Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Hot Pillows















Right now, at the very moment of typing this, I hate my family.

With a seething white-hot passion that stems entirely from jealousy and loneliness.

Why?

Because they're all sleeping peacefully - and have been for hours now - and I'm out here in the study wide awake, feeling the bags under my eyes gather and multiply like rings inside a coffee cup and wondering just why there aren't any notable scientific studies done on how pillows can become so hot and itchy no matter how often you flip them or how come Kylie Minogue's excremental song, 'Hand on Your Heart' is on repeat-play in my brain or where the hell it came from in the first place (the song, not my brain. Although, that's something else to ponder as I lay in the dark, trying not to laugh as I hear Love Chunk's fast-asleep farts in a noisy-so-safe little staccato rhythm - Parp Parp Parp!).

Yeah yeah, I've tried the 'wind down slowly' at least an hour before you go to bed routine. I never drink caffeine after lunch; don't do any vigorous workouts in the evenings and when it's time to pull back the quilt cover and flop into bed, I honestly feel physically and mentally drained. Love Chunks kisses me and says "Good ni----" and he's already in dreamland and forgotten to give me the map to follow him there.














It's not as though I woke up at midday, lay around in a hammock and toddled off to bed when Sapphire did, nooooo sirree. I leapt out of bed at 6:30am, tapped away at the computer for an hour before waking up Sapph, got her breakfast made, lunch packed, Milly and Skipper fed, bin emptied, dishwasher stacked and put a load of washing on.

After walking Sapphire to school, Milly and I came home and I did an eight kilometre run before cooling down and cuddling the rabbit, eating a decent breakfast, having a shower, hanging out the washing and going for a walk down the street to the Post Office, green grocer and bank. Then I worked for several more hours at my desk completing a chocolate review (and photography session), a book review (harder than it sounds), some background info-gathering for three articles on-the-go for the 'My Career' section and rustling up a hopefully utterly educational yet entertaining and compellingly unforgettable powerpoint presentation and notes for a session I'm doing on work/life balance next week. I idly note that my ACDC-loving neighbour has finally learned - in four months - how to change his CD player, because Green Day is being played at number eleven instead.

Being easily immersed, my watch beeps at 3:15 to remind me to stop what I'm doing and go and collect Sapphire from school. At this insistent 'Peep-peep, Peep-peep, Peep-peep' sound, Milly bounces out of her (usually) red-but-now-orange-due-to-her-shedding beanbag, races into the laundry and stares intently at the cupboard, tail wagging. This is the Magic Cupboard. The Keeper of the Lead; that magnificent device that, when fastened onto her collar; means a WALK.

Half an hour later we're back home with a now-limping dog, a hungry child, her guitar, a schoolbag weighng possibly more than the dog (13kg at last count) a handful of newsletters of varying vintages and another handful of rubbish that I've picked up from our street thanks to the high school kids who use our street as their thoroughfare and disposal site.

My hands get cleaned, the wheelie bins put out, the mail collected and read, Sapphire provided with a snack and Skipper the rabbit gets released from his hutch and put in his portable 'playpen' on the lawn. I leave Sapphire out with bunny boy and go back into the study to chat with Bernadette Young on ABC Radio Perth. Off air, I point out to her producer the irony of moving further east only to be discovered by the west.

Afterwards, I successfully manage to convince Sapphire that practicising her viola might be a better use of her time than holding a SingStar ABBA duet with me. She looks surprised at my decision until I explain that there are ten shirts, five pairs of jeans, one poncy and easily-wrinkled designer t-shirt and some posh linen napkins from the dinner party the other night that need to be ironed; preferably in front of a taped episode of 'Master Chef' rather than trying to put a decent crease in Love Chunks' work trousers whilst also holding a microphone singing along to 'I Have A Dream.'

