Hiding Out

While Monday was "ok" here - as you could prolly tell from the blog being busy - I was keeping busy for my own reasons. That reason was mostly Tuesday.

Tuesday was Jo's birthday, and my head was all over the place. Now, most people couldn't understand why my head was in such a mess, but it wasn't just that it was her birthday, it was also the fact that it was the anniversary of the day I proposed to her many years ago.

It hurt to think that I'd gone from being happily engaged, to being a single parent. It was just another of those "dates" that stuck in my head.

On top of this, I didn't know what - if anything - I should have done. Should I have gotten a gift, a card? As it was, I didn't do either - I wished her happy birthday by text, and it killed me to do so. Jo's parents got the kids stuff to give her from them, and I remained hiding out.

As you know, I was out Friday night. I was out Saturday daytime too. Then I spent all day Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday hiding out with Ruth. She's been looking after me, cooking my dinner and generally letting me rant and mope as much as I needed. I've helped her with her shopping, I've done a bit of babysitting for her (yesterday for 90 mins, today for a few hours) so she can sort various stuff out...

But, for the most part, I've been at hers almost the whole week.

I think today is the longest I've been here since Friday. And on the plus side, the two terrors are home today as well. Jo is out over the weekend, so I've got them for a couple of extra days, and thankfully (finally!) Jaysen is back at school on Monday. Part of me thinks this break has whizzed by, and the other part thinks "OMG come ON!"

So, hopefully with my head being back on track (again... again...) I will be a little more productive. The house is tidy which is something, but there's still lots needing doing. I've gone from being busy has hell to bored out of my skull.

Lemmie find that happy medium, and I will be sorted!

On top of being out, being busy/bored, I've been suffering from Insomnia from Hell. I'm talking "Bed At Midnight" and being awake till the wee small hours. My brain needs a mute button. Or just an off switch.

And having spent a couple of days off the meds, I'm zapping like a bitch too!

On Crap Nights

Some nights I can go to bed and just lay there - nothing really playing on my mind, but no matter how tired I feel, I just cannot get to sleep. Other nights I drift off, only to jolt awake, then drift off to jolt awake, ad infinitum.

When Jo isn't around, it's even worse, and when I am hurting, it's becomes even less fun.

Last night, my body was fighting sleep through till the early hours. I was up till gone midnight, and then laying in bed till nearly 3am, awake but exhausted, before finally falling asleep. Only to have no reason what so ever to bolt awake at 4am. I bolted up, awake and completely with it. Still totally knackered, but unable to sleep.

So I got up and watched some cartoons, mature as I am. Then my alarm went off at half six, so I've been doing morning things since then.

I'm cold, tired, aching - but at least it's Friday. Tam is being taken by Jo's mum, Jaysen is going to school, and there's a risk of people coming over this weekend which means I need to work my arse off and clean up this pig sty of a house. On an hour of sleep. Then it's get the boy from school, sort dinner and... well, assuming visitors don't arrive till tomorrow, I might just try to sleep.

I can't stop yawning, my eyes look like piss-holes in the snow, and I am cold all the way through by body, even fully clothed. But the world carries on around me...

Feeling Off

Yet again, last night was a crap night. I went to bed hurting, took what felt like forever to get comfortable and even longer to fall asleep, only to be waking up too hot, too cold, hurting some more, feeling shit... Last night seemed to last forever.

When the alarm finally went off, I just lay there and hit snooze. I never hit snooze. I just lay there trying to find the oompf to get up. I hit snooze again and didn't get up till nearly seven, paced around the house trying to work out what the hell I was doing, till I finally got in the shower.

Once I got out, I kinda just... Sat. No drive, no energy. My get-up-and-go has emigrated. I feel sad, even though the sun is out. I'm tired, but dozing during the day just makes me feel like arse. Jo went out to get the stuff to make Wife Soup to cheer me up, so while she was peeling and grating, I washed up.

I ended up having Ruth take Jaysen in this morning, and I'm not sure if I have the energy to get up and get him from school - I think I'll try bribing Jo to get him so I don't have to get up.

