The Nocturnal Continuum

Have you ever had one of those nights that just refuses to end?

Had one of those last night. We pushed ourselves quite far, cos we're basically old now - if you offered us the choice between a night of orgiastic, polyamorous lovemaking with some young fit, healthy swingers, it would depend how busy we'd been in the day and what time we had to get up in the morning, but we'd be just as likely to say "No, thanks, I'll take a coffee if you're making one, but Masterchef Australia's on in a minute..."

And then, now I think about it, we'd be the couple huffing when people's sweaty buttocks obscured our view of the Croquembouche Challenge...

SO anyway...where the Hell was I?
Oh yeah, we pushed ourselves quite far, so it was about 11.30 when we stumbled blearily up to bed, and later still by the time I woke d up again, coming back from my pathologically ritualistic last-thing-at-night bathroom routine. A delightful perk about which, as has been brought home to me, mostly without physical violence, is that once I've woken her up again, she's then had a power nap and is all sorts of bright and chatty, while I, divested by the bathroom of my last shreds of energy, am usually snoring within minutes. d generally being the soul of patient forbearance, she has either yet to shove something sharp up my nostrils when I do this, or if she has done, the joke's on her cos I've swallowed the sharp things in the night.
Although, thinking about it, I have had nosebleeds the last two days. Hmm...Note to self - conduct thorough nostril-exam in the morning.

Annnnyway, got to sleep by midnight. Slept the night through. Woke up yawning and refreshed and playing Morning from Peer Gynt in my brain, full of optimism and promise for a day down in Cardiff, editing. Looked across at my clock.
1.19.

Unff. Morning wound down into a sour collection of deflating bagpipe notes. It was still orange outside...
Orange, I should probably explain, has taken the place of "dark" since we moved to Merthyr, largely because we have a street light right by our bedroom window. For all we know, we're getting orange radiation poisoning every night from the bloody thing. But anyway, it was still orange outside. I humphed, shoved over onto my other side, and slept another night.
When I woke up this time, it was 2.26. And orange.
"Bastard!" I whispered viciously. Whispered in my mind, I should say - if I'd actually allowed the breath past my vocal chords in any way, d would have woken up. My darling wife, I've come to the conclusion, is a tragic loss to the intelligence community, not only because she actually has some, which would be a refreshing surprise to her colleagues, but because she has the most appallingly good hearing while asleep. While awake, deaf as a post - though she maintains this is because I mumble, which I do - but once asleep, her ears are no longer distracted by inputs from the rest of her senses, and become super-powered as a result. Normally, if I breathe in the wrong direction, she'll ask me why I['m breathing that way. Normally, in fact, she can hear my bladder filling, and nudge me, with the single word "Pee," to inform me of my own needs before I know of them.

Anyhow, at 2.26 I mentally cursed the orange and the night for not yet being over.
Next thing, it was 3.38. I turned the volume up on my brain, and punched my pillow. Bearly of course was awake at that hour, and in search of a partner to go fishing with in the river that's across the road from us. I tried to explain to him about mornings, and how the fish would all still be snoring, but Bearly...Bearly's not entirely governed by facts. He went off to do his own Kodiak thing. I throttled the pillow, humphed myself over and tried to over-extend the night one more time.

Then the alarm went off and it was 6AM. YAAAAAAY! The freakin' night that never ended was ending.
"Sleeeeeeeeep," muttered d.
"NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" I yelled inside my brain.
"Sleeeeeeeeep," muttered d again.
"Goddamnsonofabitch..." bounced off the inside of my skull. I turned over, turned off the alarm and slept till 7.

Which just goes to prove that sometimes, the hardest part of the day is getting out of bed in the first place.