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penfield"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."
- Charles Caleb Colton
I had a devil of a time getting to sleep last night, and not just because I was relegated to a bed designed and purchased for a six-year old person. Something in this house -- be it dust, mold, pollen, the ubiquitous dander of my parents' new kitten -- infiltrated my sinus cavity late at night and roused the full complement of my mucus membranes from their hibernation. I was sniffling and sneezing and coughing and wheezing and at one point considered literally cutting off my nose to spite my face. I tried sleeping in three different rooms with four different pillows; windows up, windows down; tried drinks, medicines and C-SPAN but nothing worked.
After maybe three total hours of sleep, I woke up early to do my chores and check in at work. I complained to my father about the substandard condition of my accomodation, and after he he told me exactly where I could go if I wanted to, he suggested that I take a nap.
As if it were that easy. Providence knows that one of my most treasured joys in life is to fall asleep accidentally. The casual doze-off is a beautiful, natural, peaceful thing, so long as the dozer isn't operating heavy machinery.
Conversely, as F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, "the worst thing in the world is to try to sleep and not to." The effort to try and sleep -- when mental acuity seems to sharpen, so as to fully comprehend and analyze the labor -- can be maddening, and in failure is nothing less than self-imposed cruelty.
I can't just set out to nap and make it happen. For me, it has to be an accident, or else it's not a nap -- it's full-blown sleep, with the crusty eyes and the bad breath and the creases in my face.
And so, since my chores and my work are just stimulating enough to keep me from passing out, and since I can't just set aside a few hours for full-blown sleep, I am doomed to walk around all day like Frankenstein, who also frankly could have used a good nap.
Of course, none of that explains why I'm still awake now, at 11:30 p.m., after both of my parents have long since taken the early evening ferry to Snoresville. That I can blame on this stupid journal.
But at least the computer doesn't shed.
- Charles Caleb Colton
I had a devil of a time getting to sleep last night, and not just because I was relegated to a bed designed and purchased for a six-year old person. Something in this house -- be it dust, mold, pollen, the ubiquitous dander of my parents' new kitten -- infiltrated my sinus cavity late at night and roused the full complement of my mucus membranes from their hibernation. I was sniffling and sneezing and coughing and wheezing and at one point considered literally cutting off my nose to spite my face. I tried sleeping in three different rooms with four different pillows; windows up, windows down; tried drinks, medicines and C-SPAN but nothing worked.
After maybe three total hours of sleep, I woke up early to do my chores and check in at work. I complained to my father about the substandard condition of my accomodation, and after he he told me exactly where I could go if I wanted to, he suggested that I take a nap.
As if it were that easy. Providence knows that one of my most treasured joys in life is to fall asleep accidentally. The casual doze-off is a beautiful, natural, peaceful thing, so long as the dozer isn't operating heavy machinery.
Conversely, as F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, "the worst thing in the world is to try to sleep and not to." The effort to try and sleep -- when mental acuity seems to sharpen, so as to fully comprehend and analyze the labor -- can be maddening, and in failure is nothing less than self-imposed cruelty.
I can't just set out to nap and make it happen. For me, it has to be an accident, or else it's not a nap -- it's full-blown sleep, with the crusty eyes and the bad breath and the creases in my face.
And so, since my chores and my work are just stimulating enough to keep me from passing out, and since I can't just set aside a few hours for full-blown sleep, I am doomed to walk around all day like Frankenstein, who also frankly could have used a good nap.
Of course, none of that explains why I'm still awake now, at 11:30 p.m., after both of my parents have long since taken the early evening ferry to Snoresville. That I can blame on this stupid journal.
But at least the computer doesn't shed.