I can't place what's wrong - lots going on in my head, compounded with being completely knackered doesn't help matters. I can't be bothered with WoW, with Hellgate, with Facebook... I've poked through various sites and blogs this morning, but am now just watching a DVD with Jo.

Think I need more tea and a good nights sleep!

Back To It

With me having felt rough all week - the week Jaysen is off school no less - and doing nothing but fight the powers of daytime TV and falling asleep on the sofa, we decided this afternoon to head to a friends for dinner. Nothing fancy, but the kids played in one room, we had "adult" conversation in the other. My week off from school runs, early mornings and cleaning school uniform was replace by feeling pants.

Ugh.

I still don't feel great - though, of course, eating that tub of Amaretto Ice Cream certainly didn't help matters - but we came home early in order to get an early night. We had company all weekend, and now the house is quiet again, it's nice to drop my jeans, put my feet up, and burp foamy almond burps.

Damn ice cream.

Of course, having to get up at the arse-crack of Monday morning should be interesting, as I've been dealing with evil insomnia once again. Well, partly it's insomnia, partly it's napping during the day frying the poor body clock. But I've been dozing during the day and up from about midnight till some silly hour, either playing games, reading the internet, hassling people on MSN or, er, playing more games.

Last night I was up till gone five in the morning, the night before was 4am, and the night before that was 3am. To add insult to injury, I've been getting up against at around half eight, just a few hours later.

I can't say it's doing me any good, what with the date that is up coming, not to mention random stuff that I don't blog about getting into my head. When I am tired, I dwell on things, I replay events over and over in my head until they are completely different from the actual event, and, in general don't do myself any favours.

So, tomorrow morning I should be up early, get Jaysen sorted and get out to pay bills and buy some of that pesky food stuff the kids seem to need every day or two. I am hoping that by keeping busy I will be knackered but stay up, have another early night and get the body clock back onto GMT-London. Which means I am going to bed early, like, in about 10 minutes. I am so manly.

And I must buy some more ice cream tomorrow...

Pick-Me-Uppers

When I get down in the dumps, as it were, it's not always terribly difficult for me to get out of the funk. Of late, aside from a a few hiccups here and there, I've been mostly "up".

Minds out the gutter at the back there.

Of course, Bethy's birthday usually leaves me feeling a little more deflated than usual, plus having been poorly since Christmas, plus the insomnia, well, it kicked me in the balls a little harder than usual. However, Jo in her infinite wisdom (stop laughing again) decided that there was in fact one thing that would ultimately fix me up.

No, they don't sell that in Asda.

Stealing the phrase from Firefly, Jo made the perfect food that we call Wife Soup. I've blogged about it several times before, but if you want the recipe, you can find it on this post here. Which, coincidently, turns out to me the day after one of Bethys angel days.

See, she makes it to make me feel better.

Of course, being keen on experimenting, I had a very large bowl, followed by some more. Just to make sure it was cooked right.

Anyways, I'm still poorly, but I think I am on the mend at last. I'm not attempting to cough my internal organs across the room any more, and after a 4am throat-clearing fit, I got a large, hard lump of something out my throat, and a while later my voice started coming back. I spent yesterday sounding like a teenager with a breaking voice - it'd just turn off or change pitch while talking.

Body still feels like it was hit by a bus, head is still doing the "Wom-Wom-Wom" thing, and my sinuses are still trying to kick out the front of my face.

But then, does ones face have a back?

Oh yes, and insomnia still reigns. I've done a few 36 hour and 48 hour days in the last fortnight, several 20+ hours, and spent an inordinate amount of time wandering the house in the dead of night.

Ah yes, life - it's grand :D

(Yes, rambling - it's gone midnight and i'm on my wobbly pills)

On Keeping Strange Times...

Yes folks, I'm up at silly o' clock once more. I'm not entirely sure why I am awake (again) at half two in the morning, but I'm no longer surprised when I look at a clock and see some god-forsaken hour when the rest of the house is asleep. It's not so bad in the winter, as it's pretty much always dark when you look outside, but in the summer... That's when it drives me nuts.

