I had a tough time getting to sleep last night. We went to bed early enough, but I made th mistake of composing a weblog entry in bed before turning off the lights. Sometimes this works, but most of the time it’s a recipe for trouble. My mind races. I lay there, unable to drift off. Such was the case last night.

I rested on my side, listening to “Hawaiian Rainfall” on my iPod (i.e. white noise), trying to keep my mind blank. I practiced meditating, being mindful of my head, my shoulders, my breathing, etc. But all I really noticed was Toto growling and Kristina snoring. I thought that perhaps I should get up and have a little whiskey, or take some melatonin, but dismissed these ideas. “I’ll be asleep soon.”

When the Hawaiian rainfall ended, though, I realized an hour had gone by. (I’d heard parts of that soundscape that were new to me — I’ve always fallen asleep before.) I was still wide awake. Kris was still snoring. At least Toto wasn’t growling anymore.

I opened my laptop and surfed the web, trying to kill time until I got drowsy. It never happened. Eventually I fell asleep sometime around one o’clock.

Max and Nemo woke me at 5am, ripping through the house, scampering over the bed, tumbling down the stairs. They love to tussle in the early morning.

I got out of bed and worked a bit on my sites. I made a vow that, when I to Custom Box, I would finish all my work quickly so that I could take a nap (or meditate), and then have time to get new entries up at every site.

Things went well at first, but then the phone started to ring. Each ring was an interruption, a further delay of my nap. Eventually I discarded the idea altogether. I needed to get my weblog entries posted. I started to work on those.

Then Nick arrived and wanted to speak to my in that cryptic way of his where I have to guess what he’s talking about. I like to talk with Nick — he’s an intersting man — but, as Tony once said, “Talking to him is like talking to the wind.”

After Nick left, I spent half an hour on the phone with somebody discussing a future series of articles for Get Rich Slowly. (Can you believe I have business calls about my blogs?)

Finally, at noon, I forced myself to sit down and meditate for twenty minutes. I’ve been using recorded mp3s of guided meditations in order to relax and ground myself. Nothing mystic. Just good, solid mindfulness.

Of course, this didn’t work either. Nick came in after ten minutes to tell me that he’d seen Little Miss Sunshine over the weekend. While he talked, I tried to do some box quotes. The phone rang. Several times. Then Trent IMed me to let me know that my sites were down. “I think all of Dreamhost is down,” he said, referring to the company that hosts my web sites (and his). (Dreamhost has been a flakey mess for months, and they seem incapable of fixing the problems.)

Nick came in again. The phone rang. My computer beeped to let me know I had new e-mail.

I was going crazy!

Finally at about two, everything calmed down. I found time to whip out four quick weblog entries. At 3pm, I sighed, put things away, and headed home. “At least I can meditate or nap at home,” I told myself.

When I got home, I put all the cats outside so they could not bother me. I turned on the heat. I put on my slippers. I found a fleece blanket, pulled it over my head, closed my eyes, and turned on my iPod. I was going to do a pzizz nap, and goddamn it, I was going to enjoy it. The music started. The narrator began to guide me to sleep. I was drifting off when…

RING!

The telephone jarred me awake. I swore. I started the nap over from the beginning, but again the phone rang. It was Nick with a box crisis.

The universe was conspiring against me to keep me from getting any kind of decent sleep. I gave up. I sat down and wrote this entry. And once I schedule it to post tomorrow morning (or now, since you’re reading this), I’m going to get up and play the Wii.

I’d better be able to fall asleep tonight.

When Kris got home, I told her my tale of woe. She listened patiently and then asked, “Do you want realistic Kris or sympathetic Kris?”

“How about a little of each,” I said.

“Nobody’s going to feel sorry for you,” she said. And here she made a mocking voice, “Oh poor me. I’m not able to meditate at work. I can’t write my weblogs.”

sigh

I guess she does have a point.