Beauty Rest

It is very peaceful to be up in the early morning hours. No noise downstairs or outside! But truth be told, I am NOT a morning person! %-0 I have more peace at night.

The only reason I'm up and writing at 7 something on a SUNDAY morning is because I was sick last night with pain and nausea and went to bed early.

I know that it is possible to get TOO much sleep. I'd rather get too much than too little! Recent studies have shown that lack of sleep doubles the risk of death from cardiovascular disease and increases the risk for weight gain, hypertension, and Type 2 diabetes. Then again, too much sleep can also double the risk of death...but fewer studies have been done on too much sleep and risk factors. I'd rather err on the too much sleep side! ;-D

And I'm sure you've heard of reports on studies that demonstrated that cognitive performance declines with fewer than eight hours of sleep?

Beauty rest is essential to healthy living! I'm all for healthy living!

I know I mentioned sleep in another post last year, but it's very important to me!


If I don't get my BR (as hubby likes to call beauty rest), I can be reeeeealllly cranky. I had an acquaintance long ago who stayed the night with us and the next morning, for whatever reason, she became Queen Bitch! %-( Snapped at me and my honey! After that visit, I vowed to not be like that, ever! Were we supposed to cut her some slack just because she was a single mom, had been raped at gunpoint in college (in my hometown!) and was daily stressed because of her history and a crazy ex-husband bothering her beyond compare? I didn't think so and I called her on it, too.

It wasn't the first time she snapped at me...and I do think she had gotten as much sleep as we did! Sure, I felt bad for her and her situation, even took time off from work to accompany her to court, but I wasn't the right person to help her out. Eventually, I came to dread her calls and slowly extracted her from my life because she abused our friendship, and despite repeated (empty) apologies, never made amends to stop using me or other people around her as her punching bag when she was frustrated. She completely exhausted me and gave me a reason to run to my cozy bed.

I'm a wild sleeper! When I wake up, the blankets are twisted as if a tornado had gone through our room! But my honey is very peaceful, like my mom. So much so that it scares me once in a while because they both are so STILL, reminding me of how dead people look in their coffin. :-( Even as I gaze upon my honey now, entering his 40th year today (!), he looks very calm lying there under our comforter. :-)

It's very rare that the blankets are smooth when I wake up. I forget I caused it and then when nighttime rolls around, I look at the twisted sheet and blanket and wonder aloud: how did this happen?

Okay, so now I just confessed I don't make the bed. All we have is our comforter, flat sheet, bed sheet and king sized pillow. I used to have a bed cover, but it's in storage. The comforter IS our bedspread! Just cover the bed with it and it looks fine! Sometimes I fold up the blanket like I did when we grew up. No fancy bedcover and pillows--we never had any of that. Mil has always had that, so it takes me a while to make the bed when we visit her--as in a half dozen fancy pillows to throw on top of the bed to make it look pretty and proper.

I've done a lot of sleeping on public transportation in my young life: on planes, trains, and buses. I've even ended up in another city because I fell asleep on the subway train! %-0 I need to get myself a neck pillow because I always end up with a sore neck. And I have missed my stop a few times from snoozing on the bus. What's another few blocks to walk?

Some friends have told me they can't sleep anywhere comfortably except their own home. Maybe they haven't traveled enough? I don't care! I've slept in a roomful of strangers both here and abroad--and not just for one night, but several. If I'm sleepy, I don't intend to deprive myself of much needed beauty rest!

Let's see where else I've snoozed: airports, classrooms (uh oh!), campgrounds, homes of friends or relatives of friends whom I didnt know from Adam, and in another home in another city, via a domestic AFS (American Field Service) weekend exchange that felt more alien than being halfway around the world.

As long as I get my sleep, I'm a happy camper. :-) If not...be careful! ;-0

I'm also incapable of taking short naps. Mine are mega naps--at least an hour. Two is better! When I'm out, I'm OUT! The other day, I took a 20 minute nap, which is miraculous. Hubby can take a five minute nap and feel refreshed. Not me.

How about you?

Without sleep, I wouldn't have fantastic, vivid technicolor dreams to report to my man. Or to myself. Dreams where people from my past and present collide, dreams where characters from movies are chasing me instead of the characters from the film, dreams about other people I've never met--or creatures I've never met, dreams of myself inserted into futuristic scenes that came out of a movie I saw recently, dreams of my family members or relatives doing strange things, or dreams of myself being on the world stage (doing something worthy to benefit humanity)! :-)

How else would I enter an idyllic or fantasy world without sleep? It's a fun, often bizarre, and sometimes nightmarish place to go...and that can make waking up a good thing. But I usually have a terrible time waking up, regardless of how little or how much sleep I got. I like my sleep.

I love my sleep! ;-)

* * * * * * * *

A Long, Long Sleep, a Famous Sleep

A long, long sleep, a famous sleep
That makes no show for dawn
By stretch of limb or stir of lid, --
An independent one.

Was ever idleness like this?
Within a hut of stone
To bask the centuries away
Nor once look up for noon?

--Emily Dickinson

Happy 100th Birthday, Simone de Beauvoir!

I remained faithful to my declared intention of turning all that life imposed on me to my own purposes.

--from The Prime of Life, by Simone de Beauvoir




Today is your 100th birthday, Simone! Joyeux anniversaire!