I've not actually been to bed yet... Lane came over after church this evening, and we ended up watching Gladiator while gossiping. She decided that 1am was late enough for her, and half an hour later (you know women, bye doesn't mean bye) she left. I shut the door and am still awake. Pah.

Also, what isn't helping is the fact I woke up this morning with that feeling in the back of my nose and throat again. The sore, hurting feeling of Mr Germ tapping on my head and telling me "Pssst, you're going to be sick for a week!". For goodness sake, I only just shifted this bloody cold - how the hell did I get it back so soon?!

I figured for a change of pace to start with, I'd address some people I know and their own "insomnia".

"I often lay in bed reading till 3am"
No, not insomnia. You're just engrossed in your book.

"I wake up for a wee every night at about two!"
No, that's just your bladder needing emptying.

"I'm just so tired all the time"
Well, maybe, but probably more to do with disturbed sleep.

"I wake up at half five every morning without an alarm"
Good for you...

These are pretty much all random comments I get from people when I mention being up and about at silly hours of the day or night. For example - I just finished doing two days of washing up and cleaning the kitchen. People that have bad sleep vs insomniacs, this is the sort of thing I am talking about. I'm now sitting here blogging. As coherently as normal at nearly three in the morning.

In fact, people that try to sympathise with something they have NO idea about... Please, if you've never been in someones shoes, try to understand, but realise you really don't know what is happening, and piling on the overload of care is too much for some of us.

Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. After that who cares?... He's a mile away and you've got his shoes!

Plus, this is also a good time for random thoughts. For example, through the joys of Facebook, I've slowly slowly been coming back in contact that I grew up with - I'm talking people I first met twenty years ago, hung around with, played games, got in trouble. One of these has come back, and while we've not spoken yet, it's stirred up some strange memories I had forgotten about. There was a point a few years ago when I wanted to grab this person and shake them and ask what the hell they thought they were doing... But now, I don't know...

Not that all my thoughts are deep at this time of night. I once lay in bed for hours trying to work out why blue Fairy Liquid was blue, and if it now kills germs, what did it do before? And if the speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s (yes, I checked), what does that make the speed of dark - and does it mean dark is faster? And what is dark?

Which then led on to - and hold on to your hats here - the fact that light/illumination is FALSE and that darkness is NATURAL. Here's my thought on this. For any kind of light, there needs to be some sort of reaction - usually chemical or a side effect of something else, while darkness is normal. The sun - chemical reaction of burning gasses. The moon - the reflection of moonlight off the surface. Light bulbs - electricity heating wires to make them glow OR a current running through a gas. Candles or any fire - the chemicals and fibre of the wick burning. Kerosene lanterns are just burning chemicals. Glowing fish or animals are chemicals reactions. (see footnote) And then my mind went on to the Good vs. Evil / Light vs. Dark argument, and wondered if my very thoughts shook the core of the Vatican. Which I doubt, but still ;)

Ahem.

There never really was any point in that train of thought, and people still look at me like I'm a loony, but to be fair, I'm not wrong :D Oh, and for the record, when I wrote to the Fairy Liquid makers, they explained that old Fairy cleans better than most brands, but the blue antibac Fairy kills the germs on the sponge as well as the stuff being washed. And it's blue because apparently blue represent cleanliness and clinical stuff. Plus they gave me £10 worth of vouchers to buy their stuff.

I didn't ask what they thought of when they saw Green Fairy. All I thought of was boogers, bile and mold.

So now, with stupid thoughts running through my head, I've had my cold "remedy" which I know is just flavoured water with paracetamol in it, I've had a throat sweet which I know is just a boiled sweet with gloop inside and some menthol to make you think it's doing something, and I'm going to try to sleep.

"Try" being the operative word of that sentence.

Footnote:
I FULLY expect some smart ass to come by and explain for me. I actually expect that person to work for NASA. Saying no names of course. But don't try the whole "Darkness is just an absence of light milarky!

In The Wee Small Hours...

Earlier today, my head started doing it's thing. That strange tingling sensation when - unlike Spidermans Spidey Sense alerting him to danger - mine alerts me to an incoming Migraine. Added to that, my constant *sniff sniff* "You smell that?" was a pretty good give away.