When this is done, I do the weekly Poo Pick-up Performance that is essential when living on a sliver of real estate that is less than one-third the size of our previous one. Milly has a preference for scattering her nuggets at precisely the most public and commonly-traversed places - right by the front gate, Skipper's hutch entrance, the shed door mat, directly under the clothesline and by seven days we're all find ourselves performing a perverse doggy-dung dodging dance that isn't much fun when it gets dark now by 5:30pm.

I'm still ironing when Love Chunks gets home on his bike. He prepares dinner as I take in the washing, put the clean stuff away, give Skipper some cucumber chunks and Milly some god-knows-what meat-and-jelly-from-a-can-chunks and again read through my seminar notes for the twentieth time. We three eat our spaghetti and salad companionably together before LC leaves for his piano lesson and Sapph and I watch 'Thank God You're Here'. Milly is stretched out in front of the sub-bass speaker, snoring. For a creature with hearing that is twenty times greater than ours, I still marvel at her ability to zonk out in front of a booming surround sound system that is only 30cm away from her head.

Sapphire goes to bed at 8:30pm, LC and I go to bed at 11pm. My day wasn't too slack, was it?

Sitting here now at 2:49am there's nothing on my conscience that's weighing me down. Oh alright, except for the fact that I ate two bars of chocolate as part of my review today (it's work you know) and tonight when LC bought out a block of Lindt Swiss Classic and said, "Fancy a bit of chocolate," I nodded eagerly as though it was the best and most unique suggestion ever made because I hadn't eaten any of the magnificent brown stuff for so long and truly deserved some.

What am I, made of stone? I didn't lie to him exactly; I just omitted to explain that I'd already enjoyed some chocolate earlier today. That's not a crime!

No, but neither is insomnia, bugger it.


15 comments:

deepkickgirl said...

I SOOOOOOO hear you, girlfriend!

I too am awake at 6:00 am every day and lead what could be called a fairly hectic lifestyle. But 99.9% of the time I do not get a full night's sleep. Between the night sweats (which are awful) and waking up from the sound of a butterfly batting its wings three suburbs away I wouldn't recognise a proper night's sleep if I fell over one. I think I'm just used to it now. But I do "hate" all the other members of my family who are able to lay their heads down at night and surrunder to sweet slumber for 8+ hours.

Baino said...

Ahh feel your pain frankly. Although remarkably I've been sleeping like a baby this week. It's not unusual (cue Tom Jones) to be up at 3am talking on Skype or checking my reader. Best thing to do though is to get up, have a cupper, distract yourself for half an hour or so then hit the pillow again. My two once slept through a police helicopter shinging a floodlight that would have lit up the MCG in our back garden . .even the dog didn't stir so yep, all that stuff about acute hearing - bollix.

At least you didn't feed the rabbit the meaty bites in jelly and give the dog the cucumber!

myra said...

I am in the same boat wake up 6:30 go all day come bed time everyone else is a sleep and still awake thinking and hearing every little sound even the cat walking lol

Michelle said...

Just wanted to let you know I heard you on the radio in Perth a couple of months ago and have been lurking here since.
I enjoy your comments and views.

Good luck for a peaceful night tonight!

Cinema Minima said...

The mind is made of a thousand monkeys, all jumping up and down, chattering and screaming for attention. You need a monkey taming stick, and a firm hand, to take control of them again.

I think you can buy them from Bunnings.

Kath Lockett said...

Maybe we need to set up a nocturnal chat group, DKG?

Good to hear that you've been sleeping well Baino, considering your stressful situation right now. As for Milly, she's grown a bit partial to Skipper's salad mix if she finds any raw carrot, capsicum or cucumber left in the grass she'll hoover it up.

Myra - actually it's not sounds or noise that seems to keep me awake just my own stupid brain. It tends to be full of useless pop culture including ad jingles, FM 1980s rock songs (usually the ones I loathe) or reminiscences about conversations or events that occurred years ago. I so wish I could be like LC who, when I ask him, "What you are thinking?" he can answer back with, "Nothing, actually." Clear Mind = Good sleep. Or so they tell me...

