Friends and enemies, a tip on "Better Living" today from Uncle Ben: Put that goddamned cell phone in the other room when you lay your head down to sleep at nighty-night time.
Folks, I could not sleep through the night to save myself, and it was, not killing me but ruining me, ruining every sleep-disturbed day, night by night, day by day, week, month, drip, drip, friggin drip. I wrote here one time, "I don't dream anymore"; wasn't asleep long enough. Often four times a night, I'd just get awake, for no reason. Sleeping pills put me to sleep but didn't keep me asleep.
Then a week ago. June 12 will be added to the new list of holidays that I have been suggesting for years should replace the out-dated set we observe currently. Last Thursday night, as is my practice, I had done took my sleeping pill and turned off the lights and was recumbent and making a last check of the news to let said sleeping pill take effect--I know, I know, you're not supposed to do that. I read an article on CNN by a sleep doctor. Said slink said "Don't do that," that which I was just doing, but also said something else, that you should turn off all electronic devices or put them in another room other than your bedroom on account of they give off electronic signals, gamma rays or something, even when you're not using them. The slink said slinks don't fully understand yet the effects of these gadgets but they are correlated with waking up once asleep--and if you use your cell phone as an alarm clock (Here!) get an old-fashioned wind-it-up one. Do not, he said, sleep with the electronic gadgets close to your head. Which I did do also. So that first night, not having a Baby Ben, I put my phone (alarm clock) as far away from me as possible but still in the same room (alarm). Maybe one day in one hundred I awake refreshed and alert. I did that first day. I did the second day. "Maybe it's psychosomatic" my son said on Father's Day, "but who cares!" It's now been a week and what was plausibly psychosomatic has become undeniably physical: chemical, biological, electrical, whatever-ical. Every single morning since Victory over Insomnia Day has been a good morning. And I bought a Baby Ben.
Folks, I could not sleep through the night to save myself, and it was, not killing me but ruining me, ruining every sleep-disturbed day, night by night, day by day, week, month, drip, drip, friggin drip. I wrote here one time, "I don't dream anymore"; wasn't asleep long enough. Often four times a night, I'd just get awake, for no reason. Sleeping pills put me to sleep but didn't keep me asleep.
Then a week ago. June 12 will be added to the new list of holidays that I have been suggesting for years should replace the out-dated set we observe currently. Last Thursday night, as is my practice, I had done took my sleeping pill and turned off the lights and was recumbent and making a last check of the news to let said sleeping pill take effect--I know, I know, you're not supposed to do that. I read an article on CNN by a sleep doctor. Said slink said "Don't do that," that which I was just doing, but also said something else, that you should turn off all electronic devices or put them in another room other than your bedroom on account of they give off electronic signals, gamma rays or something, even when you're not using them. The slink said slinks don't fully understand yet the effects of these gadgets but they are correlated with waking up once asleep--and if you use your cell phone as an alarm clock (Here!) get an old-fashioned wind-it-up one. Do not, he said, sleep with the electronic gadgets close to your head. Which I did do also. So that first night, not having a Baby Ben, I put my phone (alarm clock) as far away from me as possible but still in the same room (alarm). Maybe one day in one hundred I awake refreshed and alert. I did that first day. I did the second day. "Maybe it's psychosomatic" my son said on Father's Day, "but who cares!" It's now been a week and what was plausibly psychosomatic has become undeniably physical: chemical, biological, electrical, whatever-ical. Every single morning since Victory over Insomnia Day has been a good morning. And I bought a Baby Ben.
