The Girl Who Slept Through World War II

Yes, that's me, over here in the Pod raising my hand.

I've been accused of it once before, actually. Well, I've been accused of being able to sleep through a war many times, but World War II in particular. Apparently, according to Mr M, I fell asleep at one of the more pivotal battles during our viewing of "Band of Brothers." A fine, fine show, one I hold very dear to my heart.

Not so dear to my heart has been this week's showing of that PBS Ken Burns soon-to-be classic, "The War." ("They call me Mister War!") Three nights now, I've tuned in, and three nights now I've fallen asleep somewhere around the 8:30 mark. I sleep until about 9:50, catch the end, and feel quite well-rested. I'm also getting absolutely nothing done, as evidenced by the fact that I was supposed to blog in earnest last night and name the acrowinners.

I tried to do that, though, blogees. I really did.

Not my fault. I hit the computer at about 11:00 last night, and was reminded that yesterday was indeed the very last day I had to re-up on my computer anti-virus software. I'd been putting it off for about a month, hitting the "Remind Me Later" button and getting it out of my sight. But it was in my sight last night, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it except to re-up. And so I re-uppped.

And it was a colossal pain in the ass.

It took about an hour and forty minutes, due to the fact that I kept getting windows telling me this program was open, and this program had to be uninstalled, and I did this wrong, and I had to restart, and I had to re-restart, and I had to re-re-restart, and I hated that anti-virus software so much by the end of it all, I almost decided to go naked in the anti-virus milieu and welcome all viruses into my machine.

I like to think I've gotten a lot better in the whole Hinkiness Department (though my Betland Security Alert has been on "Hinky" for quite a long time). I'm pretty good at dealing with people, and what I deem "real" situations. But dealing with computer software is not a "real" situation to me, I can't reason with windows that come up telling me I'm inferior to their lofty installation standards. I yell out of frustration, yell via fingers at Mr M, who's trying to tell me how to handle the whole installation problem, and it's very hard to yell at someone via fingers when you're restarting and re-re-restarting your computer.

Anyway, "The War" is making me sleep, but that's about all that is these days. Sleep at the Poderosa has been at an absolute minimum recently, and now, there's frustration for you. I might be able to sleep for an hour or so in my chair, but once bedtime comes, it's wide-awake time like you wouldn't believe.

And I had something of an epiphany on Sunday night as to why this is.

Well, I knew two reasons for my insomnia. One is my fault, one is God's. My fault is that I sometimes like to drink coffee at inopportune hours, and decaf is not a part of my dietary vocabulary. I've thought about putting a moratorium on coffee after 1 pm, but then decided, "Hell, if I'm not going to sleep anyway, I may as well enjoy a cup of coffee at night and not sleep."

God's fault is that it's hormonal, yes, I've reached that age a woman gets to, if she's lucky, where sleep becomes a thing of the past. It's not all hot flashes and lying in bed like a beached whale, although that's certainly a part of it, but every woman I've talked to around my age seems to have the same problem.

However, the ephiphany. The flashing neon lights realization of Sunday.

I was in the bed, it was around 2:30 am, I'd been in bed for approximately two hours, and it hit me. The reason I cannot go to sleep anymore. I cannot turn off my brain!

Yes, I go to bed, sometimes at reasonable hours and sometimes completely absurd hours, but it makes no difference, the minute I hit that mattress, my brain goes into overdrive. I lie there thinking about four million things at one time, one of those things certainly "God, I have to go to sleep," and the thoughts just take over my head, body, psyche and everything else, and I become so wide awake I may as well be up, in my dennette, listening to loud music and dancing the Bunny Hop.

I've often thought how wonderful it would be to meditate daily, to take some time to let all the stresses of the day wash away from me, but I've never been able to make a start at it. I assume this is why. There is no clearing my head of the trash that's in it, it's as cluttered as the spare bedroom in my house (aka "The Beast"), and that clutter may move around from this synapse to that one, but it doesn't really leave.

After this realization, I shared my thoughts with two people who told me they have the same problem. They're both smart people. So maybe that's it. Smart people are doomed to a life of insomnia because of their massive brain capacities.

That's what I'm going with, anyway. I like that theory, and I'm running with it.

I think when "The War" comes out on DVD, though, I'm buying a copy. I'll keep it in the bedroom for those sleepless nights.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Acrowinners, we have acrowinners. So, Daddy, what did you do in the war?
- Runner-Up goes to LilyG, with her, "Nicely told officers "eat shit and...." I see LilyG was on KP duty a lot.
- And this week's winner goes to Michelle the dishy, with her, "Nestle Tester - over-eating, sitting around." I can safely say this is the only job in the army I could take on.
- Thanks to all who played! You've all done very well!