A good night's sleep

Remember when we were kids and everynight was a good night's sleep? We'd brush our teeth, get nudged to our beds, be compelled to say evening prayers and instantly, effortlessly fall into a deep sleep.

Ahhh, the good old days.

Now getting to sleep requires a lot of tossing and turning. Getting up one or twice to go to the bathrooom, then some more tossing and turning. But sometimes, you get to stay in a semi-concious state while going to the whiz palace. And you fall back into sleep almost uninterruptedly. Thats when the alarm goes off 5 minutes later. It's usually 3 hours later, but it sure feels like just a few minutes.

I need three things to happen to get a good night's rest:

1. I fall asleep right away. This almost never happens. I usually lie there and think about what I'm going to do the next morning. Or let my mind wander and remember the most mundane things I've come across. One night I spent hours remembering how to open R.'s gate in San Juan. (You push the gate in with the weight of your body first, then turn knob and pull.)

2. My sleep is uninterrupted. I usually have to go to the bathroom once or twice a night. This is annoying, but since I drink a lot of liquids, this is bound to happen. I have though developed ways of getting the deed done while remaining in a semi-comatose state. I will not share these methods with you.

3. I get up when I get up. Which means 715am, a lousy reminder of my days at the Perm when I had to be backing up my car by 815. I usually fall back to into a light sleep for a couple of hours during weekends.

Forget what scientists say about REM and deep sleep, those couple of hours on Sunday mornings are the best.