Sleep and Dreams

Got up late; got out late. I guess I shouldn't feel too guilty: after all, it's Sunday.

Strange, that at age fifty, I find myself going to bed and getting up later (when I can get away with it) than I did at forty. It's not like I'm going out dancing every night or even that I get to spend so much time with Dominick.

And I find that either I can't sleep or I get the sort of sleep that even police sirens, thunder or anything else can interrupt. The cats can curl up at my side or feet and I wouldn't even notice until something else woke me up.

I wonder if the hormones affect my sleep, or if my changes in it simply are a matter of aging. Another thing I've noticed is that I seem to have more dreams closer to whenever I wake up--and that I have them even if I fall asleep in my big comfy chair for an hour. And, it seems, the dreams are richer in detail. I've never made any great effort to remember my dreams, but I find that I can do more of that, too. At least, I can recall dreams for a little while after I wake up. I could almost never do that when I lived as Nick.

Whatever sleep I get also seems cathartic at times. After it, I feel just about the same way as I feel after a fit of crying, laughing or giggling. I guess that's a good thing. After all, primal scream therapy wouldn't be so becoming of a lady now, would it? ;-)

I don't recall my doctor or anyone else telling me that hormones could affect my sleep patterns. I haven't done much research on it, but I suspect someone else might be wondering--or has experienced--the same thing. Maybe this is a gender difference: Many women I have known went to bed later than most men. Now, for women of earlier generations, it may have been because they stayed home while their husbands left the house every day to work. Or, like my mother, they couldn't iron clothes or simmer tomato sauce or do any number of other things while everyone else was awake.

Me...I find that when I forestall going to bed, I'm reading, writing or preparing something for the following day. Hmm...My writing is becoming more lunar. And the moon is usually seen as feminine: The moon deities of the Greeks, Romans and other people have, more often than not, been female.

Hmm...If I really wanted to be vain, I could call myself Moon Godess or some such thing. I'm your Venus...

All right. I'm not here neither to endorse nor malign one of Gilette's fine products, which I use myself. (Yes, I hope Google Ad Sense picks this up and my check is in the mail. ;-) What kind of woman does that make me?) Can you imagine me as the first transgender to publicly endorse a product? I'll be there, right next to Anna Kornukova. (Would I be expected to spell her name right?) Then, after they know whose razors and pantyhose (whichever ones are on sale) I use, maybe, just maybe, they'll want to know about the books I read, the music I listen to or the art I look at.

Dream on, you say. I'll take you up on that. Dream, dream, dream. Perchance to sleep. Sleep, perchance to dream. To dream.

I'll sleep to that!