Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Random Tuesday Thoughts: Snoring and Other Delights*

If you like Random Thoughts Tuesday, take a look at Keely, the Un Mom. Go ahead, it won't kill you. It's way better than reading my crap. And she invented it, to boot.

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*This technically qualifies as random because it was completely unplanned and spontaneous, and so NOT what I was going to write about. And this is my blog, so there.


With humble apologies to 孫武,

The Art of Snore, by me.

Chapter One - Lying Down
You must lie down.

Chapter Two - Waging Sleep
You must take up the challenge to fall asleep quickly, 
before consciousness overtakes you and rouses you.

Chapter Three - Sleep by Stratagem
The source of strength in sleep is the dream. You must use your REM and activate the 
dream state quickly and efficiently.

Chapter Four - Tactical Positioning
Recognize your ideal position for the sleep state and do not let your enemy, 
consciousness, move you from it. Be still.

Chapters Four Through Ten - No One Ever Reads These
Blah-blah-blah-blah. 

Chapter Eleven - The Terrain
You must use terrain to your advantage. Pillow-Top Mattress will provide you 
with advantageous terrain.

Chapter Twelve - Avoid Incendiary Attacks
Thai, Indian, Mexican, and Korean are out. 

Chapter Thirteen - The Use of Spies
Lets face it. There's no good analogy for this one. 


So, where was I, anyhow? Or is it anyway? Who cares? Oh, yes....The Art of Snore...

I snore. A lot, apparently. I don't know, because I'm often asleep when it happens. Let me explain.

Some time ago, Lady Marshmallow suggested I mention the fact that I snore to my family doctor, the next time I went to see him, just as a side note, and because she was going to tell him if I didn't. Since we live in a smallish town, and the likelihood of her running into him and blabbing about this was fairly high, I caved in. At a recent checkup, I casually mentioned that I might, just a teeeeeeensy bit, have a sort of, slight, tonal quality to my somnolent inspirational episodes. 

Well, either Lady M had already bumped into Dr. Overcautiouspanicattheslightestthing, or he was simply being true to his name, because the next thing I know, I'm partaking in what is ironically called a Sleep Study. I say ironic, because the takeaway lesson I learned from it is that you neverfuckingsleep have some difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep while you're in a sleep study. 

The good doctor was trying to ascertain whether or not I suffered from - yet another irony, since because I am sleeping when I snore, I don't suffer from or hear a damn thing except my dream Playmate asking me if I want more ice for my drink - Sleep Apnea. How nice of him to be concerned! 

Apparently, sleep apnea can be dangerous and is responsible for, in highly technical medical jargon, bad things that happen to your body. What my doctor failed to take into account was that for over forty years, I had already done bad things to my body, and that for me, snoring and/or taking a short break from breathing is a virtual vacation for me.

I will spare you the details of the process of a sleep study, because frankly, it's boring as hell, and it involves placing wires all over my body. Oh, and that guy, Desmond Norris, who wrote The Naked Ape, is wrong. I have hair in all those places, and the brutes at the Sleep Lab use industrial-strength adhesive! 

Cutting to the chase. After a night of whatever the opposite of bliss is, it was determined that a) I do not have sleep apnea, and 2) I can, while snoring, create a partial vacuum in a room. 

So after all was completed, and I returned home, nothing really has changed except that I now know that Lady M will be throwing more elbows and doing more of those cute little under-blanket kicks that she likes to do. And I will know the reason, in advance, should I wake to her holding a pillow over my face while laughing maniacally.

6 comments:

  1. You are ideally suited to the random Tuesday full thought. The RTFT. Go with it. I loved this. The Art of Snore is my kind of parody.

    Happy RTT to my favorite puffed sugar cylinder who does not obey.

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  2. I kind of always wanted to participate in a sleep study. I think I'd be a spectacular student.

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  3. Damn it. I typed you a long comment and Google ate it.

    Basically, I wrote that The Art of War is one of those books I'm not going to kid myself about. I'm never going to read it. Is it a monumental classic? Yes. Does that mean I'm going to read it? nope.

    On a side note, sleep apnea is a bitch and I'm glad you don't have it.

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  4. Nicole: Thank you. I love the descriptor.

    Keely: I think I have a couple of boys that would be aces in a sleep study too. And I hope you don't mind that I took some liberties with RTT. I'm pretty sure this is a one-off.

    Nicki: I've lost two very long pieces of written work recently to the aether. I can relate. On the plus side, The Art of War is vey short. Probably shorter than the Cliff's Notes for it. Can't say it's a must-read though, unless, like me, you had to study it for its military value.

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  5. I think a sleep study might be nice... a bed to myself without my ever-twitching/kicking/flipping/flopping husband. It could be my best night's sleep~

    I'm stopping by from RAndom Thoughts Tuesday!

    http://kabersblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/fatal-error.html

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  6. I want to be in a sleep study. I don't snore. I just like to sleep.

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