What a weird night. Seriously. I couldn’t sleep, so I made my way down to my parents’ pool and just floated in the shallow end for about an hour. While remarkably soothing to my joints, it got downright cold after awhile so I ran freezing back to my room and changed into my sleeping-sweats. At home I sleep in the altogether–naked/buff/nude/bare–but when I’m away I like to lessen the chance of surprising my hosts with what’s behind door number 3, so I reluctantly wear some type of pajamas.
Once I was in bed and about asleep I heard this frantic buzzing noise. It seems that a beetle had hitched a ride on my wet hair in the pool. (”Hermownninny, you haff a water beetle in your hair”) I set him free and then finally fell asleep.
The thing about sleeping in a strange bed, though, is that you can be in pain more quickly than at home. And I was in pain, apparently, because I had a dream about having a bad backache. That’s just cruel, to not only not wake up but to carry your waking life into your sleep with you. Anyway, I had this bad backache and I asked Nikki, a girl I knew from elementary and high school, to give me a backrub. She said she would, but only if I paid her all the change from my piggy bank and gave my beautiful blue beach towel with all the fish on it to our mutual friend Karen. Reluctantly I parted with these things, but then Nikki wouldn’t give me the backrub. (Probably because in real life my back still hurt and my brain knew it couldn’t rationalise a massage in my sleep without just seeming weird.) I then spent the rest of the night trying to get Karen to give me my towel back. I first tried to reason with Karen. I gave the towel in payment for a service. Since I didn’t get the service I should get it back. That didn’t work. So I created a type of diversion that got everyone to leave the compound (we apparently all lived in some odd type of dormitory) in hopes that I could steal my towel back. I even argued with myself that it wasn’t stealing since the towel was rightfully mine. But as in all of my dreams I couldn’t read. I don’t know why that is, but I can never ever read in my dreams. For a person who spends all of her waking moments with words it’s a really odd side effect. Anyway, since I couldn’t read I couldn’t tell which sleeping quarters were Karen’s and didn’t know where to get my towel. I then tried to get an authority figure to intercede, but the towel didn’t seem important to anyone else but me.
I never did get it back, and I woke up this morning horribly upset at not having that towel. Oddly, though, I’ve never ever owned a towel that looked like that. Dreams are bizarre.
At home I sleep in the altogether–naked/buff/nude/bare–but when I’m away I like to lessen the chance of surprising my hosts with what’s behind door number 3, so I reluctantly wear some type of pajamas.
I’ve tried this. Doesn’t work for me. My body is so used to sleep in nothing that if I sleep in something, I take it off in my sleep. Fortunately I also can’t sleep without AT LEAST a sheet covering me (and that’s iffy, I do much better with a blanket or comforter), and so if I get uncovered during the night I wake up rather quickly and am able to recover myself.
When traveling, I sleep in a camisole and shorts… provides coverage but arms and legs are bare. I find it to be a doable compromise for other folks I am staying with and my personal comfort.
Biiiig T-shirt does the travel trick for me.
Nothing is colder than the chill after getting out of a pool at night. Hope your back pain has eased some and that lovely blue towel is back in your possession.
“At home I sleep in the altogether–naked/buff/nude/bare–but when I’m away . . . I reluctantly wear some type of pajamas.”
My other half and I have never managed to acquire this hang-up. We habitually sleep in the nude at home, and have never found any reason to alter this habit when visiting friends or staying in hotels. Sleeping au naturel(le) has been acceptable in most societies since the middle of the 20th century, or even earlier, and both of us were brought up in nightwear-free homes from childhood. So, whenever we have overnight visitors, we assume that they will be similarly inclined, as virtually all of them indeed are, and respond accordingly. This includes providing robes along with the guest towels and being discrete when taking in the morning cup of tea.