Why I Need An Early Bedtime

It's 5:55pm Eastern Daylight Time as I begin to type this post. I usually don't start my posts this early but I'm falling asleep so I figure if I'm going to cast any thoughts out onto the world wide webs today, it's going to have to be sooner rather than later.

WHY? You ask. Go ahead. Ask. "Heather, why, are you, a relatively young woman ready to go to bed at this ridiculously early hour?" I'll tell you why.

• because it's been a rainy overcast day and it's nearly dark at this early hour. 
• because that ear that had the mysterious object in it yesterday morning hurts really bad tonight. I have not yet identified the unidentified object and therefore my hypochondria is out of control.
• because I have a sore throat and my third (or fourth) day in a row of having a headache.
• because the Basement Clown Posse is loading up the old moldy carpet that was taken out of the basement two months ago and they're going to come up at some point after they finish....  thinking that I should provide them some kind of nourishment as a reward for their efforts and I just don't want to share the lovely piece of tuna that I just broiled. They are not worthy. I don't feel like eating it and I suspect it will become a lovely leftover for tomorrow but I still don't want to share. 
• because they ate dinner last night at 11pm which is probably why I didn't go to sleep until 5am this morning. That's right. FIVE freaking A of the M.
• And of course... since my parents have moved their lovely "anniversary clock" up here... there is chiming of the hour at fifteen minute intervals all the livelong day and night. And for whatever reason, even though it shows the correct time it CHIMES three hours ahead so at 8 am it chimes eleven times. Eleven. And since I'm still living on the top floor, I hear that clock like it was in the bed with me. So after going to sleep after 5am I was awake at 8am. At which point I ran myself a hot bath and climbed in the tub and bawled my eyes out. 
• because, you know, even if you don't have a darn thing to do all day, just knowing the cumulative effect of the lack of sleep plus rain was going to mean a Miserable Me and I just couldn't stand starting my day knowing it would suck. 

I'm not even halfway through yet. I'm just warming up. 

I'm ready to go to bed because yesterday when I went to the grocery store I found two really nice NY strip steaks that had just been marked down. Yes, I buy steaks on sale. It's the only time I buy good steaks. And because I was afraid that we would have some spare kid knocking around in the basement, I bought a lower quality cut of steak, also marked down, just in case we needed to stretch dinner a little further. And even though I let Austin know at noon yesterday that we were going to be grilling out for dinner (meaning HE was grilling out, I don't mess with fire, long story) and reminded him that it is really important for me to eat dinner around 5pm or 6pm because I can't take my knockout drugs with a meal or they don't work. I have a window of opportunity for sleep of between 10pm and midnight. If I don't get to sleep then, I don't sleep. It takes two hours for the knockout drugs to kick in so I try to eat at 5pm, take meds at 8pm and then I'm sufficiently chilled for sleeping right on schedule.

BUT NO.... the kid was nowhere around at dinner time. Rather than trying to force an unwilling cook, I made a three bean salad, had that with a nice piece of a sourdough baguette and was fine. Took my meds... was just about to fall asleep on the couch watching tv when... at TEN PM... the Basement Clowns came tripping up the stairs looking for something to eat. Before I knew what was happening steaks were on the grill, rice and jalepeno poppers were being cooked and all of these things required input from me. The whole time. THE WHOLE TIME (yelling for emphasis) I kept reminding them that they needed to clean up their mess because I did not want to wake up to a messy kitchen in the morning. I can't stress this enough. I can't stand to get up in the morning and find the remains of the day before. There's just no reason for it. I clean as I cook. I load the dishwasher throughout the day. I run the dishwasher at night. I empty the dishwasher first thing in the morning.

OF COURSE... since dinner time was pushed back by five freaking hours, the dishwasher was already going when they came upstairs because, it was time for me to go to bed. And since the dishwasher was running, I remarked time and time and time again that they would either need to empty the dishwasher and load it or do the dinner dishes by hand. All three of these registered voters expressed their comprehension of this requirement.

So this morning... after barely sleeping three hours... after my bathtub meltdown... I stumbled downstairs to find something to eat for breakfast and found the kitchen EXACTLY AS IT WAS AFTER THEIR 11PM DINNER LAST NIGHT. I'm talking food sitting out drawing flies. I'm talking dishes covering every inch of counter space (and we have a lot of counter space). Since I was already a whiny mess, I didn't attempt to clean it. I just left it.

It has been cool today and I quickly discovered that I needed a sweatshirt. My winter clothes are in a closed rubbermaid container in the basement. I wandered into the wasteland that has become of my beautiful Whine Cellar with the lack of my feminine touch for the past two months. There were two clowns sleeping on my furniture and the one clown I gave birth to was in my bed. Clown A apologized for not getting up and loading the old carpet as he had promised, citing the rain and the fact that the price at the dump is based on weight. Wet carpet costs more than dry. Whatever. I get it. I told him I was much more aggravated at the state of the kitchen than I was at the state of the carpet disposal. When I went into my room the kid I gave birth to woke up and I mentioned the kitchen and indicated it needed to be cleaned sooner rather than his normal noon wake up time.

An hour or so later... angry teen comes stomping up the stairs swearing and throwing a full blown temper tantrum about having to get up to clean the kitchen. Maybe logic isn't what it was for my generation. I calmly reminded him that if he wanted to avoid having to get up "early" (it was about ten am) to clean the dinner dishes, he should do the dinner dishes AFTER DINNER. Is this really a hard concept? This disagreement escalated and continued until the bathtub weeping returned and I was ready to cause him bodily harm. Fortunately (for him) my back hurt too bad for me to get up.

His mood quickly rebounded as it always does. This is a common autism trait... complete meltdown, completely inappropriate behavior and then complete disconnection with his earlier mood and actions. My mood, however, doesn't rebound as quickly. The emotions of the morning took whatever energy my three hour power nap had generated.

I'm just completely sapped. And there's more. My friend Amy's Nanny died on Monday. Her funeral is Friday here in Cleveland. If it wasn't local I couldn't do it. But it is local and she is a good friend and her Nanny raised her and even if she doesn't know I'm there, I need to be there. Being this wiped out and run down two days before any event, especially a not-casual event, really lowers the chances of me being able to be there. And as I mentioned last week, the hardest thing for me with this whole back thing is not being able to be there for people.

And today on my afternoon Grey's Anatomy watching they showed the episode where George dies. I mean, I know it's just a tv show but it's just the thought of people dying before they should and all that.

Once I miss sleep it makes it harder to go to sleep the next night. I know I should just crash but it doesn't work that way. Lack of rest increases pain which decreases ability to sleep. I'm exhausted. I just announced that the kitchen was closing at 8pm. If food is not prepared before then they will just have to eat cheetos. Whatever.

I downloaded 25 new books on my Nook last night. All free. Yay me. I have been reading Rick Steves travel blog and also his girlfriend's (yes, he is straight). Living vicariously and all that. (Speaking of which, my fabulous friend Beth who lives in London is in Monaco right now!). Even if I don't sleep, there's lots of ways to entertain myself. Last night I finally just started watching Alfie Boe interviews on Youtube. I love his singing but at 4am I don't want opera, I want a cute and funny man to talk me to sleep. So he did.

And now I'm done. If you made it all the way through, thanks for listening. Love and hugs, y'all.