Aw thanks Michelle for commenting and coming out of hiding. I'm really enjoying the sessions I have with Bernadette each week and, if you can picture it, I'm usually at the computer, cuppa tea in hand, trakkies and uggs on just blathering on. Much like our normal tea time conversation really.

Bunnings you say, Mr Pub? And here I was, about to do it all wrong and simply soak myself in cab sav tonight!

Melanie Myers said...

Insomnia is a taste of hell on earth, a little tidbit from the gods at afterlife - the one where you missed the turn off for 'rest in peace'. They don't call 4am the suicide hour for nothing. I recommend Temazpan, personally. After three nights of wakeful torment those sweet little pills offer 8 solid hours of blissful relief. Just don't get too cozy with them.

River said...

You iron jeans? Who irons jeans? Nobody irons jeans! smooth them down as you fold straight off the line. Any creases will be invisible 2 minutes after you put them on.
Can't help with the insomnia, sorry. Could you perhaps keep a large, very boring book handy and read it until you fall asleep again?

Benjamin Solah said...

Sounds like a busy day...I'm guessing you're passed out with tiredness now right?

Ben
The Guy who suddenly is well behaved for fear of having to post his deeds if he slips up :P

Kath Lockett said...

I have used Temazepam in the past, Blakkat but it was during a rather dark time (see my post of 31st August 2008), and I'm afraid of getting stuck into them again.

Yep River, I iron jeans but REST ASSURED I do 'em flat and don't add creases in them. It must be the way I flap and hang 'em because I never seem to get away with folding them and not having a terrain of crease appearing when I next wear them.... unless that's the actual shape of my legs underneath...?

Benjamin, my eyeballs right now (6:36pm) feel as though they've been dipped in honey and rolled in a crunchy gravel outer layer. Add to that my increasingly grouchy feeling and I'm sure that I'll sleep rather soundly tonight.

River said...

Hang them by the bottom of the legs, two pegs per leg. Inside out of course, that way the seams seem to dry more thoroughly.

Know anything about laptops? My touchpad has stopped working, I've had to plug in the manual mouse...
The clicky clicky is driving me bananas.

Miles McClagan said...

When you take in the subtext that a lot of KMs early work was subliminally written by Pete Waterman to tell her to stay with Jason Donovan and not go out with Schlatter/Hutchence types, which he thought she didn't know but she did knowo...don't you find a song like Hand On Your Heart more interesting?

Nah, me neither...Turn It Into Love is ace though

drb said...

Blame it on your genes! Rob is the same, eat any choc in any forms (cake, drink, easter eggs, block, truffles, shavings, sauce) after 4pm will see tossing and turning the whole and that means I will sleep on the sofa...
it is my job to remind not to have any...

Helen said...

I'm so sorry! I find the best cure for insomnia is scuba-diving. And I got running right before bed and that helps for some reason too...

I hope it gets better!

Kath Lockett said...

Thanks River, I'll try your hanging technique. Dunno how you can get your lappy mouse to work - I only use mine if I've unplugged and portable....

Miles, even when Kylie was working for Stockcube, Acheing and Waterman, it was all crap. Still is, mostly except she's now got the Pointy-Alien face that Madonna's got with eyebrows threatening to reach her crown if she's not careful.

DrB, trouble is, I used to be really sound sleeper. I used to sleep through younger brother's asthma attacks (he was put in with me for a few years because his older brother - your lovely husband - used to thump him for being so inconsiderate as to wake him up with the noise of his struggling to breathe) and even an ambulance arriving to take my Grandmother to hospital (where she died). Clearly I was much younger and my head was far less filled with the crap that jangles inside it these days. *sigh*

SCUBA DIVING, Helen? I don't know if my bathtub is that deep but maybe next time I'll be desperate enough to give it a try.