Noise pollution

Today I assaulted my neighbors' eardrums and contributed to noise pollution by running the leaf blower. We have a BAZILLION leaves, and even as I was sucking them up, more were falling from the trees. I filled six "lawn and leaf" bags, which means twelve leaf blower bags full of crunched up, mulched up leaves.

My arms are sore tonight, and I'm tired. Even though I got nearly twelve hours of sleep last night! I went upstairs at about 8:00 to tell Bob about my book and ask his advice about something, and I said, "I need to go lay down and talk about it," and so we did, and he eventually covered me up and tiptoed away, and when he came to bed at midnight, I got up and struggled out of my clothes and crawled back into bed, and stayed there until about 7:30 this morning.

It always seems weird when I sleep that long. I always remember sleeping all day on Saturday when I first moved away from home--it was such a luxury to be able to sleep as much as I wanted, with no one to care or comment. I'd wake up, look at the clock, and turn over and go back to sleep. I could sleep until noon, and no one knew or cared.

Now, even if I wanted to, i.e., if I didn't have anything I had to get up for, I really can't do it. For one thing, my body starts to hurt--my hips hurt, and my shoulders sometimes, if I stay in bed too long, and for another, I usually just can't go back to sleep after I wake up in the morning. Except, of course, on mornings when I have to go to work, when it seems like I could always sleep an extra hour or so.

I wonder what it is that makes it harder (in general) for us to sleep as we get older? I know my mother has trouble sleeping. Bob will laugh at me--he thinks I fall asleep every time I sit down, and it's true I sometimes have trouble staying awake in the evenings. It's a strange thing, sleep.