While you were sleeping...

I don't sleep all that long--around 6 hours per night--but I sleep like a rock. (That phrase has always cracked me up. Rocks don't sleep, do they?) Every once in awhile a big crash of thunder will wake me up, but otherwise I'm completely out and unresponsive to anything that goes on around me. That's turning out to be a huge pain for Angela, because Harry is waking her up about five times every night to go outside. I hear none of it. When my alarm goes off at 3:30 I reach for Harry to help him get down off the bed cuz he's too scared to jump, and just as I'm rounding up all the dogs and heading to the door Angela says through her slumber, "They just went." Hmm, I missed it. I guess all of the dogs are going outside each time Harry wakes up, and I'm blocking out the noise of the entire herd. I wonder if Harry tried to wake me up the first night, and I was unresponsive so he moved on to Angela. I must be having some good dreams. I wouldn't know. I can never remember them.

Here's what scares me. Angela is going to Austin to visit her sister tomorrow through Saturday, so I'll be all alone with the dogs and if Harry poops in the bed it will be all my fault. I'm going to have to do a shot of espresso during Will & Grace tomorrow night so the effects will still be lingering when I decide to go to bed and I'll be forced to sleep lightly. Maybe God gave us Harry as part of a baby-training program, to see if we could handle something high-maintenance in the middle of the night. If so, Angela is fully capable. I need to have a dream about falling every hour and a half so I'll be jolted from sleep and I'll be just in time to perform whatever task is at hand.

Other than having to jump up when Harry says he's ready to go outside, I've managed to remain focused during this week of renewed self-discipline. But before I get started on my work this afternoon, I must allow myself to become distracted by a couple of Sheryl Swoopes articles. I had heard through friends of friends in Houston that she had joined the club, and then my mom told me in an email this morning that she had seen it on the news. I love that stories like that get my mom's attention now. She's my little gay newswire. Love ya Mom! Okay, back to focusing.