Earlier this week BoingBoing had an article about sleep paralysis, a condition I have occasionally but mildly experienced. It was more weird than terrifying, so on reading the article I was thankful that my condition, if I can call it that, was (is?) mild. Still, although it’s been quite some time since I halfway woke up unable to move with a succubus on my chest, all is not peaches in the sleep department here.

First the good news: the new mattress on the new bed in the new apartment is vastly superior to the old mattress on the old bed in the old apartment. I hated that brushed-velour bastard the first night I slept on it, but it was not practical to replace it, the bed being some weird non-modular sort, so I did what I could to improve its sleepability and then just got used to its deep sleep-suckitude over the course of nearly two years. So sleeping on a high-quality mattress is a shock to the system, sort of like a rib-eye after weeks of ramen noodles. At first it disrupted my sleep:

My back: What the… What the hell is this? Why am I comfortable and uncontorted? How am I supposed to meet tomorrow all question-mark-shaped under these conditions?

But now I’ve gotten used to it, and I have to say that a quality mattress is a great thing. Adding to the niceness of the new sleeping arrangement is the airflow in the new bedroom. We have two skylights let into the sloping ceiling, and they can be opened to create a cross-breeze with the windows on the terrace side and allow cool air to flow across our sweaty bodies. These windows also give a sliver of view of the isogloss and Italy and Mount Sabotin with its “Naš Tito” sign.

However. Certain things have been interfering with my sleep lately, in spite of the wonderful new mattress. The first one I noticed was that someone in the bed, I am not naming any names, likes to poke me sharply in the wee hours. I mean, poke me in the ribs during the wee hours. This causes me to awaken, and I hear a voice whisper, “could you please sleep on your side?” Of course I grudgingly comply, but I cannot fathom why anyone would consider this sporting.

Next, I noticed recently that something is biting me during the night. I told Magda this yesterday morning and she denied that it was her. I had more or less ruled her out anyway based on the bite marks: two tiny raised pricks a millimeter apart. She could do that, but why would she? The bites include a blotchy red mark surrounding the double puncture about the size of a 2-Euro piece. I have them on my wrist, my stomach, and a place I won’t mention. They itch like hell and I keep staring at them, at least at the two I can easily access, expecting thousands of tiny funnel-web spider babies to erupt from my putrefying flesh at any moment. Magda says they’re mosquito bites and I’m insane.

Finally, last night I sprang awake with a horrible pain that made me gasp. It was immediately obvious that it was just a cramp in my right calf, but it was as ambitious and complete a cramp as I’ve ever gotten, like an instantaneous turbo-cramp. The Jim Carrey of cramps. It felt like the tendons had parted and the entire muscle was balled up like a granite grapefruit in the middle of my leg. I had to leap out of bed and put weight on the leg to stop the shooting pain. The most interesting striking not-completely-mindbendingly-dull thing about this was that I did not crack my skull wide open on the ceiling, as predicted.