Sheep #50

Cocaine Princess here.

I can't speak for everyone but for me the chicken pox came in three stages.

STAGE ONE: I was itchy and I was in pain.

STAGE TWO: I was itchy and I was bored.

And now I'm at STAGE THREE where all I want to do is bang my head against the wall. I've been in the house for 22 days straight which also means it's been 22 days since I haven't been to the mall. Good grief that's an all time record for me.

What's even worse is not being able to sleep. I lost count how many times I fluffed my pillow or how many times I tried finding that one special, comfy, snugly spot in bed we all have. You know the one that helps you fall asleep and once you do find it you don't want to move or even get out of bed. Well for me it's disappeared, gone, vanished.

Tuesday night I was in bed wide awake just staring at the ceiling. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get my eyes to close. The lack of sleep has caused every muscle in my body to tighten and tense up. First my body was in excruciating pain from the chicken pox and now it's in pain from not sleeping. (Mom use to tell me when a person can't sleep it's because their soul is restless and searching for answers) I kept repeating quietly to myself, 'I'm going to fall asleep, I'm going to fall asleep,' which doesn't really help. It's like when you're trying not to think about something you say 'I'm not going to think about it,' but by saying it you really are.

Lying in bed with a restless soul I decided to try some old school methods of falling asleep after all sometimes it's the simple non-complicated things that work best. I started counting sheep. I shut my eyes, pictured and began counting the Serta Mattress Counting Sheep (the ones from the commercial) jumping over a fence. But I only made it to 50. Why? Because sheep number 50 wouldn't follow sheep number 49. I tried really hard to picture him in my head jumping but he kept refusing. He wouldn't budge. Please don't ask me to explain this, I'm not sure even I can. Frustrated that he wouldn't I started to count back over from one and still the stubborn little lamb chop would not co-operate. After doing three sets of 50 I gave up and tried something else, counting backwards from 1000. Still didn't help, I was wide awake. Next I recited the alphabet backwards. It isn't very easy but I was able to do it. Big help that was, all I got was a headache afterwards.

I turned on the radio hoping some music would relax me. The radio station I listen to was broadcasting live to air from a club and kept pumping dance music. Instead of feeling relaxed I felt excited so I shut it off. The radio may have been off but the song Dangerous by Kardinal Offishall ft. Akon kept playing over and over in my head. I looked over at the clock radio and the lime green lights flashed 2:15am. 35 minutes had gone by and the song would not die. On top of not being able to sleep and having a song stuck in my head on replay I was hungry. I'm thankful I'm able to get food down now but for some reason all I've been eating is eggs. I can't seem to get enough of them, morning, noon and night that's all I want to eat. A couple of nights ago I woke up 'A' and asked if she could make me some. In the middle of the night she was in the kitchen scrambling me a batch. I didn't want to wake her up again so like a raccoon I'm rummaging through the kitchen trying to find something to satisfy my taste buds. I wanted to have a glass of wine but decided against it even though it was a sure guarantee to put me to sleep. I settled on a bowl of Snap, Crackle and Pop!

Nothing I did was helping me to fall asleep. I thought if I soaked in the jacuzzi for awhile it may aid in my slumber. And this time I didn't add oatmeal, I added scented bubble bath. If I never saw oatmeal again in my life I would be fine with it. I dunked my toes in first and then slowly slid the rest of my body in. Within minutes I could feel all the knots and kinks in my muscles loosening up. But I was still wide awake. The TV remote was on the shelf behind me. I grabbed it and turned on the TV looking for something, anything to bore me to sleep but the boring things seemed interesting. I actually watched a show titled Bigfoot's Reflection, a documentary about Sasquatch hunters and none of them drank moonshine. They were all scientists who have dedicated their lives in studying and hoping one day to find the creature. I'm not going to lie I found it fascinating. Immediately following that was the movie Body Double. I remember hearing about this film from my sister who went to see it when it was released. She was a huge Frankie Goes To Hollywood fan.

So much for trying to fall asleep, I had to watch the ending!

XOXOXOXO,
Cocaine Princess