Paul has been on a cleaning jig, this weird ‘deep cleaning’ thing, similar to the nesting instinct I had when I was about to go into labor. Scrubbing the spice bottles, moving the fridge so he can get that greasy fuzzy stuff out from underneath it, scouring out the microwave. I asked him if he might be pregnant, but he denied it, so it probably isn’t nesting.

But then Friday he spent an hour getting everything out from under the bed and cleaning out all the dust bunnies, about 2.7 million used tissues, and a mountain of assorted junk. He said, “You’re allergic to dust anyway. This will help you sleep.” And damned if he wasn’t right. I slept all the way through that night, bonk, out, gone, like I haven’t slept in years. I thought it was a fluke. Weird, I thought. Maybe it’s the cold? But then it happened the next night, too.

This is terrible!

Look. I depend on waking several times a night to get me up some time in the early morning to write. I can’t let myself sleep until 6:30 or 7—I’m supposed to get up by 5:30. But now, apparently, that’s all messed up, because, while I did write first thing on the first day of the new year—good precedent, right?—I missed the next two days. I mean, I haven’t woken at all in the last two nights, not once, not until the kids start moving around at 7 or even 7:30—way too late for early-morning writing. Crap, I said to myself this morning. I missed my writing again.

I never thought I would say this, but, Pablo, I need my dust bunnies back! A better night’s sleep is not helping me meet my goals!

Okay, maybe, instead of the bunnies, I’ll try an alarm clock. I just downloaded an app for my ipod touch that gives a gentle bell sound that maybe, maybe, won’t wake the kids, but will be enough to wake me. Of course, it might totally backfire, resulting in wide awake kids at 5 in the morning, oh the horror. If the alarm clock fails, maybe I’ll have to go back to writing at night…? Yuck.

Well, I guess the dust bunnies and the dirty tissues will build back up. Eventually. I can look forward to bad sleep in the not-too-distant future, right?

Will I write tomorrow? Tune in next time to find out.

Or I could just give up being a novelist. Life would be sooo much easier. And cleaner. Apparently.

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3 Responses to turns out, i need my dust

  1. CathyB says:

    Giving up on being a novelist?

    NOT an option.

    I get up at five every weekday. I’d be happy to call you, but I imagine I would wake more than just you. :)

  2. Julia says:

    Tough problem. Does the Touch have a vibrate function? I set my iPhone to vibrate and put it under my pillow – that works pretty well to wake me up and no one else (in my case, light-sleeping husband and two crated Beagles who want OUT the minute they hear me unfold my eyeglasses.)

    Your blog’s a treat – I found it when researching yurt insulation for my 3rd as-yet-unpublished novel. With a yurt in New Hampshire in it ;-) The seed tick post is still horrifying me, in a good, vicarious way.

    I’m waiting for an alarm that is totally silent, but just gently tips the bed so I am forced to stand up. Or hit the floor. Whatever. I’m sure that would work for me and many others :-)

  3. maya says:

    Julia, what a fantastic idea! I think Spongebob might have a bed like that in one episode. Just slides him out from under the covers and into his square pants and shoes. I do not think the itouch has a vibrate, but that would be a good idea, too. The very quiet bell sound did work once, so far, to wake me and not wake the kids, and the other days, oddly, I’ve woken up right before the alarm went off and turned it off before it had a chance to ring. Anxiety about waking the kids, linked to internal clock, I reckon. Just as effective as dust! Good luck on your yurty novel. They do well in snow, or so I’ve heard. Unless you wake up one morning and they have turned inside out, that is, the weight of the snow has reversed the roof, yikes! I’ve only heard of that happening on couple of handmade hurts, small ones, not the engineered kits that most people buy these days. That would totally SUCK.
    Thanks for stopping by!

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