Sleep Labs Suck

I apologize if there are any sleep lab enthusiasts who are insulted by my post. If you work at a sleep lab, it’s nothing against you. I’m sure you’re great people. Sleep clinics suck though.

If you’re one of those people lucky enough to be able to sleep normally most of the time, I am extremely jealous of you. I, unfortunately, am one of an estimated 1 in 6 people who has some form of sleep disorder. In my case, the disorder is that, sometimes, I don’t. Sleep, that is. I’ll go to bed around 12, and then proceed to lie awake, tossing and turning, sometimes until almost 4 in the morning. Once I finally do fall asleep, I tend to wake up several times a night. I’m never well-rested. Being tired is a way of life for me. I’m an expert napper.

Augh. I sound so whiny. I apologize. It’s not all bad! All this not sleeping gives me more time to perfect my neuroses and work on important things like my internet surfing, video game playing and obsessive worrying skills.

Regardless, I grew sick of this, so, after years of being prescribed sleeping pills, being told to “think happy thoughts” (thanks Dad!) and being given the suggestion to avoid caffeine in the evenings (No! Ya think? Haven’t had caffeine after 1pm for about 3 years now…) I finally got a referral to a sleep clinic.

Fast forward about 6 weeks, and there I was. 8:45 PM, standing in a little room, clutching my pillow and holding a bag containing a change of clothes and a good book. Enter problem the first: Bedtime was 10 PM.

My average bedtime is about 12:15 AM. Sometimes it’s later. It is rarely earlier. I have difficulty falling asleep even then, and by then at least I’m tired. At 10 PM my body’s still ready to go for another two hours. I regularly spend the hours of 10-12 writing, surfing interesting websites, reading scholarly articles, and solving world hunger. Well, the first two at least. Putting me in bed two hours before bedtime and telling me to fall asleep is about as practical as putting a cat down next to a bowl of lettuce and telling it to eat it. Not gonna happen.

I wasn’t just lying in a strange bed too early in the evening though. (A strange, extremely lumpy bed – clearly some VERY heavy people have been on that mattress) I also had wires with electrodes attached all over me. Specifically: 5 electrodes on my face, 5 elsewhere on my head, 2 on my chest, 1 on my finger, 1 on each leg, and 1 on my throat. Also, a band around my chest and a band around my waist. What genius figured that you could get an accurate idea of someone’s sleep patterns when they’re covered in wires, unable to roll around as usual for fear of dislodging them all? Just to make things interesting, I was also allergic to the paste they used to attach said electrodes, which made them itch fiercely.

So, there I was. Covered in wires, itchy, uncomfortable, in a strange bed, not tired, anxious about sleeping enough to get the right data, and the technician came in to turn the light out. “Good night!” he said. Yeah, right.

Long story short, I almost didn’t sleep enough for their data to be valid, and it certainly wasn’t my normal sleep pattern. So far, my best option for a good night’s sleep still seems to be a cocktail of late bedtimes, over the counter sleep aids and enough homeopathic remedies to overwhelm a shaman. Any and all suggestions, save “think happy thoughts” and “don’t drink caffeine” are welcome.

Till next time,

Julie

Stuff I'm Afraid Of That It's Really Dumb To Be Afraid Of (part 1)

As far as I know, most people have fairly normal fears that stem from some sort of healthy self-protection mechanism dating back to the days of prehistoric humans. Some people are afraid of spiders. This makes sense, because, back in the day, if one got bitten by a poisonous spider, one usually wound up dead. Therefore, humans who were all "Pfft, it's just a little spider, I'm gonna go poke it with my finger" often died, and humans who were like "Gah! Spider! Run away!" survived. Same with snakes, bears, wolves, sharks, etc.

My fears are a lot less normal. For instance, I am afraid of Muppets. I can watch a movie with Muppets in it just fine - A Muppet Christmas Carol is one of my Christmas favourites. The idea of a live Muppet in my presence, however, scares the bejeezus out of me. All fuzzy and smiling, not able to blink, with their giant felt mouths and skinny little arms held up by wires. I shudder at the thought. If I watch a Muppet movie, I must be prepared for Muppet nightmares later on. Logically, I know that this is an absurd fear. What could a Muppet do to me? It's just a felt puppet. And yet I still have to close my eyes for certain scenes in Muppet Treasure Island. 

Something else I'm afraid of? Corpses. "But Julie," you say, "That's a normal fear! Dead things can have parasites or diseases, so it's natural to be scared of them!" Yes, this is true, I reply, but my fear of corpses goes way beyond what's normal. Funerals with open caskets are the worst. I have to remain sympathetic and heartfelt while at the same time doing my best not to look or move towards the place where the deceased is on display. If I'm watching a television show where a person dies in the arms of their friend, I freak. It goes something like this:

TV Character 1: Don't leave me! I can't live without you!