I managed to fend it off mostly in order to be both social with Lane, and to do the school run. Around five, I nodded off on the sofa, was woken up by everyone telling me it was dinner time, picked my way through dinner feeling more and more icky, only to find myself waking up in bed at about half one this morning. Apparently, I flaked on the sofa again and was put to bed.

The headache is still there, but no where near as bad as it was, but of course, after dozing/flaking for several hours, I'm wide awake. I tried laying in bed for a couple of hours thinking I'd nod off, but something was bothering me. I could not for the life of me place it.

So I set to prowling through the house. Had a moment of panic when I couldn't see Tam in her room, but she had turned around and shifted to the other end of the bed. Restarted her Spongebob DVD, turned it down, checked on the boy. He was curled up fast asleep - uncovered and shivering - on one of his Horrid Henry books. Covered him, removed book, turned his music down.

Checked the middle floor. Rats needed some water, so refilled their bottles. Various bits of crockery; glasses, cups, bowls, cutlery all around the lounge, so collected that all up and took it down stairs. Plonked it in the kitchen - which was a state - emptied the tumbler, reloaded it, filled the washing machine. Still, something felt wrong. Garden was empty. Front door.

NOT SHUT.

Now, it wasn't open a huge amount, and passing by the house in the dark, it might have appeared to just be a shadow instead of open. But none the less, the front door was ajar.

So, now it's 4am and I've cleaned up the kitchen, put away the drying up, put things in to soak, tidied up the front room, messed around a bit on WoW, and as they are doing a server restart, I figured I would blog.

And I am wide awake, with a head ache, feeling a twinge of paranoia at the what-if's.

Still - I knew there was something wrong...

Exhausted!

This week, I have mostly been battling with insomnia. I've been going to bed like a good boy, I've even managed to fall asleep fairly quickly (despite Jo stealing the duvet, or Tam appearing in our bed and kicking me in the head) but the trick seems to be actually staying asleep. Within an hour or two, I am not only awake, but prowling the house, checking doors, windows, kids, email and everything else. Then I go back to bed, toss and turn for a few hours, get a drink, read, watch a DVD or something, and then finally, sleep kicks in... I drift off to sleep, warm, comfortable, peaceful...

In time for Mr Alarmclock to make his presence known. And the day starts all over again.

I wake up for apparently random reasons. Usually it's because I'm hurting, sometimes I need to wee, or Tam has woken me, or Jo has woken me, or I have just woken up for no reason.

Anyway, the offshot of all this, is that when I am tired, I get down in the dumps. When it's grey and wet, I get down in the dumps. So I've been either ignoring the world and playing Warcraft, or I've been curled up on the sofa with Tam and my laptop playing stupid games.

Hence the lack of blog posts, and lack of my comments across other blogs.

Of course, getting drunk texts from people all hours of the day and night keep me amused, as does various confessions from various people, not to mention hearing about myself through the Gossip Grape Vine. That always makes me chuckle too.

So, last night wasn't much different - drunk chicks texting, lack of sleep, house prowling... My eyes feel like pissholes in the snow, and of course, considering which country I live in, it's cold, grey and wet. To WoW or Not To WoW, that is the question...

Faces In The Dark

It's no secret that I am an insomniac. Some nights I lay awake ALL night with my mind ticking over things, other nights my mind is sort of... empty, and I just let my eyes wander around the room.

I've always laid awake in the dark, and always look around the room, trying to find something innocuous to focus on to help me sleep, but one thing that has always been consistent is the faces around me. Some are deep in thought, some are angry, or mad, or smiling and laughing - some are people, or animals, or stylised or even "other". Monsters, Aliens - whatever.

Now, this sounds odd, and probably sounds like I am going off my rocker, but I assume you *cluck moo baaaa* I am not. They have always been around me - in the wallpaper, in the curtains, in hanging or crumpled clothing, trees outside, clouds. As a child, I used to bury my head under the covers because they scared me, but as an adult, I know it's just my mind playing tricks on me. Some nights, I actually find myself actively seeking them out, but other nights, I feel like the world is staring at me.

