Insomnia Again

This insomnia thing is a fairly new phenomenon in my life. It started about a year ago, right after I sent out my book manuscript the first time. At the time, it seemed clearly linked to anxiety about the book but, unfortunately, it has stuck around and become a regular feature.

It’s a shame because I really enjoy sleeping. I like a good 8 hours and won’t complain about a few more. When I don’t get 8 hours, I am one cranky, bleary-eyed bitch. And yet, here I am at 4 am, once again awake and blogging.

By the way, blogging has turned out to be a great occupation for my late night/early morning insomnia; I catch up on my favorite blogs and regale all of you with the thrilling accounts of my insomniac worries. But, as I just learned, what you should absolutely not do at 4 in the morning is read Smitten Kitchen’s account of making home-made cinnamon raisin bagels — because it is just too cruel to be awake in the middle of the night without a piping hot bagel with cream cheese.

As I mentioned in my most recent insomnia post, one of the things that is worrying me is the foundation of our house. We’ve lived in our current house for a few years and even when we first bought it, we could tell that there were some things wonky with it — but I loved and wanted this house so much, and Golden Boy and I are so ignorant about all things house-related, we purchased it without doing the kind of investigation/research about the foundation, etc. that we probably should have.

Fast forward a few years, and the house has only gotten wonky-er. There have been a few disturbing developments in terms of cracks in the drywall, slanting floors, doorways and windows off-kilter, and so forth. But, we’ve been completely paralyzed about acting on it. We have no money to spare — are trying desperately to drag ourselves out of a huge debt — so I have a hard time motivating myself to even begin to investigate this problem, in case it leads to a huge expenditure. And, because we are both so ignorant about house things, we’re afraid of getting scammed by one of those corrupt foundation experts who will tell us we need to replace everything.

If I mention any of this to Golden Boy, his reply is usually, “thanks a lot for giving me something to worry about” — so I generally just keep my fears to myself. But, it is one of the prime insomnia worries for me — I lay in bed and think about whether our house is falling apart, what I could/should be doing about it, how much it will cost to repair, where we will get the money …. you get the picture.

Meanwhile, our garage is being over-run with ants, I found some suspiciously termite-like bugs on an exterior wall, several of our mature trees have developed soft, decaying spots on their bases, and our rain gutters are all messed up and spilling water onto the deck, so that the deck paint is wearing away and the wood is getting damaged. So, there are no shortage of home repairs that need doing — and no shortage of additional home worries to preoccupy my mind.

Sigh. I’m not making it any easier to go back to sleep. Next time I am going to blog about fluffy kittens curled up on soft pillows, making adorable little kitten snores … or maybe the sound of ocean waves as they roll in … and out … in … and out …

zzzzzzzzz …