turns out, i need my dust

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.