counting sheep

I've taken to counting sheep lately. It's a classic remedy to insomnia that never worked for me as a child. I dont quite understand how that concept is so prevalent in children's ideas about how to fall asleep, when there is probably the rare child whose attention span will allow him or her to get past sheep 7. or maybe that was just me. Usually i would just like in bed until my wandering thoughts became unbearable, then i'd turn the lights back on to read or draw, wait for my mother to discover that i hadn't yet drifted off and then to bring me a mixture of orange juice and brandy that was disgusting as well as extremely effective.

I often have fits of insomnia; more often recently than ever before. I became concerned when alcohol couldn't even break my body's determination to maintain its suffering. I gave up caffeine. In the interest of possibly losing the bags under my eyes, vision-blurring headaches, and face pain from constant yawning, i forwent my daily dose of coca cola... unless it was for breakfast... because then it would be keeping me up during the day... which was okay because, Lord knows, narcoleptic episodes aren't conducive to keeping jobs, or staying alive when you have to commute to those jobs. I bought a six pack of coca cola last week and how many are left in my fridge? 5! normally they'd be gone by day two. Though i long for the cool, refreshing, sugary, cola-ness, i need sleep more.

I try yoga. Yoga... is hard. Two minutes of it and i become significantly warmer. Three minutes and im sweating. At minute five, i'm cursing yoga's inception, and swearing that if i have to do 'downward dog' one more time that i'm gonna have to punch a puppy to make myself feel better. Afterwards, however, i must admit that i feel quite relaxed and very much relieved... to be done. I know then and there that i'm gonna have the best sleep that night... unfortunately lately that sleep doesn't usually come until the following day's afternoon.

I sleep on my hands. I don't know what it is about me but pressure on my limbs often puts me right out. Maybe i'm autistic. Sounds logical to me... at this hour. Sometimes i purposely pile a large portion of my wardrobe on top of my covers, then climb underneath carefully so as to not topple any onto the floor, because the weight of all the clothes relaxes me. In the summer, when it's too hot to do that, i choose sleep positions that involve me stuffing my arms underneath my person or pressed between my legs. If i sleep on a couch, cuz sometimes that helps, i'll jam my leg, and maybe an arm, between the cushions. Sometimes it works. During the bad insomnia, it doesn't.

I wonder if turning off the tv would help. This would be an obvious solution because i find that often, when i'm a few seconds away from the point of no return, something from the television will catch my attention and jar me from my potential sleep. I, however, am privy to information about me that you aren't... and that information is that i have an easier time falling asleep to really fascinating television programming, than to mouse noise. Not that i'm scared of them. Not that i haven't seen a family of mice run across the floor right to the foot of the couch that i was sitting on. Not that i haven't woken up to find a mouse crawling around like 10 inches from my head. They don't scare me... they just disgust me. So I just accepted that they're too smart for the traps, that there's nothing i can do, and then i turn on the tv and let denial take over. If i can't hear them, they must be gone, right? Right?

So turning off the tv's not an option. This led me to the old classic: counting sheep. The first night i'd gotten to the 360's... when i started severely jumbling the order of the numbers seconds before the sheep became melded into my crazy dream. It worked! The second night i only made it to the 200's. The next night, i don't even think i made it to 100, but that was because i got so bored with the fact that i was counting sheep, despite my mentally dying them various fall and neon colors, that i had to stop counting. I did, however, fall asleep soon after i had quit. The next night i decided to count colorful cows... and then ballerinas... and then b-boys. That was all one night... the week of little sleep is beginning to short circuit my ability to concentrate on one thing.

I suppose instead of sitting here blogging and watcing reruns of kim possible, i should be counting sheep, or purple washing machines jumping over a fence, or sheep jumping over purple washing machines, or dinosaurs. But i don't want to. I want to be able to just close my eyes and fall asleep. Sleep is one of the main things that i shouldn't have to work in order to achieve. Geez! Where's my mom with orange juice and brandy when i need her?

crest me

so i had the craziest dream.

