"are you awake, or do you dream...?"*

I finally want to write a little about my struggle with sleepiness. It's misunderstood by so many I need to write down what it's really like to live in this netherworld.

I can sleep for Britain, Europe, the whole planet. It's not fun. At 10.30 every night a little alarm goes off in my head and I have to sleep. Resistance means pain and a worse day tomorrow. I'll go to bed and within minutes my eyes will close. I'll try to read, I need to read something just to move out of "busy head mode" which means weirder dreams. Because I will certainly dream. I'll travel to countries I've never visited before. I'll have adventures with friends I've not seen for a while or not yet met. I'll be a character in a Sci-fi film not yet written or a series I like. Very quickly I'll wake up but go back to sleep. Just a scene change really. If I'm really unlucky before I sleep I'll hallucinate. This means that my mind has begun to dream before I've really fallen asleep. It's not a mental illness just my dreams taking on full colour, scratch 'n' sniff, surround sound with really loud speakers. It's the reason that I flick the TV over on adverts. "118 men" and "go compare opera singers" floating around at 11pm would give the world a panic.

So after a restless night of frequent waking but almost immediate sleeping I'll wake up every 10 minutes until my alarm goes off. If I have to work, that's 7am and it's agony. I feel like I haven't slept for months. A shower and at least two mugs of coffee later and my brain is screaming at me to sleep again. A walk down the hill, fresh air only helps while I'm doing it. A burst of grumpy related adrenaline lasts longer but doesn't make for great work relationships. You try walking into the office muttering under your breath about lousy parking. It's that or drop my head on the desk and fall asleep. I can't win. The adrenaline makes my veins buzz though and as it wears off the urge to sleep turns again into a physical pain, like my veins are filled with electric current, or as I've said to friends "like my veins are wired to the mains." At some (maybe several) point(s) during the day my head will fall on my desk. I will slur my words when the phone rings. I can't help it. The walk home is excrutiating. Tiredness sets off a blood sugar dip and I sometimes find it difficult to put one foot in front of the other. At home I will fall asleep on the sofa. On occasion the room will fade around me and reshape into something else. Another hallucination. Only part of my brain is sleeping. Housework gets put off and put off.

If I stay home I will at the very least by 11am be unable to function. No adrenaline (just coffee) means that I can't stay awake. So I'll doze. If I'm lucky I'll wake up during the afternoon and force myself to go into town, do some housework, shopping or whatever I can manage, but if I go out then I do the absolute minimum. I'll be uncoordinated and sleepy the whole way. I'll then doze again until about 4.30. I can usually manage to spend some time on the internet in the evening but friends in chat rooms (I can only really manage friends that I can switch off when I must, being out and about is so draining) laugh when I say I have to go at 9 or 10 from chat rooms. It's early for them. For me it's not, my head is spinning and 10.30 approaches.

So this is a description of how the hours of the day affect me. It doesn't really explain how at any time, whatever I'm doing, however much I slept, I'm exhausted. I can fall asleep anywhere. I once fell asleep in a noisy pub with my head resting against the speaker. I once tried to walk through a well marked glass door because part of my brain knew it was there but it wasn't the part controlling the forward momentum. I fall frequently, sprain ankles and look very silly at work when my brain takes a second off and doesn't realise that ground can be uneven. I look so stupid and people around me aren't always sympathetic, when they are it's often worse. It's undignified and humiliating. Tiredness means that you can't form words, you look and sound drunk. In fact on the various things I've just mentioned that's exactly what people assume. I drop things. My brain forgets that it's holding a magazine, drink, keys or whatever and releases its grip.

My brain. That's the culprit. It's not me, it's my brain. And by the way. I'm not depressed.

* from Alphaville - Dream Machine

Plastic Dave

...and while we're on the topic of fake, don't trust Plastic Dave.

Don't trust anyone who promises a great health service but would never use it himself.

Don't trust anyone who claims parents can parent well with no money but has never had to struggle in his life.

Don't ever trust anyone who doesn't know the meaning of poverty.

Don't trust Plastic Dave!

Drag queens and panto dames.

They're everywhere at the moment, walk down any street in the UK and you'll see loads of them. Tangoed faces, dyed hair with staightened artificial segments, layers of make up trowelled on. They're in the audience of any unreality TV show and the pages of newspapers.

The trouble is these drag queens and panto dames are female.

Is there a national calendar shortage?

It is November. NOT CHRISTMAS! Look in your calendars. yes the terrible truth lurks there.

You have another month of stuffing yourselves silly. That's before it even begins. I know it's official in the gospel according to St Tesco that thou shalt start wishing everyone a Merry Christmas as soon as thou has sold the last easter egg. Got to have something to keep the plebs scoffing junk.

Before December, I don't want to hear it.

There's no such thing as a baby name.

There should be books published called "30 year old names" or "person-who-will-be-choosing-your-retirement-home names"

When you name your child, please remember, he/she will not always be a baby, you want him/her to grow up (presumably), find a job, a partner. With a name like Sonny? Princess? Fifi? Chanel? If these are names you are considering, bear in mind you may have a very miserable old age.

Get used to boiled cabbage! And the worst culprits in the boiled cabbage stakes? Jamie Oliver and "feed the world" Bob Geldof.

Does my bum look big in this....parking space?

You know who you are, those of you who think that you're not properly parked unless your tyres are touching the kerb. Well here's some news, you're a pain!

Either you're like a big daft dog that keeps trying to put his nose through the window, because he doesn't realise that it extends beyond his eyes, or you're completely unaware that footpaths are not there as a parking aid. They're for pedestrians, pushchair and wheelchair users. Except now we have to risk our lives on the road because some of you have enormous rear ends and noses.

Just think will you!

Not been here for a while. Just too tired.

It's like this, I get up on a day off, eat breakfast while trying to keep my eyes open and my head up. Within 2 hours I'm just too exhausted to stay awake any longer..

I then doze for a few hours, get up at about midday and sleep again.Get up at about 5 and eat before going online for a couple of hours then by early evening I'm exhausted again.

Work days are agony, and yes folks, I do doze in my chair at lunch and when you're having your lunch breaks.

At night I sleep but never deeply. I wake every half hour or so, and yes even if I haven't slept during the day. At the moment I'm awaiting some more tests but I'm sooooooo tiiiired!