Bedtime

I went to bed early last night. That sentence tolls an hour in most minds. Eleven? Ten? Surely not nine? Do you mean earlier than usual or just...early? Truth is, I went to bed at seven oclock last night. No I wasn't sick. No I wasn't tired. I wasn't even bored. I just had nothing better to do than a Dick Francis novel read sitting up in bed where the light is good and the pillows are cushy. Downstairs the muted sounds of Desperately Dramatic Housewives, CSI (Chemicals Surely Imbibed), Dr. House, Law and Order Pizza, that's the one with the two Italian guys, one handsome, one chubby, wait...the chubby guy might be Irish, and some show whose sound track I couldn't recognize, mingled madly together telling me that Woowoo Charly was either not captivated by the evening's fare or was just thrilled with having the remote control at her end of the couch.

As the night wore on...as the night went on...as the night did whatever it is that night's do to eventually become day, I gradually, in small increments, slid further and further down the pillow pile. Somewhere around the neighborhood of nine, a neighborhood that thirty okay forty years ago I would have considered going out in, I tossed two of my three pillows somewhere, abandoned Francis' protagonist who had just been heaved over a balcony by bad guys, hit the light and lay back to listen to yet another version of Law and Order. I can always tell it's L and O because every few minutes there is a sound indicating a scene change that goes, chunk chunk.
This is currently my favorite show to fall asleep to. There is lots of dialogue by players whose voices I recognize and despite it being a cop show, the Law part anyway, there are few gunshots, explosions and car chases. Little, in other words, to startle me from the downward spiral of sleep or, when arriving at sleeps's door, to provoke disturbing dreams. The only better way to fall asleep, as far as I can tell, is to have the book fall gently onto your chest as you insert yourself into the mystery of it's pages. This, however, can result in a mashed book and a twisted pair of glasses. Both of these sleep inducing methods, the actual drone of the tv and the mental drone of words losing their meaning, I understand to be white noise. That is, a masking noise that blots out other noises leaving you with only the hum of itself. I find it a near essential for a good night's sleep.

Charly begs to differ. Okay, she doesn't actually beg. It's more a noisy insistence. She says the way to fall asleep is to lie in the dark with no sounds whatsoever and let your mind follow its own path to unconsciousness. How weird is that? Not weird? You agree with her? But what about that rustling outside the window and what's that noise coming from the downstairs? Did you hear that? Sounds like somebody's on the roof. How can anyone go to sleep with all that going on? No matter to Charly, she drifts right off.

Over the year's, being the splendid partner she is, Charly has mostly tolerated my noisy departure from wakefulness as, once I'm asleep, she can turn out the light, turn off the noise and then join me in coma. The reverse doesn't work for obvious reasons. I can't wait for her to fall asleep and then turn on the lights or the white noise. This falls under the category of let sleeping wives lie. I'd rather face the guy on the roof then wake her.

Last night, then, as it turned out, worked for both of us. We fell asleep in our own happy fashions and this A.M. Charly's feeling swell, I'm chipper and even the dog looks refreshed. So... seven oclock, a good hour for bed? Nah. I don't think so. It's just too weird.