Nobody’s Gitmo Time: Stage Four

Nobody Flashes

Hi again.

By now, you are saying (You know who you are— I can COUNT you on one hand and a pinkie): Well, where ARE you Joyanna? You said, just last week: “God willing” that you would be back on Monday. You weren’t. What happened? Wasn’t God Willing?

“Did your absence have something to do with the last of the White Rhino’s dying off the planet?” somebody out there might ask.

No. And politically speaking, after hearing about the last omnibus bill, that might not be a bad idea—

No, it had to do with my Nobody’s Gitmo Time.

Let me explain in one sentence: “If you can’t get to Stage four, then it’s Nobody’s Gitmo Time.”

I’ll explain Stage four in a minute. First, we must get through stage one, two, and three.

Basically, I’ve been tortured.

It’s not a pretty thing when you find yourself lying on the floor, and saying to yourself, “Damn. I did it again.” Fall that is. I’ve been falling lately, not because I’m clumsy, no, it’s because I’m usually in stage four sleep and I’m trying to walk.

Do NOT compare me to Hillary. She’s usually awake when she falls. No, this is ‘stage four’ lack of sleep torture.

Not sleeping Joyanna? Big deal. Go take a nap.

I can’t nap. Too much caffeine. You see, I can’t sleep, I can’t nap. The REAL Gitmo would be a vacation to me right now.

Why are you not in bed you might ask? Because, for the last four months of my life, I have been tortured by experts that even the toughest of Gitmo CIA operatives would be jealous of.

And that main CIA operative in my house’s name is: Koko.

My little 17-pound dog was named after the famous gorilla who could use sign language, because at the time she was literally dropped on our doorstep, I had much more important things to do beside name a dog. KOKO the gorilla was on the TV at the time I was changing my mother’s diaper–therefore I shouted, “Let’s name her Koko!” And went back to diaper duty.

But Koko is MUCH smarter than her namesake. She doesn’t even need opposing thumbs. She has a bark that tells me everything she needs. A bark SO LOUD that car alarms go off, TV’s turn on, and ground hogs turn over in their holes when she opens up her little mouth.

She can’t hear her own bark because, you see, she’s 17, and deaf.

She’s also blind.

The vet says: Hey, if a dog can still smell, she’ll be fine!

Fine for the dog. Torture for the owner. As you can guess…my VET is a democrat.

Let me go on to say that Koko has a great heart, but her back hips are giving out. And every night, she wakes up, around 2 or 3 am, and barks SO loud that I literally rise from the bed like Linda Blair in the exorcist.

So far, my husband has not noticed this elevation.

Big deal? Yes, because you see, she sleeps at the end of the bed and I must get up out of my sleep and lift her up, take her to the back-patio door, and gently take her down the two steps outside. Otherwise, there is a big mess on her bed, or on OUR bed, and that means an entire day of laundry.

I’m so tired, I usually don’t bother to put shoes on. Snow? Who cares? Cold? Hey, I’m dead to the world.

So, being that at 3am in the morning I am in stage four sleep, sometimes, I trip going to the door in the dark, and I’m thinking: “I’ve fallen! Do I HAVE to get up?”

Now, let’s review: Stage one is the first 20 minutes of sleep. Then…Stage two. That lasts around an hour, where people usually dream. Stage 3 doesn’t last long and frankly, nobody really remembers it, but Stage FOUR! Oh, that’s the time, around the third to fourth hour, when the brain reboots, the immune system repairs all the damages done doing the day, and gets you ready for the NEXT four hours. And then it all starts over. Every night. Unless you are a turtle, that’s what happens.

Most people go through two stage fours a night. Not me. I never make it to even ONE.

If ONLY I was a dolphin.

If you are awakened in the lovely sleep stage of one or two, then you wake from either a dream of, in my case, pythons or tornadoes, or a lovely dream. I dream of designer homes of the rich and famous where I am the rich and not so famous. I can design the BEST bathtubs in my dreams.

You should see them.

But to be awakened night after night after night after night, after night, after night, after night after….(for three months straight, or has it been six?) when I’ve just gotten into stage four?

Total torture. Putin would tell you. (The Russians have perfected sleep deprivations torture.) Your body, doesn’t want to move. Your arms feel like they are being held down by Michael Moore who is actually grinning: Your legs feel like the great wall of China. They simply refuse to budge.

Hillary Clinton herself could be standing by my bed with an axe and I’d turn over and try to go back to sleep.

And once I get up? I don’t DARE cook breakfast. I can’t get near a stove until at least 4pm.

But…. let’s get back to 3am. I’m just beginning to fall into Stage four sleep, and I hear– BARK! BARK!
I somehow manage to lift her down, stay awake 20 minutes while KoKo does her stuff, sniffs the house, drinks some water, gets stuck behind a corner, where I have to find her and rescue her, and then, I hear the bark: “I WANT BACK UP.”

So, I pick her up and put her back in her bed.

It takes her a good five minutes after turning around to find a good spot. I finally get to fall back asleep…BUT…in just two hours…I’ve passed through sleep stage one, two…three…and THEN….

The clock turns to 4am. My husband wakes up. He turns the TV on. The other dog is barking and up. I don’t have to move, but I cannot go into stage four for another 45 minutes until he leaves at five, and I’m FINLLY in stage four, and….

BARK! It’s 6 am! Wake up! BARK BARK BARK!! BARK BARK BARK!!.

Both dogs. Get up! Get up! Feed me! Let’s play! 

This has gone on for four months straight. Add to that the fact that every other night my husband snores loud enough to launch the new Russian missile over Joe Biden’s house, and even the radio in my ear doesn’t drown THAT out, I cannot even get to stage two on those nights.

Try sleeping on a transistor under your back and your ear tangled up in wire. Try making it through the day when you are actually worse than a Zombie in last night’s Living Dead Episode. Try remembering why you are AT the grocery store.

And then, after going through the day half asleep, try writing a coherent blog right before bedtime.

So, you get it.

I have had no REAL sleep in over four months.

And here’s the kicker.

You cannot make up sleep. Nope. Whoever told you that is lying to you. The only thing you can do is take bucket loads of caffeine and make a lot of spelling mistakes. Which I do all the time, AS YOU ALL KNOW, but then again, so does President Trump.

I don’t think it’s just Congress and the democrats that are torturing our President.

I don’t think he gets enough Stage four sleep either.

Now, you might think I’m lying. But I swear, the LAST memory of myself ever having slept a full 8 hours (which is what I really need) and waking up feeling just marvelous, was in the year 2000. Yes, I remember it well. Seventeen years ago, almost to the day.

I was in Naples, Florida at a friend’s house, visiting. And I was….ALONE.

But, I don’t want to be alone. I have a wacko blind and deaf dog whom I cherish, a husband whose snore I’m sure I would miss despite the torture, and a brain that might not ever recover.

Anyway, any sane person, who’d had been sleeping properly, would not post this.

But, at the moment, I am not sane, I’m just…. tortured, and I don’t want to lose what little following of my blog that I have.

So, I just wanted to let you know: I’m thinking of joining the CIA where I too, can learn how to torture.

I have not disappeared.

I’m just…….in Nobody Needs Deep Sleep Gitmo.

Where I am losing sleep— but gaining my sense of humor back.

I guess you really have to suffer in life to enjoy it. That’s all I have to say about it.

Only to add…Nobody’s Perfect. Someday, sleep will come. When I’m dead.

Until that time…I’ll write when I can.

March 22, 2018 Posted by Joyanna Adams | humor, Life, Uncategorized | Humor, life | 2 Comments