Maybe it's one of the reasons I have insomnia.

A while back, I had a poke around the internet, and it turns out there is a term for it; Pareidolia:

The term pareidolia, referenced in 1994 by Steven Goldstein,[1] describes a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples include images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon, and hidden messages on records played in reverse. The word comes from the Greek para- — beside, with or alongside — and eidolon — image (the diminutive of eidos — image, form, shape). Pareidolia is a type of apophenia.

So, that is the generic word to cover the term. The visual version is that other word there; Apophenia:

Apophenia is the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data. The term was coined in 1958 by Klaus Conrad, who defined it as the "unmotivated seeing of connections" accompanied by a "specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness".

I'm sure we've all done it at some point in our life - seen a cloud that looks just like a face, or an object. And let's face it, there are plenty of people that sell "Images of Christ" on Ebay, seeing his face in food, or in stains, or watermarks or whatever. And the pictures from 9/11, with the devils face in the smoke and dust.

But me, I just carry on as normal, disregarding them or studying them as my head allows. Last night at two in the morning, I noticed our net curtain formed a near-perfect profile of an Indian, standing and looking down at something.

And The Weekend Finished

After a nice chill-out day on Saturday, I had hoped that Sunday would be much of the same - that is, nothing interesting happening. Saturday night, I could not sleep, and I think in total, I had something like three hours of broken, non-restful sleep. I gave up trying at 5am and crawled out of bed.

After a few minutes, it was obvious Sunday was going to be one of those days. My head started to thump, and I could smell that funny smell I detect when I have a migraine coming. Joy. So I took some pills, but the icky headache remained, as did The Smell. On the bright-ish-side, it didn't become a full blow migrane.

As for the smell, there is only one way I can describe it. Poo. Shit. Crap. OK, so that's three ways, but none the less, THAT is what I smell when my head hurts. All. Day.

Added to this, the lack of sleep meant I had a crappy day. I wasn't sad exactly, but I was down, I didn't know what to do with myself, and I was generally in a pants mood all day.

Oh, and my back was hurting too.

People keep telling me "Go to the doc, get help sleeping" but here's the thing - I don't WANT to go to the doctors, I don't WANT to rely on pills to control another aspect of my life, and I don't WANT to take pills in order to knock me out. As it is, I rattle with the painkillers, the antidepressants, the anti inflammatories, the migraine pills... More Pills = More Side Effects, and I just can't be dealing with that at the moment. Yeah, I might sleep, but I'll probably end up puking all day, or my hair will fall out, or my piss will turn sparkly green.

Well, the last would be cool, but the rest - no thanks.

So anyway, here we are, Monday morning, the smell of shit firmly in my nose, my hands and feet swollen and the headache is playing around in my noggin. Guess it's time for the school run!

Still Tuesday?

So, nearly 10am, and I've seen every minute of Tuesday so far. And I don't mean I've been in a corner dozing off - I actually took Jaysen to school, I've had breakfast, and I am functioning. Well, sort of - my eyes are sore and I am wearing sunglasses, but I am still awake, and not going to sleep again till bedtime - which is twelve hours or more away. Yikes.

I almost considered going back to bed, or at least, the sofa, but decided in the long run it was too bright, and I'd probably feel worse for having just a couple of hours of sleep. I managed to be both coherent AND safe while walking to school, remember everything and didn't get run over or anything. I did, however, hurl abuse at the Lollipop Lady as we crossed with her as usual, reminded her Xmas is half a year away, and that her hair was frizzy.

I like to make peoples day a little more surreal.

Anyway, I was dressed and had eaten breakfast before 5am, which is around the time I resigned myself to being up and awake. Now to just stay awake for the rest of the day...

*thud*ZZZzzzZZZzzz

Edit: For those of you having problems with the posts appearing half-way down the page, I am suspecting it is an Internet Explorer 6 hiccup somewhere, and am looking into it. Granted, there are only three of you affected, but you know what I'm like!. Anyway, it's a fix-in-progress. With no sleep. This could be interesting...

