Sep 20 2001
Sleep Mysteries
Why doesn’t snoring wake up the person who’s doing the snoring? I mean, it’s right by their ears and you’d think it would be louder there at the epicenter than just in the neighborhood. But it never does as far as I can tell.
And why can I always sleep when the alarm goes off, even if I have been awake for hours at other times during the night? Maybe if I set my alarm for 1 a.m. or something I’ll be able to go back to sleep. I can get to sleep OK, I just can’t stay there.
When Buddy was still alive, he used to sleep on my pillow every night. When I was ready to go to bed, I’d say, “It’s sleep time”, and Buddy would pad majestically into the bedroom and jump up on my pillow. So I’d fall asleep listening to his deep, rumbling purr. If I woke up in the night, I’d just cuddle up to his soft fur and listen to him purring and I’d go right back to sleep.
But Buddy is gone and so is my father. The world has gone crazy, and it’s no wonder I can’t sleep. My world is a mess because of Dad’s sudden death. I hadn’t even begun to cope with that when last Tuesday’s disaster hit, so the entire country and in fact the entire civilized world is now a strange and frightening place. In addition, two of our consultants have quit in the past month and one is on maternity leave, so things are weird and chaotic at work too. No peace to be found anywhere. The really amazing thing is that only last month, in the beginning of August, we were fully staffed at work, the World Trade Center Towers were still standing, and my Dad was going to cricket matches and gardening. All that was swept away forever in the space of a few short weeks.
Here’s my goal for 2002: a completely uneventful year. In particular, I’d like the Reaper to leave me the hell alone for at least one year. He’s been an annoyingly faithful visitor over the past three years, and I think it’s about time he picked on someone else for a change.