I was back in my mother's house... getting ready for high school. I had plenty of time and was preparing to take a shower when i realized, to my despair, that i had nothing to wear yet. So my sister, whom i hated, birth through high school, kindly and oddly, began offering her outfit-finding services of her own volition. While i ran to get ready, worried that i would miss the bus, she calmed me down, telling me that she would give me a ride and that i didn't have to rush so much. This should've clued me in to the fact that i was dreaming. Never mind the fact that my sister was away at college when i was in high school... she was being nice to me!

So i do the normal morning routine... brush my teeth first, then wash my face, because i've had several mornings where i later discover toothpaste foam stains on my face after it dried completely, making it look as though i hadn't washed it at all. After i wash my face, i look up into the mirror and notice something odd. The gap between my teeth is much larger than usual.

I've always been self conscious about my teeth. My sister had perfectly straight teeth, and a beautiful smile. I, on the other hand, didn't have the great fortune to have teeth practically growing out of my nose when i was young, and therefore did not need braces as my sister had. I, who only had a small gap and a few teeth slightly out of place, was being constantly reassured by mom that i didn't need braces because my teeth weren't that bad... yet i shouldn't smile in pictures. Years of friends reassuring me that my gap was just the right size to fit my features and many random complements by strangers convinced me that i had a beautiful smile regardless, and slowly healed the wounds.

So imagine my horror upon looking in the mirror and realizing that i must've had blinders on all these years because my gap was larger than i'd thought, and by no means fitting. Then i took a closer look and noticed that it wasn't centered. A whole section of my teeth was shifted completely to the right. Then i took an even closer look. My tooth was missing! I began to mumble (with a lisp) that this couldn't be happening and that there was no way. I searched frantically for my tooth and found it in the sink where i must've spit it out after brushing my teeth. I picked it up out of the sink, and without bothering to wash the soap off of it, shoved it into the space in my mouth, trying to find a notch where it could get caught, hoping that some vacuum in my gums would hold it in. Every time my tooth would pop out of my gums, i would pop it back in, holding it there for a longer period of time with my forefinger, hoping that if i held it a long enough time, it would stay.

I ran downstairs to the kitchen to ask my mother for help, hoping that maybe she would know of some obscure home remedy for pasting teeth to gums, at least long enough to make it through a school day, giving me enough time outside of scrutinizing eyes, to figure something out... like making a replacement out of papier mache, or a chiclet or something.

She, of course, had no immediate solution, though she did offer to help me financially with an operation that would replace it. Though i appreciated the help, it didn't solve my current situation of how not to be teased to death by my peers. I didn't even think to ask to stay home for i knew that in my mother's house, there was no skipping school unless death was looming.

Then i woke up, relieved... not that it was just a dream, but that i knew i wasn't in high school anymore, and that my teenage peers would not be devouring my self esteem. Worry quickly ensued as i wondered how i was going to afford fixing my teeth, when i finally thought to check whether there was still an unwanted dental vacancy. I can't describe my relief as i ran my tongue smoothly over my top row of teeth, stopping only at my normal-sized gap.

So let's analyze... the dream speaks loudly of my insecurity about the way i look. My sister? Maybe i feel like there's a new camaraderie on the horizon for us? Hard to imagine... we're not exactly close now, but i certainly don't hate her anymore... i might even kinda like her... a little. The financial assistance with the operation? Lol... straight out of real life. My mom offered to help me financially with further education, which i'm incredibly grateful for, but it doesn't solve my immediate problem of not knowing what i want to do with my life. I don't want to waste her money on a degree path that i don't end up using. So back to how i look... i'm not obsessing am i?... i'm cute. I know i am. But i spent a better part of my life having no idea, and now that i know, i still feel like i'm never as cute as the people around me. That's a problem, because it's not like i'm walking around with a giant and lopsided gap.

the missing teeth dream is obviously warning me not to put so much importance on the way that i look, because even though they might not express it the way i'd like them too (i.e. telling me i'm beautiful inside and out), my family loves me and will support me in the truly important things when i need them to.

Oh well... back to my breakfast of coca cola and chocolate chip cookies...