's about as sexy as oral hygiene -- stuff like brushing and flossing my teeth and scraping the gunk off my tongue.

As un-sexy as it is, though, I know good and well that if I neglect good oral hygiene, my teeth will rot and my breath will stink and I'll pay the price (and it ain't cheap) at the dentist. And that's super, duper un-sexy. So I do all the stuff. I follow the protocol and maintain a very clean, healthy mouth.

I also know that if I neglect good sleep hygiene, my sleep will decay. Still, I fall into patches where I don't do the stuff. I neglect the protocol. I do things I know I shouldn't, and don't do things I know I should, and little by little I settle for rottener and rottener sleep. And I pay the price. My sleep stinks, and I not only feel rotten, I feel rotten about it because I could have easily avoided the problem.

I've been playing fast and loose with the sleep hygiene rules lately. God knows I know them well enough by now -- inside outside upside down. I could recite them in my sleep, if I was sleeping. I know these guidelines are good for me. I know I'll be happier and healthier if I obey them.

And yet.

Long story short, things have gotten a little out of hand and it's time to clean up my sleep routine.

Again.

It's time to snuggle back up to the rules of good sleep hygiene so that tonight, and tomorrow night, and the nights after that, I can enjoy good, healthy sleep.

It's all in my hands.

Exhausting My Body, Calming My Mind

"Studies suggest that the brains of insomniacs may be in a constant 'on' state,

continuing to operate at high levels even when it's supposed to be dialing down ..."

-- Alice Park, "Insomniac? You Might Have A Hyperactive Brain," Time online

Self portrait 6-27-14

"If your dog has a lot of built-up energy, a really vigorous dog walk 

is another excellent way to redirect it where YOU want it to go. 

Once you've burned that extra energy away, your dog should be pleasantly exhausted 

and too tuckered out to jump and nip."

-- Cesar Millan, "How To Calm A Hyper Dog," Cesar's Way

I love The Dog Whisper.

I don't even have a dog.

I don't even particularly like dogs.

But I've discovered that you don't really need to have a disobedient, overactive dog to use Cesar Millan's helpful advice. 

I have used some of his common sense principles of dog psychology in parenting. I particularly like the concept that an overactive, naughty dog is much more likely to settle down and obey when it has been properly exercised -- when it is good and worn out. Same with overactive, naughty kids.

My kids are grown and no longer have behavioral issues. But this particular dog-rearing principle is still massively useful and effective in managing my own wildly disobedient, overactive mind.

"Overactive mind" is a real diagnosis that is often coupled with anxiety and insomnia, both of which I have. When you have an overactive mind like mine, it's as if the "on" switch is permanently stuck. And the more you try to switch it "off", the more "on" it gets. Imagine a light bulb that is being pumped with more voltage than it's supposed to conduct, so that it's constantly on the verge of shattering.

Or, imagine a hyperactive dog that is constantly barking, biting, jumping around and knocking all the tchotchkes off the tables (and then eating them). Now imagine that same dog racing around inside of your head, and every time you shout "No!" or "Bad dog!" it's as if you're encouraging its misbehavior, and so it just ramps up even more.

It's exasperating. It's incessant. It's constant. It's oppressive. It's maddening.

It makes you want to shoot the damn dog.

This is why I love The Dog Whisperer.

Thanks to Cesar Millan's advice on how to calm and quiet, rather than shoot, a hyperactive dog, I can use exercise to calm my overactive mind effectively enough so that I don't go off the deep end.

Cesar says:

"If you don't provide enough exercise, the dog's excess energy in its body will 

override everything else. That dog's mind will not be focused and its heart (or feelings)

will go completely out of control."

Mine too.

Yesterday, my yipping mind wouldn't shut the fuck up. It was barking, biting, jumping, scratching ... all that shit.

So I took Cesar's advice and used my body to get inside my head. I climbed on my road bike and pedaled, hard, for about 3 hours without stopping. I pumped music through my ears while I pumped out excess energy through my legs, and I didn't stop until my body was so exhausted that my mind finally came to heel.

The thing about overactive dogs is that they'll be overactive again tomorrow and they'll require their good, hard playtime again. And again. And again.