3.47am

It's quiet, it's cool, it's peaceful, and there is a lone blackbird singing out there somewhere. I might have insomnia, but it's worth it.

Night Owl

We went to bed at about 10.30pm this evening. About "average" for us, if there's any such thing. As usual, upstairs was stiflingly hot. The bedroom has two large, south-facing windows, and is directly below the flat, black roof. The sun comes up, and the sun shines in there and on the roof, heating the room regardless of drawn curtains or open windows. This carries on till the sun plonks out the sky and lands on Irelands to the west. So, the room was hot, you get that.

On goes the fan, the windows get opened further, Tam flakes out, Jo fidgets, I read. And read and read.

Midnight, Jo is still fidgeting, and I've been reading since I got to bed. Room is cooler, duvet is buggered, both of us are uncomfortable. Light goes out, Jo tries to get comfy. I don't bother, since no matter HOW I lay I hurt, and my brain refuses to shut off.

1am, still awake, but Jo is snoring. Bonus. She's pinning me with an arm, shoulder and leg.

I fidget.

2am, I manage to fidget enough that I escape. Like liquid, Jo spreads across the bed. My space is no more. I steal a pillow and wander downstairs. I get a drink, check my phone, read some blogs, comment on someones personal hygiene, send some dead-of-night text messages for giggles. I wander the interweb.

3am. Here I am. The sky to the east is starting to look lighter, and I know that I can either A) Try and man-handle Jo some so I can squeeze back into bed. Yes, appealing because I am a perv, but she's like a bear with a headache if you wake her in the dead of night. B) Sleep on the sofa. This has no getting-savaged-by-sleeping-woman downside, but it's sooo not a comfortable sofa - I'll hurt even more tomorrow than I already do, but I might (Key Word: Might) sleep. Or C) Give up on the notion of sleep completely. No "Raaar Die!" aspect from Jo, no "Sofa of Doom" aspect from the lounge, but I will be evil tomorrow, will probably hurt even more than I already do, and no doubt end up not sleeping tomorrow night either.

I hate insomnia.

Booze-Bruise

Last night, for the first time in a fair while, we managed to offload the kids; Jaysen went to stay with Jo's mum, Tamsyn went to stay with a neighbour (which was nerve-wracking in and of itself). Our friend Amber hit 31 this week, and as all fun-loving adults, we decided to hit our local alternative club, The Pink Toothbrush. Yes, I am fully aware of what that is a euphanism for. If you don't know, you can always ask.

Anyway, we hit the wildlife at around 9pm, taking the piss out of one another in the cab there, and getting into the club with the rest of the crowd by half nine when we started to drink.

And Drink.

And Drink.

12.30am, we realised we had a half-hour before Mr Cab Driver would be outside, and decided we needed fried food. So we went to the best burger van for miles around, ate stacks of meat, onions, bun, sauces and pure cholesterol. We were all rather drunk, so it didn't count.

We piled back into the cab, got to the drop off point, and spent half an hour dancing and laughing in the street. It's amazing what happens when someone has an mp3 of the Austin Powers theme on their phone. So we bumbled home, got in, had some more laughs, then hit the sack around 3am. 8am I wake up with a bladder that would put a swimming pool to shame and stay half-awake till 10.30am when we crawled out of bed.

All morning I was complaining of my leg hurting, and come 4pm, I had a peek and it looks like I was hit by a car. I have an eight-inch bruise that no one can place. I didn't fall, get hit, get in a fight (I'm a cheery/laughy drunk), despite almost knocking out one of the crowd, and breaking the shoulder of another. So here I am limping around with a BoozeBruise. Very strange.

We did well last night on the bar though. Beer, Vodka, Beer, some sort of fruit-vodka mix, we blagged a few free shots for being so damn sexy, something bubblegum flavoured, something strawberry cheesecake flavoured. Jagemeister also came out to play, as did pernot, absinthe and whatever else we tried.

But I am blessed with not worrying about hangovers!

