Greetings, Sleeping Beauties!
Ahhhhh...a loopy, insomnia-spurred, 2:59 am post. Sitting in the living room in T-shirt, undies and moose slippers, hair piled on top of my head, a half-eaten bowl of ice cream on balanced on one armrest. I must look like a woman who just underwent a bad break-up. Which I sort of did, actually: a break-up from sleep. The dim corner lamp is on and Tebow is glaring at me, wondering why I'm typing loudly and disturbing his sleep. Sorry, dog. You'll survive.
Why am I awake right now?
Perhaps it's because K, about an hour after we had crawled into bed at 11:30 (and just as I was entering the throes of sleep), randomly and abruptly turned toward me and asked if I wanted to have sex.
I suppose this must be some remnant of his 13-year-old self, or whatever age it is when boys wake up at night with hard-ons? Who knows. I thought it polite of him to ask, though, and - although a bit half-asleep - was up for some midnight action nonetheless. So aforementioned action took place, and I did my customary shriek of "PULL OUT!" - my current preferred (and highly scientific!) method of birth control. The whole event - from brief foreplay, to sex itself, to panicked shouting, to post-sex clean-up with a t-shirt (not the t-shirt I'm wearing now, thank you very much) - successfully kicked me out of sleep mode, leaving me wide awake and staring grumpily into the darkness.
K, his spooge happily released into the wild, fell instantly - and irritatingly - back to sleep. Fine, whatever. I'm happy for him, glad to know he's now in the bedroom breathing rhythmically and dreaming of sugar plums while I sit here in my moose slippers, the clock ticking agonizingly toward the time when I'm supposed to get up.
Fucker.
* * *
Can I just say:
why is middle-of-the-night TV so unilaterally awful? Denture and sleep aide commercials, mostly. Reruns of bad sitcoms, like Full House. It's disturbing, because it gives me a glimpse into what the world must be like for certain people out there, awake like me at this very moment, yet way worse off. Like, people in hospitals, for example. People in the cancer ward, up at night while somebody comes in to replenish their anti-nausea pills. People in old folks homes. People losing their minds. People without any friends. I remember reading somewhere that "the unhappier people are, the more TV they watch." There were scientific studies to show this, of course, as there are studies to show (and not show) everything that matters.
I honestly hope I don't become a frail 90-year-old lady sitting alone in a rocking chair in a single wide trailer, eating mushy food straight from a can, awake at night with the soft blue light of the TV casting a haunting glow on my face, Kevin long gone because the men usually seem to go first, no grown children checking in on me to make sure I've taken my medications. I hope I've got some well-cemented friendships to keep me alive during those elder years, people to drink martinis with and play bridge.
Tonight, I hereby make a pact with myself: I'm going to look out for my friends, and not let anybody grow old alone. I'm going to start an old folks commune where we all move in together and eat meals and a bit wooden table with candles and a checkered tablecloth, play jazz music, and sleep in a pile on the living room floor.
* * *
Another possible reason for my awakeness. Tonight (I guess I should be calling it last night, actually) I had drinks and N and C, my Baby Lady friends. That is, the gals who were pregnant with me, and whose babies are now nearly two years old. N is preggers again with a girl, due in a month or so. I always enjoy my time with them, because we connect. We laughed and cussed and ate bacon cheeseburgers. We talked about men and sex and just nonsensical things, normal girl-talky things.
Still, it always produces in me a wave of dark unsettledness, usually somewhere in the middle of our conversation, a combination of craving pregnancy once again, combined with insane longing for bygone days. I get annoyed with myself for carrying around this "thing" that won't dissipate, an ever-present cloud of something. It makes me feel self-conscious and high-maintenance, self-pitying, not the kind of person I want to be.
Afterward, I met K at the tavern. As I always do after my get-togethers with N and C, downed half a glass of wine in one gulp and launched into the dull pang of sadness that had settled down onto my insides, about how perhaps we SHOULD get knocked up again, because that would bring back the life that once was, erasing all of the crud in my system. Pregnancy: the answer to everything! Riiiight.
He always listens and nods because he loves me, but I stop after a few sentences, tired of hearing myself talk about this dull subject, and remembering what I already know: there's only so much a person can hear the same thing over and over again, so much giving & listening & sympathizing that one person in a relationship can do. That's what KuKd does to a woman, or at least what it did to me: turned me into a taker, needer, over-thinker, talker. Well, it's probably the case that I was those things already - stillbirth only magnified those (not so great) qualities.
* * *
Going back to the communal old-folks house one last time: when we start this thing, however-many-years from now, let's treat ourselves to a
Clapper for the dining room. The Clapper is one of those products that has always intrigued me, yet that seems like something you're not supposed to buy until you're a senior citizen. We'll use our house Clapper to celebrate our oldness, and to entertain ourselves by clapping stuff on and off.
* * *
Attempt to carve out a hour or two of sleep before waking-up time? Or just brew a pot of coffee and head in early, pausing for a mid-day nap on my office floor? Decisions, decisions. It's getting light out. Insomnia sucks nuts.