It's the same with my overactive mind.

That's why you'll find me out there pretty much every day, working my mind issues out through my body's tissues.

I guess that's why they call it a workout.

Anyway, I do it because Cesar says.

Sit. Stay. Good dog.

A Nap

"Let's begin by taking a smallish nap or two."

-- Winnie the Pooh

Polymer clay sleepy head 5-14-15

"I usually take a two-hour nap from one to four."

-- Yogi Berra

"There's a nap for that."

Sleep school rule number one is "Don't nap." 

Ever.

So I don't.

I can't even remember the last time I fell asleep during the daytime. 

Well, actually, I can. It was yesterday.

A nap ambushed me. It sneaked up one me from the tall grass and pounced. Hard.

I was taking a little post-bike ride, post-lunch break with my feet up in Big Daddy's recliner, about a half hour before I had to get Leo from school. I wasn't planning on falling asleep simply because I just don't do that anymore.

Nearly two hours later, Leo was home and I was just barely waking up. He had to walk home because I never showed up. I'd slept through his multiple texts and calls, as well as "where are you?" messages from my husband. 

That never happens anymore. 

It felt so damn good, though. 

I didn't beat myself up about it, because it was a sabotage nap. I never saw it coming, and there was nothing I could do about it anyway.

I was afraid it would fuck with my sleep last night, but it didn't. Not even a little bit. I slept like a very sleepy drugged baby. I even slept through my alarm this morning and got up an hour and a half late, in blatant violation of sleep school rule number two, which is "Always get up at the prescribed time."

Whatever.

A Reminder Of How Far I've Come

"Now you're beside me, and look how far we've come, so far."

-- "Robert," Enchanted

Self portrait 5-8-14

"What mattered to me in that moment was that I did not freak out.

I did not catastrophize as if it were a person I love who died ... 

Once upon a time, when anything went wrong, I fell apart.

Responding calmly for me is a huge victory.

So I decided to stop and celebrate that, to rejoice in how far I've come."

-- Lori Deschene, "Tiny Wisdom: How Far We've Come," tinybuddha.com

I've had a few rough, restless nights in the sleep department lately.

It's been a while.

Not that long ago it was a nightly thing, me struggling to fall asleep, and to stay there. Insomnia ruled my nights, my days, my life.

But I'm better now, right? Cured. Thanks to months of a rigorous "sleep restructuring" regimen I'm sleeping heartily, robustly, solid as a log night after night. 

Or so I thought.

But it's OK. My sleep specialists told me there would be nights like this. 

So I didn't panic when I started to feel that old feeling creeping back, that one where I'm still lying there wide awake and it's 2:30 a.m. and I'm getting more and more agitated. The one where I wake up night after night at 3 or 4 in the morning and then can't get back to sleep. The one where I'm reaching for the forbidden gin bottle, or Ambien bottle and taking just a half ... and then another half.

I'm not freaking out. 

Instead of reaching for the whiskey, I'm reaching for the rules and the tools I learned in "sleep school" and I am fighting back.

Old me would have had an insomniac-crazed meltdown.

New me feels the scary feelings of insomnia lurking in the shadows, then takes a deep breath and logically reassesses the situation and calmly says "Hey insomnia, I see you're lurking in the shadows there. And that's weird, you know, because I thought I kicked your annoying ass. Don't get too comfortable, because I'm going to make a few adjustments and send you packing again you pesky little fucker."

So I've tweaked a couple of knobs, turned a few dials. It's not fixed yet, but I'll get there. It may take a little while, but I'll get there.

Meanwhile, I've had a good little reminder of how far I've come. How hard I've worked. How much I've grown. Which choices I need to make to protect my sleep. Where perhaps I've grown a little lax, a little lazy.

Reminders are good.

A pain in the ass, but good.

A Beer At The Ball Game

"Beer needs baseball, 

and baseball needs beer --

it has always been thus."

-- Peter Richmond

Beer bottle caps 4-214

" ... there is only one game at the heart of America and that is baseball,

and only one beverage to be found sloshing at the depth of our national soul and that is beer."

