Dear Kevy,

I can totally relate to this problem...if a butterfly flaps its wings in the Congo, I wake up (that is assuming I got to sleep in the first place, which in most cases I didn't).

And you also have the problem of realising you should have taken a tablet earlier and now it's too late...happens to me too.

The tablet "Stilnox" is about the only one that usally (but not always) works for me, but the Australian Press did a huge beat-up on it after some fvckwit took one, didn't go to bed, and walked off a multi-storey balcony. The fall didn't kill him...the ground did. Stupid Heath Ledger also managed to make everyone go retentive about sleeping pills, so now the rest of us have to suffer.

My doctor won't prescribe them to me. He wanted me to listen to CDs of some soporiphic dude telling me I should sleep, and count down from 50. It doesn't work, as I find myself doing intensive mathematical equations on the numbers. I get so bored with the drone that I imagine Brass Marching Bands in my head.

Then there's the other CD - a background of pouring rain, with someone striking lead crystal vases of water. Sounds great for 25 minutes, and then the rain makes you get up to have a pee !!! I then spend the next hour calculating how many hours, minutes and seconds I would have to sleep if I nodded off right now...and then I recaculate every 10 minutes or so.

Of late, I have been reading an incredibly good book (I've read about 3 in my entire life, because I never get a quiet moment) by Bill Bryson called "A Short History of Nearly Everything". OMG it's good - I can't put it down, and I read a chapter per night and I do sleep. Even if it doesn't help you, I would urge you and anyone else with an active mind to read the book.

Anyway, I hope you are feeling better, and I look forward to seeing you and Gus-Gus next year.

Love and hugs,

The Stoat XXX.

Honey...that wasn't the Tooth Fairy. Big party that night huh???

:evil:

My favorite thing to think about when I can't sleep is every problem I currently have to deal with, might have to deal with soon, might have to deal with in the distant future, is someone else's problem but I feel the need to make mine, or is not a problem but I figure out a way to make a problem.

And they all have to be solved RIGHT NOW! Simultaeously.

The other thing I can't figure out is how I can barely keep my eyes open in the living room watching TV and have to muster every ounce of energy just to walk to the bedroom, but as soon as I crawl under the covers I am suddenly WIDE AWAKE. I sometimes think, "I've got this licked: I'll just sleep on the couch." Nope: the problems suddenly appear on the couch.

grumble grumble grumble

I have this problem. If I am into a t.v. show...asleep. If I am trying to sleep, it doesn't happen.

Yes, normally I do fall asleep on the couch. Even in the middle of the day, when I shouldn't be sleepy at all, I can't keep my eyes open if I am sitting on the couch. My body starts to slouch over towards the pillows, my feet end up curled up under me. Sometimes a blanket will end up on me....

Well the answer is obvious, and Gus-Gus will definitely agree with me: if the old couch is causing problems, buy a new one!!!

Oh crap - that won't work - you'll worry about how to pay for it...

Seriously though, why don't you try reading this book http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Short...rly_Everything one chapter per night. If you don't like the book, I'll buy it from you when I get over there (providing the currents of the Pacific Ocean don't keep dragging Bear and I all over the place).

Take care mate,

Love and hugs,

The Stoat.

I'm going next door to go to bed now.

Small print puts me to sleep. I'm trying to read The Historian in paperback - it's kind of tiny print, and a brick of a book. I keep nodding and then the book thuds against my chest and I wake up. I hope I get over this, because it seems like a swell book.

I take it that "Next door" means "The Next Door" meaning down the hall to the Bedroom ??

...either that or the neighbour just got lucky.

or the neighbor's dogs got lucky

I have a feeling € is not getting lucky tonight....