Anyway, aside from getting mysterious injuries, obviously, I am back :) During the week, we received a report that our "issues should be resolved" and I've managed to keep an internet connection for about an hour so far. A new record ;) Has to be said, Telewest-which-is-now-Virgin Media is officially shite. I have no idea what has changed since they got taken over, but they get two fat-thumbs down.

Hopefully last night being out late and up "early ish" has jiggered my body clock back into some form of semblance. I've not slept properly since last weekend, being awake for 20-22 hours mostly, and fighting sleep during the day so I might sleep at night. Booze & Painkillers is the next step ;)

Tomorrow is Fathers Day, so after calling my dad to say Hi, we're off to see Jo's dad who's home-alone this weekend. He's also fiddled with his webpage, so no doubt I'm going to have to redesign from the ground up. He "cleaned some stuff off" which invariably means "I deleted some important files". Yay.

And so, I bid you goodnight!

My Clock Is Broken

However, I don't me either the tick-tick-ticking kind, nor the red-glow digital kind. I mean the internal, Body Clock kind. I am good with time most of the, erm, time. I can guess the time to within 20 minutes of the actual time. If I need to be up by a certain time, I will wake up 10 minutes before that time.

However, over the last week or so, the early-morning part of it has been on the fritz. Every morning in this time, my eyes have popped open just after 4am, and I am awake. Not just Roll-Over-And-Doze-Back-Off, but awake. I try my hardest to get back to sleep - refluff the pillows, adjust the duvet, push Jo off my side of the bed, move the dogs onto Jo's side of the bed, move Tam onto Jo's side of the bed, but by 4.30am-5.00am, I HAVE to get up.

But I have no idea why this is, and more's the point, it's not affecting me as yet. If I am woken up early, I am tired, crotchety, and grumpy all day and struggle to stay awake, but at the moment I am fine. I've tried early nights and late nights to no avail, I've tried skipping tea and coffee all day, just in case, I've even poodled downstairs, microwaved some milk, and STILL ended up getting up half an hour later, while the rest of the house is snoring. Even the cats don't give me a second look at this time of the day.

Now, I COULD be productive and get lots of housework done during this time, but most of the housework would be noisy. All the will achieve would be waking up everyone else, plus the neighbours, and pissing everyone off. No, usually, I have a shower, check the mail, browse the blog, and even pop onto WoW for a couple of hours - the server is quiet and I can run around with the stupid stuff without getting hassle from one side or another.

I am hoping with Jaysen being back at school from today (next break is Easter) that I will get tired doing the school runs, and resume my normal thing of waking up just before the alarm clock, but for the time being, I get to watch the sunrise. Again.

Even The Web Is Dull

... But then, it IS 5am. Try to get a couple of hours before the kids wake up.

Oooh Look At The Time

So, for no reason, I woke up at about 1.45am. Dark, silent, snoring dogs, snoring Jo. And I laid there, fidgeting, trying to get comfortable. Now it's half three and I quit.

Faithless: Insomnia
Deep in the bosom of the gentle night
Is when I search for the light
Pick up my pen and start to write
I struggle, fight dark forces
In the clear moon light
Without fear... insomnia
I can't get no sleep

I used to worry, thought I was goin' mad in a hurry
Gettin' stress, makin' excess mess in darkness
No electricity, something's all over me, greasy
Insomnia please release me and let me dream of
Makin' mad love to my girl on the heath
Tearin' off tights with my teeth
But there's no release, no peace
I toss and turn without cease
Like a curse, open my eyes and rise like yeast
At least a couple of weeks
Since I last slept, kept takin' sleepers
But now I keep myself pepped
Deeper still, that night I write by candle light
I find insight, fundamental movement, uh
So when it's black this insomniac take an original tack
Keep the beast in my nature under ceaseless attack
I gets no sleep
I can't get no sleep

I can't get no sleep
I can't get no sleep
I need to sleep, although I get no sleep
I need to sleep, although I get no sleep

Have to laugh, really. I'm tired, but just cannot get to sleep. Pah. Not angry, stressed, sick, not even really hurting much. Bed was comfortable, clean sheets, soft, nice duvet, Jo was snuggled on me...