TV Character 2: I'm... sorry..... I'll always... love... you... augh (that augh was the sound of TVC2 dying)

TV Character 1 proceeds to clutch the lifeless body of TV Character 2, crying into his/her chest, possibly screaming "WHY?? WHY???" up at the sky while rain starts pouring. Very poetic.

For most normal people, this would be touching and romantic. It might even cause some people to sniffle a little and reach for a tissue. But not for me. Now, don't get me wrong, I'd be just as moved, sniffling and reaching for tissues, but only up until TV Character 2 dies. The second that it is evident that TV Character 1 is holding onto a lifeless corpse, my reaction goes from "Oh god, it's so sad!" to "Oh god! Put him/her down! Don't touch that! It's a dead thing! AUGH!" (that augh was the sound of me freaking out). My sister sometimes jokes that, if she were to die in my arms, as soon as she was dead, I'd drop her. She jokes, but the sad thing? IT'S TRUE.

At least my fears aren't completely debilitating though. I don't come across Muppets or corpses during my average day to day. I could clearly never be a mortician. Or a Muppet mortician. Eugh.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go watch some pleasant, mindless television, or I'll be up all night with dreams of dead Muppets. Cheers!

They’re Showing My Apartment, or; Why I Can’t Make New Friends

Come April, I will be moving out of my current apartment. Because of this, in order to not lose money on an empty apartment, my landlord has begun doing showings. I hate apartment showings. I’m generally an awkward person, and even more so when I know strangers will be traipsing around my abode, judging me on my choice of duvet cover and laundry detergent. My bedroom is filled with embarrassing things that I don’t want strangers to see. Some examples of embarrassing things in my bedroom:

•  Disney Fairies “Fira” doll, standing on my desk. I thought she was really pretty, so I bought her, but strangers don’t know me, so they just assume I’m some sort of freak who hasn’t moved past her childhood.
• Nemo-face pillow, two teddy bears, and a beanie baby hedgehog on my bed. Same reason as above, except replace “pretty” with “cute and fuzzy”.
• Picture on my wall, given to me by my sister. It’s of a squirrel holding an acorn, and it says “I Love You Unconditionally Forever”. It makes me feel better when I’m stressed, but to other people it probably looks like I’m emotionally needy.
• Box of stuff that I never unpacked. I’ve lived here for 9 months, and there’s still an unpacked box of junk sitting at the foot of my bed. I should probably just throw it out, but I won’t, because I don’t like throwing stuff away.
• Plethora of scented candles. I just really like stuff that smells nice, and candles, but it probably looks like I’m smelly and need to cover it up with twelve different candles all at once.

  

That’s all I feel like listing right now, but there’s loads more embarrassing stuff. And that’s just my bedroom. The bathroom is even worse. I have a whole package of toilet paper next to the toilet because it won’t fit in the cupboard under the sink, but strangers don’t know that. They probably think I have some horrible bowel problems, so I need a constant supply of 24 rolls of toilet paper.

The worst is when I have to show the apartment myself. This doesn’t often happen, but the other night two girls showed up and asked to see the place. They looked nice enough, and Boyfriend was here, so I felt safe enough to let them in. I then proceeded to make a complete fool of myself. I tend to ramble when I’m nervous. In this case, I rambled about the apartment, and probably ended up sharing WAY too much information. I don’t remember the exact details, but part of the conversation probably went like this:

Me: So, anything you want to know about the apartment?

Them: How’s the noise from upstairs?

Me: Not too bad. You can hear them walking around sometimes. And the girl above my room gets up at 5:30am to go to the gym or something. But it’s ok. I take naps sometimes and it’s annoying if they walk around then, but I have insomnia, so I’m always taking naps, and I’m sure you guys won’t take nearly as many naps as I do, so noise while you’re trying to nap shouldn’t be too much of a problem… Hahaha…

That last part was me laughing awkwardly to try not to seem like a crazy, nap-obsessed person. They were nice enough to laugh along. I then made a joke about how I was glad they just wanted to look at the apartment, and that they weren’t here to kill me. It went even more downhill from there, and everyone left feeling awkward.

Basically, that’s why I can’t make new friends. I get awkward and overshare. They shouldn’t let me be present in my own apartment while they’re showing it, in case I turn people off of signing the lease. Or maybe I should wear a sign around my neck:

DON’T WORRY: SOCIALLY AWKWARD GIRL DOES NOT COME WITH APARTMENT

Maybe that will help. Anyhow, I must be off. They’re showing in 5 minutes, and I have to go hide my bras and stuffed animals.

Cheers,

Julie

The Thing About iTunes

So, it appears to be time for an edition of "Julie's Notes About Stuff That She Finds Amusing, Annoying or Puzzling". (JNASTSFAAP for short...er). This edition is about iTunes, as should have been fairly obvious from the title.

