Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Every once in a while, for no good reason that I can put my finger on, I surface from an otherwise lovely night of sleep, usually around 3 or 4 a.m., feeling wide awake, knowing I probably will not be returning to the blessed, delicious state of unconsciousness any time soon.

Often, when so afflicted, I pull myself to my feet, stagger into the kitchen, fumble a couple of herbal sleep tablets out of a bottle, toss them down with a little fizzy water. Follwed by a brief visit to the loo to dump the night's accumulated ballast, before returning to bed to spend some quality time yawning, staring at the ceiling, scratching, and pondering my empty, pathetic generally wonderful life.

Sometimes, while waiting for herbal drowsiness to kick in, I do a partial inventory of the many blessings that adorn my existence. Tonight, as odd as some might find this, I found myself appreciating sleeping alone. Not that I would mind having a warm, sweet-natured, intelligent, affectionate, semi-voluptuous female human sharing my mattress (not to mention existence), but sleeping solo means that I can (a) turn on the light when I feel like it without disturbing anyone else, (b) get up and wander off to make noise in kitchen and bathroom without waking anyone else, and (c) lay with said light on -- yawning, scratching, pondering -- without annoying a warm, sweet-natured, intelligent, affectionate, semi-voluptuous female human who might be nearby, trying to get some shuteye. Plus, I don't have to deal with the possibility that the lovely person curled up next to me might be a snorer.

The female-snoring thing: it happens. I've experienced it first-hand. One woman -- a houseguest, safely ensconced in the guest quarters across the hall from my bedroom -- put on an exhibition that would have raised eyebrows in a marine corp barracks.

Some women snore. It's a simple fact, despite claims to the contrary that one sometimes hears. But, having said that, I will add that I've never encountered one that came close to producing the sleep-destroying, rafter-rattling brand of snoring that my friend Dermot used to deal in: truly impressive world-class noise. Those old videoclips of entire buildings collapsing you occasionally see on TV? Hotels where Dermot stayed, all of them, their structures fatally weakened by Himself's spectacular wee-hour arias.

I know this from nights spent sleeping under the same roof as the D-man, and from a handful of nights spent in hotel rooms with him in various spots around Europe. Nights of little sleep, despite earplugs and herbal tablets.

But enough about not sleeping. It's late. (Or early.) Time to kill the light and drift off.

Night-night.


EspaƱa, te echo de menos.

rws 5:55 AM [+]

Comments:
plus people who know you are made better by knowing you, of that I have no doubt.
 
That is one of the nicest comments anyone's ever left on this page -- thanks, Kevin.
 
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