Long Story Short ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sleep? I cannot get a good night's sleep lately. It's been weeks and every night, like clockwork, I wake up at 2, 3, 4, 5, and all kinds of times in between. I've been consistently exercising, watching what I eat, I cut down on alcohol, I go to bed early, and nothing seems to help. If anything it has become almost a routine. I wake up a few times on my own. The cat wakes me up a few times. The dog wakes me up a few times. The cars outside, the banging upstairs, the shifting of my own body - just about everything is working together to prevent me from sleeping well. And it makes me really angry. I have started taking Nyquil and Alka Seltzer Cold Plus and allergy pills and whatever else I can get down my throat. You know what? It doesn't help. I am still awake at 2 a.m., looking at my alarm clock and thinking "WHY?" Inexplicably when I wake up at 7, when I need to get up, the medicine has kicked in and I am drowsy and confused. The cat has a lot to do with setting the sleepless pattern in motion. His wide awake time seems to start sometime between 3 and 5:30. It involves scratching, deliberately knocking things off of bureaus and bookcases, jumping on the dog, attacking my leg through the blankets, and the grand finale: knocking his food bowl off the table and skittering it around the dining room so that the sound echoes all over the apartment. Lately our reaction has been to put him in the basement. It is the only door that locks securely from OUR side - he can open up all our other doors despite toolboxes, towels, shoes, and umpteen other prison attempts. I hate that my lack of sleep is making me hate the pets at all hours. I love them both when it's light out but as soon as I'm asleep I feel like they're plotting to keep me awake. The dog used to sleep so well and still does most of the time - but the minute the cat creeps toward the general direction of her food bowl she's barking as loud as she can. Do you know what it's like to be startled out of sleep by a shrill, loud dog bark at 3 a.m.? And then again at 3:15, and again at 3:47? It makes you homicidal. We don't even leave her food down at night so she's basically barking because the cat is walking near where her food usually is. We have tried shutting the cat out of the bedroom by blocking our door from the inside to prevent any interaction between them at all. What we have discovered is that the intermittent barking is often less irritating than the cat's persistent and LOUD attempts to break into the bedroom. At times we have tried to be patient and wait him out until he gives up - one morning we waited from 5 a.m. until 6:45 a.m. and he would.not.stop. Into the basement he went. The basement is the ultimate solution. The only problem with that is the guilt factor. He has no litter box down there but we do put water and a bed for him. If the landlord were to find out we keep him down there at night he would be pissed. But we are at our wits end! And I CANNOT SLEEP. God help me to not kill anyone as I seek a restful and uninterrupted night of sleep. This weekend: no pets, a king size bed, and hopefully (please God) some real, honest-to-goodness, 10pm to 8am sleep.
10:12 a.m. - 2005-03-24 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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