Nov. 3: Restless Nights

Lately I have been having very restless nights. The type of nights where you are dead asleep for a short interval, wake up, roll around for a little bit, then repeat many, many times until the alarm sounds (and out of pure habit I will still hit snooze after a night like this...what's the point of that?). Normally when I am sleeping by myself (and I am not talking about when I have to sleep on the couch because I am in the dog house with Jennie!) I sleep on my normal side of the bed and wake up pretty much in the same position. Normally I only only disturb about 2 feet of the covers on the side that I am sleeping on while the rest of the bed looks as it did before I went to sleep. I think this is a result of marriage - before I got married I used to fall asleep in a spread eagle position lying in the middle of the bed - the whole bed was used (Well, the whole bed was used during the honeymoon too, but I digress...). But now I have been "trained" to sleep on my side of the bed.

Maybe it is because I have been gone for so long now (too long) that I have started to fall back into my old habits. I am waking up with my head where my feet should be, my arm hanging off the bed, and a lagoon of drool collecting in my ear. But the thing that gets me are the dreams I have been having. I am not sure what to make of this last one...

It starts off with me back in Houston (I think...I am not sure - but everyone from Houston was there). Actually, to be clear I am at some Strider running event. But my focus is on my main man JD who is making fun of me because I am actually skinnier than he is (in my dream). But I remember being confused because I did not know if that meant that I lost weight or if he grew a fat ass like mine.

So, then we took off running - we were both really excited because I had just returned from Africa and this was our first run together. But before I knew it, all the Striders were passing me like I was standing still. By now my main man JD was long gone. They kept looking at me surprised but nobody said anything to me.

"Why I am so slow?!" I cried.

Then off in the distance I recognized JD's voice yelling at me, "Because you run slow on a treadmill."

(As an interlude, this part of the dream clearly comes from my 3 weeks of treadmill running at an 8:00 min/mile pace. I am convinced that the pace on a treadmill is much faster than the equivalent pace outside. If I try to run my usual 'easy' pace of 7:15-7:30 min/mile I feel like my legs are about to spin off.)

All I remember after this is walking around confused until I come up to a bridge over the ocean (long bridge I guess) with no railings and I see JD and the rest of the Striders running towards the edge of the bridge. At the last second JD realizes that there is no railing and turns to warn the others. Before he has a chance to alert the others the momentum of the herd (imagine a Buffalo jump here) throws him and everyone else into the ocean.

So - before anyone gives me a hard time for having a dream with my buddy in it know this - in that same dream I killed him! (Sorry dude).

On another note, the longer I live by myself, the less utensils I use. I think I am turning back into a caveman. Just as Darwin went to the Galapagos Islands to discover evolution, I have come to Nigeria to discover anti-evolution.

I also saw yesterday a huge running group run by my apartment. I would have ran out and joined them if I was not on my work shuttle at the time. I must find out who these people are (I believe they are the Hash House Harriers...I have been told that they have a presence here).