insomnia
What the hell is wrong with me? I'm so unbelievably SICK and I can't SLEEP.

I've been having trouble sleeping ever since we got back from Belize. I thought, at first, that it was jet lag that was causing me to wake up early after going to bed at 1 AM. it wasn't bad at first. It didn't bother me until it started causing me to get sicker from sleep loss. Now combine that with waking up three plus times in the night for no reason (or having to go to the bathroom). Add stupid fever dreams and being way too hot to the mix and I'm a walking wreck.

I don't know what it is but suddenly the bed feels two times too small. I've slept in a twin bed since I was a kid and got used to mattresses that were too short for me and sheets that I got tangled in. Hell, all last year and the year before I shared a twin bed with Justin, even in the dorms. But after we spend a week on a King sized mattress in Belize I feel crammed into our Full bed like a sardine into a can. Maybe it's that the flannel sheets are all sweaty or the down comforter is overkill, but I'm ready to go sleep on the couch. I'm constantly waking up shoehorned against the wall by Justin and shoved up toward the headboard by Rupert. Don't get me wrong, I love cuddling with them both but when Justin, heavy and planklike in the middle of the night, rolls over not in affection but just to take up space, I can't help but grunt and elbow him away. And Rupert, though I pity him for having to sleep in a tangle of moving legs, constantly tries to take up more and more of MY foot space and bites me in offense when I scoot him over. ARGH!!

I feel like Paul D in Toni Morriston's Beloved slowly being moved out of the bed by some inexplicable force.

Last night I slept worse than I have in months. I went to bed before 12:30 to get a full night's rest for today's budget hearings. I was pleasantly tired and drugged up on Robitussin and Sudafed. It may have been that the small glow of the fishes' lamps in the living room was enough to upset my sleep balance, or it may have been the upset of filling out a thousand forms and writing a thousand essays this weekend bothered my subconscious... but I could not fall asleep. I moved my body into a trancelike stupor but my mind kept on talking.

The hours just melted by. I turned over, shifted, turned over, got up, went to the bathroom, turned over, shifted, etc, etc, etc. There was so much noise in my head. 2:30. 3:30. 4:00. Eventually I got up and turned off the fish lamps and opened the window. In a t-shirt and underwear I was sweltering. I must have gotten up to go to the bathroom at least three times. After drinking what? I think I finally fell asleep for an hour around 5:30 in the morning because I had some brief, strange dream about living in a mini-trailer with Justin. Must have been from feeling crammed in bed. I don't know if I even slept for that long...

I've got a full day ahead of me and I'm sick and burnt out. At least I don't feel too narcoleptic. My body rested even though my mind didn't. Great, so I'll be healthy but insane by this evening. I'm sure the budget committee will love that.

I need to do something to fix my bed anxiety. Get some new sheets? Put on lighter blankets? Exile Rupert to the study? Sleep on the couch as a last resort? Maybe I should just take a few shots of vodka before bed and call it good. That always seems to work. At least this wacky sleep has left me with one positive side effect: I've had too little REM sleep to worry about the reoccuring Dreams. But then, I've come to enjoy them in some strange way and I prefer my usual emotional spasticity to this insomnia. Ugh.