-- Peter Richmond

Beer and opener 4-21-14

Ray Kinsella:

"So what do you want?"

Terence Mann:

"I want them to stop looking to me for answers, begging me to speak again,
write again, be a leader.

I want them to start thinking for themselves.
I want my privacy."

Ray Kinsella:

"No, I mean, what do you WANT?"

(gestures to the concession stand)

Terence Mann:

"Oh. Dog and a beer."

-- Field of Dreams

I've been seriously trying to curb my alcohol consumption. I'm doing it for a number of reasons, but primarily because alcohol seriously fucks with my sleep.

After a long, drawn-out, desperately-hard-fought battle with insomnia, trust me, a solid night's sleep is a lot more satisfying than a drink.

But what is a recovering insomniac girl to do when she's at a baseball game on a perfectly sunny day and she wants to enjoy the pure, simple pleasure of a cold beer? Every baseball fans knows beer and baseball just go together. It's a no-brainer, one of those unwritten laws of humanity, and baseball.

So you feel kind of left out when you're at the game and everyone around you is slurping a foamy, amber, cold one and you're, well, not. 

We spent Easter day at the Indians vs. Blue Jays game (Tribe won 6 to 4). The beer yearning started on the drive over, and then intensified sharply as we walked to our seats (which were awesome, by the way), and past every single beer vendor on the concourse. And this is Cleveland, people. Cleveland is a beer town. So the beer choices at Progressive Field are vast and wide, including everything from from the typical big name stuff, to a huge and lovely selection of little-known craft beers and local brews, offered every which way -- in cans, in bottles, on tap. I've heard that they even tweak their beer selections throughout the year to appeal to fans of the visiting clubs. And we were playing a team from Canada, for fuck's sake.

I was a sitting duck.

But I had a strategy.

At home, I've become quite the connoisseur of non-alcoholic beers. Don't judge. Some of them are pretty damned tasty if you give them a chance, and if you aren't in it for the beer buzz. My favorites are a German one (Kaliber, by Guinness) and a Canadian one (Labatt's, by duh Labatt's). Coors is a close third. Sharp's and O'Doul's are at the bottom of the beer barrel.

Anyway, I figured that any baseball stadium offering Spotted Cow Ale had to serve at least one n/a brew. 

My dear and persistent husband asked at almost every beer stand we passed. The concessionaires all shook their heads. Some referred us vaguely to a restaurant way back and up one level at the far stadium entrance that might have it, but they weren't sure.

Leo was getting a little impatient with the search.

Him: "Why don't you just get a Bud Light? It's the same thing."

Me: "I am not going off the wagon for a Bud Light."

Then we struck gold. Or amber. Or, well, watery amber, but still, it was better than nothing.

The last place we passed before our section had O'Doul's.

It took a while to get it, because the clerk couldn't find the button for it on her register, because there wasn't one. She said we were the first people to ask for it all season. She wasn't even sure how much to charge for it. My husband convinced her to charge me the soft drink price (since there's no booze in it), and he even finagled me a souvenir drink cup. (It helps to have a really cute husband in situations like this).

Clutching my hard-won prize, we made it to our seats and I took my first long sip. Yes, it was a little watery. Yes, the flavor was a little thin. But it was cold and foamy and fizzy.

Licking the foam from my lips, I didn't feel left out. I felt like part of the crowd.

It was a little thing, but a good thing.

Best of all, it was beer. 

And even better than that -- I slept like a baby.

A Good Night's Rest

"Rest and be thankful."

-- William Wordsworth

Self portrait 1-20-14

"Everything needs a break."

-- Toby Beta, Master of Stupidity

Really Weird Dreams

"Dreams are stories made by and for the dreamer,

and each dreamer has his own folds to open

and knots to untie."

-- Siri Hustvedt, 

The Shaking Woman, or A History of My Nerves

Self portrait 1-14-14

"... I will relaxedly turn back to my secret mind to see what it has observed

when I thought I was sitting this one out.

We never sit anything out.

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled.

The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over 

and let the beautiful stuff out."

-- Ray Bradbury

"Between living and dreaming there is a third thing.

Guess it."

-- Antonia Machado