How I wish you were alive today. I will write this as if you are, because I feel you are alive, in spirit. In my mind and in my soul. :-)

In the last six months, since I began reading the first volume of your autobiographies, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, you have possessed me.

Revolutionized my thinking. Caused me to want to read everything you wrote. Deepened my convictions about the need for gender equality. Broadened my understanding of the place of women in history as well as what it means to be a woman. Convinced me of the importance of lifelong study of issues important to me, thus becoming more strongly independent-minded. Inspired me to not be afraid of anything: go after what I believe in, go after what I want, and not be bothered by what other people think...to keep an open, inquiring mind.

You have ignited my passion concerning women's issues!

I have been inspired by some great male thinkers in history, but to feel energized by a great female thinker and doer such as yourself brings inspiration to a whole new dimension! Men cannot hope to understand everything, especially about women--because they are not women! The world needs more women like you.

I hope that there will come a day in my lifetime that women such as yourself will not be a rarity. That the bright women today are no longer hidden in the masses. When both women and men will respect brilliant women and be inspired by them, not threatened or intimidated by them. Nor be reduced to saying stupid, sarcastic, and offensive things about women who have their own mind. Things like: a woman is something less of a woman if she is not a mother, doesn't have a man in her life, or has too much ambition in her career pursuits. Or that she must be frigid because of any of the aforementioned things.

Things haven't changed that much for women since The Second Sex published nearly 60 years ago, or maybe even the last 22 years since you departed this earth. Sure, there have been improvements in varying degrees, especially since the feminist movement of the 70's. But it's not enough. If it were, we wouldn't have the problems tied to gender inequality we have today that have been around for a long time: domestic violence, violence against women with impunity, the spread of AIDS--especially among women and girls in developing countries, sex trafficking, pay inequality, etc.

Research shows that gender inequality is the root of many ages-old and newer problems mentioned above. Anyone can find detailed information on this on the internet; the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) is a great place to start, and discover what research leading to progressive policy changes is happening around the world today.

I have become obsessed now with reading everything you wrote! I hope to accomplish this in 2008...you were quite prolific! Few writers have had the effect of causing me to want to read everything they wrote, so consider yourself lucky. ;-) A few of them you've read: Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Dickens, and Shakespeare. I've read all but one of the first's popular novels, the two major ones of the second, and working on the third, thanks to a recent Christmas gift from my dear mother in-law. The last, I also love, but I consider him the most challenging, so I don't feel as time-pressed to read everything!

The other writer you probably don't know, since most of her work was published after your passing: Banana Yoshimoto, from Japan. The only person whose work I've read entirely thus far. It's only fitting that she's a woman, isn't it? Women first! ;-)


So far, I've read your first two autobiographical volumes, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (which got me hooked on your work from the start) and The Prime of Life (which hooked me even more), The Ethics of Ambiguity (which I need to reread after I read a primer on philosophy since I remember nothing from my intro class 20+ years ago, and I was not entirely awake when I read it), and The Second Sex (I LOVE it).

I cannot do justice to The Second Sex in describing it to others. Many have written about it, but I think you expressed your thoughts on your very own work the best, when you wrote about it in your third autobiographical volume, Force of Circumstance--which I haven't read and am going on the word of the site where I found it, and which I must share with the world: On the Publication of The Second Sex.

What I have done in your honor is to read everything you wrote, read as much as I can on feminism and women's issues from as many viewpoints as possible so that when the day comes when I decide to open my mouth publicly and/or write as prolificly as you did (at least, in spirit!), I will have a clue as to what I'm talking about.

So you see, you need not worry that I'm blindly and slavishly reading only your work! I've only just begun my quest to reach out to others' work. I have read Gloria Steinem and bell hooks. hooks, who doesn't use capital letters when writing her name, wrote a very cool primer/handbook: Feminism is for Everybody. In it, she provided a very clear and straightforward definition of feminism that everyone can embrace:

Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.

Who can disagree with that, except those who are the most close-minded, insecure, and ignorant?!

And since I'm such a devotee of yours, I'm leaving reviews on amazon.com for each work of yours I read. It may not be the most well-written among the others, but a lot of respect, admiration and love went into reading your work, writing about it, and sharing it. A good site where others can find out more about you is The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Or for a fresh (and shorter) look at your life, Spiegel Online International published a wonderful article in honor of your 100th birthday, today. ;-)

You've become my mentor in spirit, my inspiration to reach for higher achievements, and my heroine, because of what you represented: you were your own woman, you did what you wanted to do on your own terms, you were seemingly unafraid to do anything in life--including challenging men, and helping countless women. Myself included.

The quote I put at the beginning of this dedication to you is forever seared into my memory. I turn to it whenever I am in doubt, or feel weighted down by illness, or by life circumstances. I reflect on it when I'm in good spirits as well. It gives me a big boost!

If I was writing this 25 years ago, I could maybe write something coherent to you in French, with five years of study under my belt...fractured French! Then I'd be too embarrassed to send it to you! But I barely knew you existed then. :-(

Fortunately, I know about you, NOW. :-)

I can only imagine the amount of work you might have produced had you lived at least until today, your 100th birthday, and in the internet age, no less!


Merci beaucoup, Simone. Et bon anniversaire!