As the owner of an iPod, I have ripped my extensive CD collection onto iTunes, and have noticed something that I find amusing (that's the second "A" in "JNASTSFAAP") Other than the fact that I had very poor taste in music up until about five years ago (3 N'Sync CDs, 1 Simple Plan) I have discovered that people have a propensity for ripping an entire CD onto their computer despite the fact that they only like one song on said CD. 

I ripped the entire "Now! 5" CD to get one Barenaked Ladies song (Yes, that's right, I ripped the Hampsterdance onto my computer, tainting it forever, to get "Get in Line". I really like Barenaked Ladies. The Band. Nevermind.) 

It's not just me, either. On the iTunes of both friends and family I find songs unchecked, not being transfered, not out of lack of space, but because the song just sucks. Why is this? Why don't we just delete these leper-songs, and make our iTunes clean once again? Is it out of some strange sense of nostalgia? That's why you can find 3 CDs worth of Backstreet Boys on my iPod. Is it out of the fear that, some day, we may actually want to listen to the Hampsterdance or that really annoying song sung by Fat Joe and that one-album-wonder-chick (Ashante? I think that was her name...) about what love has to do with it? Or, perhaps, it's just to be able to say "I have 7.7 days worth of music on my iTunes!" Never mind the fact that you only listen to about half of it, it's still there. Whatever the reason, I have an Enrique Iglesias song on iTunes because I like the Barenaked Ladies. It's worth it, though. Oh yes. And who knows, maybe I might want to listen to "Rhythm Divine" someday. Someday...

The Trebuchet

When my brother was 13 and in the 8^th grade, his science class was given a physics project: construct a smaller-scale, fully functional trebuchet. For most students, this meant that it was time for a trip to the craft store for popsicle sticks, some elastic bands and a glue gun. For Brother, it meant it was time for a trip to home depot for some two-by-fours, some 1-inch bolts and some paving stones.

Brother is what one might call an overachiever. When he was 6, he was reading books on Albert Einstein. He got his very first fully functional, 6-inch diameter telescope at 8. Nothing really comes “small scale” with him, and the trebuchet was no exception. With some assistance with the power tools from my engineer of a father, and a bit of math, Brother constructed a 5-foot tall, fully functional death machine. It was so large when fully assembled that it had to be taken apart to be stored in our garage before the day that the project was due.

If Gulliver had packed this thing up and taken it on his travels, the Lilliputians would have had a whole lot more to worry about than large feet. The Wicked Witch of the West could have destroyed the entirety of Munchkinland before Glinda could have blown a bubble. I know, I know, “How could a grade-school project destroy Munchkinland? What did it throw, golf balls?” Well, yes. It threw golf balls. About 50 feet. It also threw bricks. Almost as far as the golf balls.

Our fun was quickly put to a stop by our mother. Something about flinging chunks of bricks through a public park being “dangerous”. Mothers. So melodramatic.

And so ends the tale of the trebuchet. Brother got 100% on his project. I just hope he doesn’t snap one day and turn his powers against an unsuspecting group of Oompa Loompas. Then we’d really be in trouble.

Cheers till next time!

Julie

Inaugural Blog Post

Hello, visitors! Welcome to this, my Very First Ever Blog Post!

I do not claim to know what you are thinking (that would mean that I have psychic powers – I do not) but if I were you I would probably be thinking “Who is this girl?” and “Why should I care what she has to say about anything?” and probably “Why did I eat all of those meatballs? Now I feel ill.” (This is if I were you, so you would have eaten all of those meatballs, because that’s what I just did).

The first question I can answer fairly easily. This girl is a broke University student from Ontario, Canada with too much free time, an internet connection, and unhealthy snacking habits. She enjoys sleeping, reading books with no intellectual merit, and ranting about things that most people just accept and get over.

As for the second question? Well… I’m not entirely sure. I don’t know who you are, so I can’t know the exact reasons why you would want to read my blog… Perhaps you are interested in the slightly mad ramblings of a 22 year old with an anxiety disorder. Maybe you’re bored and wasting time by reading reviews, sex advice and lunacy. Maybe you were looking for a recipe for meatballs and somehow got suckered into this post because I have mentioned meatballs an inordinate number of times for a blog post that really has nothing to do with meatballs. (If it’s the last one, I apologize for misleading you, but am pleased that you are still reading).

Third question? Because meatballs are delicious.

For those of you still reading, good for you, for sticking out my inane blatherings and seemingly unending obsession with meatballs (I promise I’ll shut up about the meatballs now). In the future of this blog, I hope to bring you chuckles about everyday nonsense, insight into the workings of a sleep-deprived mind, and maybe a little bit too much information about the contents of my living room.

Cheers till next time!

Julie