Behind the wall of sleep

I snore. A lot. Enough for Mah Girl to once have hissed "Let's see how well you snore with a pillow shoved down your throat" when I woke her up at some ungodly hour. She claims not to remember having said so, but I know that burning hatred I heard then is only hidden in some locked backroom in her mind, the door to which can only be shattered by snoring.

While visiting my brother I have been sleeping on his guest bed, a hellish contraption that really has no business calling itself a proper bed. No, I exaggerate, it is a bed, though one that seems to have been built by people with a different opinion about dimensions and spacetime than us average mortals. It slopes down from the middle, in both directions. If I want to sleep on my left side, I need to be on the right half of the bed, face inwards. If I want to sleep on my right side I need to be on the left half, face inwards. There's no way to sleep on my back unless I want to feel like I'm strapped onto some torture device.

So, while here I haven't snored, not loudly enough to disturb my hosts anyway, who are in the next room with only a thin door separating us.

When we went to Wellington (wow, four... make that five words... make that six... that begin with w... make that seven... starting to feel like a Spanish inquisitor Python style here) I slept in a regular bed, and a queen size at that, so I had plenty of room to roll over on my back. I snored. A lot. Enough to make my brother resurrect a tradition that was spawned when we were in the US in 2005 and had to share rooms for almost three weeks.

This tradition has two versions. The first consists of him saying "Encarnacióooooooon" really loudly to wake me up. We watched a Marlins - Astros game in Houston, during which a spectator sat and taunted Juan Encarnación with just such a call, over and over. It was hilarious.

The other version consists of him saying "What are we gonna do tonight, Bwain?" and me answering either "Narf!" or "The same thing we try to do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world!". This is a somewhat incorrect reference to Pinky and the Brain, an excellent part of the Animaniacs show. During the US trip I never managed to answer it correctly, but in Wellington I managed to groan "Narf!" before fading off to sleep again. My brother was very impressed.

Brain wasn't pondering what Pinky was pondering

All this confirms what the snore analysis I did a few years back said. I shouldn't sleep on my back. The doctor told me, after concluding he didn't want to carve up the roof of my mouth, that I should wear a tshirt at night, with a plastic ball sown into the small of its back, thus preventing me from rolling over on my back. Ouch. But might be worth seriously thinking about.

Also, he said I should lose some weight, which often is a reason for snoring. And whaddayaknow, I actually lost about 10 kilos over the last couple of months, through nothing more than shifting my breakfast habits and staying away from alcohol and most fatty foods. I haven't been closer to weighing less than 0.1 metric tons since I was 23 or so.

Though I'll probably put at least some of that weight back on during this trip. Oh well. I can always shift my food habits again when I get home. And maybe start walking some more. And maybe practice my couch potato skills less. Well, maybe the first two will be enough...

Fatigue is the best pillow

New things on the agenda. I knew we were going down to Wellington on Thursday, where we're going to a museum and renting a car to drive around the coast a bit. What I didn't know was that my brother had made more plans.

We're going to see All Blacks vs Wallabies. That is, New Zealand vs Australia, rugby. Black-clad tattooed men doing a wardance. Thousands of screaming fans. I'm not much of a sports person, other than NFL games, but large spectacles are always fun. Plus, you know, black-clad men doing a wardance.

We're also going to Weta Cave, special effects company Weta's store/mini museum. Very cool. Hopefully Muppets and Hellboy stuff in the gift shop. I might have to give my wallet to my brother to avoid spending too much.

Yesterday was all about staying awake. Tick tock, tick tock. I was moving between exhaustion and some kind of focused state that unfortunately didn't extend to motor skills. I managed to stay awake until nine o'clock, and then fell asleep about ten seconds after I put my head down. Woke up at 0120, looked at the time on my phone, and remember thinking that I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. Then woke up at 0445, phone still in hand.

Managed to get another two hours of sleep, and now I'm on the couch, laptop and book and tv remote within easy reach. Trying to level out, just relax and enjoy the fact that I have three weeks vacation left. Tomorrow I will explose Auckland's city centre, and Wednesday we're cave tubing. Beardonaut in a wetsuit. Horror of horrors.

I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting

I read an article today that people that snore have the equivalent of a full workout every night while they (we) sleep.

I'm not really one for working out anymore, so maybe I should give up snoring, on principle alone.

Back when I played football, I worked out three times a week. Went to an actual gym, strapped myself into contraptions the Spanish Inquisition would gladly have used on their victims (no, not a comfy chair), and did whatever it is people do at a gym.

Now I snore. Hell, I did then too, but no working out = more body fat = more snoring. Just the way it is. I need to do something about that body fat soon, and even though that has "New Year's Resolution" written all over it, that just won't happen. We had a Resolution this year, which was to go to the movies more often. We've been about twice a month, which is pretty good. However, that's about as far as I will go with a Resolution.

I need motivation to work out. And I'm not talking about some personal trainer screaming at me. Back in the football days, working out equaled hitting people harder, moving faster. I need that kind of motivation, some sort of goal that's more tangible than "feeling better".

So maybe snoring less is motivating enough? We'll see. The plan is to begin A New Life in 2009. The jury is still out on whether or not it will actually happen, but at least the intent is there.