You know, it's really true what they say about not eating after five o'clock

—it makes for better sleep. So do flannel sheets, in my wintertime opinion. And the best dream helper of all (aside from a clear conscience)? A great bed. I do not live in an expensive home, but friends and lizards, this pea-detecting princess has a right fabulous mattress to retreat to each night, or in the wee hours, as the case may be, next to her loverly sleepmate. After too many years on a lousy futon, I am a convert to comfort.

Tonight I did all the right things: early dinner/hungry but not ravenous, check; evening walk, check; happy feelings, check; flannel sheets, check; turned in at a decent hour, check; cushy mattress, check; husband beside me and allowed his free five minutes of back sleeping before entering Deep Snore (whereupon he is urged onto his side), check . . .

So, how come I can't sleep? It doesn't feel like an insomniac night.

Actually, I know. It's because I have not been writing. About anything. And my brain is begging to journal and blog and compose stories—it's telling me so all the time. And it's screaming at me now. WRITE.

But I need to sleep. I'm worn out from recent events involving extended swings of emotion and little rest (e.g., family wedding, beloved out-of-towners, friend's funeral, more beloved out-of-towners). Can we strike a compromise, brain? Just for tonight? A few notes and then please can I rest, and you can trust that tomorrow I will be able to remember how to fill in the details, somewhere? Let's at least try.

Cryptic, but for the sake of sleep:

• I edited Opera Miss' recordings and made her an audition DVD for the BYU School of Music
• iMovie drives me nuts
• Pandora.com = internet music heaven
• I was a living voodoo doll in Pleasant Grove for the love child of Gene Wilder and Harpo Marx, and then I hugged him
• Sixty bucks and a Savers' coupon = fall wardrobe
• If I want to wear it then who says it's out? (See above)
• Best potato pancakes of my culinary career and maybe my life
• Sewing plans with the French General
• Advent—a day late and a candle short
• Tribulation—patience—experience—hope
• "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" has great chords and they sound even better when we play them together
• Pero and juicy ripe pears while reading a Leslie Norris story aloud
• Our December traditions
• The Passion Players, maybe?
• Going for a downtown candy window walk, and at a nice clip(-clop)
• Learning to keep my big fat flappin' mouth shut
• Old linen from Gary of the Tiaras
• Being able to smile at myself in the mirror
• Skirts are taking over my life

It's funny what keeps folks up at night, isn't it? Before you question my lack of profundity, ask yourself, "What keeps ME up at night?" At least for me it wasn't bad brain chemistry, this time.

Y'all schlaf gut now, y'hear?

Off to catch the next train to Slumberland,
Geo