SLEEP

Woke up feeling like someone had pounded on my chest all night. I spent the night hacking and coughing so today I’m calling in sick. No one to call, though, since I am... What am I? Entrepreneurially engaged? Creatively caught up? Poorly prepared? Professionally perplexed? In any event, I am my own boss, more or less, so the only one to call in sick to is me and, frankly, I’m too ill to pick up the phone. Besides, I have caller ID. I’d see that it was me. Wouldn’t want to answer the phone only to have to listen to someone complain about how bad they feel.

Despite my hacking, Lucy slept like a log next to me. Nothing wakes that woman. She has the gift of sleep. Even my constant cough couldn’t cause her to stir once she hit the major REM cycle. But in deference to her comfort and the distant possibility that my noisiness might have somehow bothered her, I spent a good portion of the night in the den watching a very old Burt Lancaster movie while sipping on a cup of Theraflu.

**

Earlier this week, Lucy sent me via email the following story, along with a note saying that I should take comfort knowing she sleeps so soundly.

NBC - Women in a happy marriage, enjoy a good night's sleep.
Nearly 2,000 woman were involved in this study from the University of Pittsburgh. Researchers asked them to rate their marital happiness and sleeping history. They found women who considered themselves happily married were less likely to have sleep problems. Overall, this group of women reported less problems falling asleep, staying asleep and had a better quality of sleep than those who reported some marital struggles. This study was presented at SLEEP 2008, the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

The Associated Professional Sleep Societies? You wouldn’t want to give a boring speech to that group.