I’m holding the baby. I’m holding the baby and there’s a rather large spider — a hairy tarantula ambling clumsily over the uneven terrain of the blanket I seem to be tangled in. Trying not to show my alarm with any recognizable display of emotion, I tell my mom to take the baby, my eyes not quite leaving the arachnid, wondering whether it will reach me before I can ease away from its path.
Wait. Baby? What baby? Mom? What the hell is she doing here?
The spider — where did it go? There. I can feel it inching over my hair…my heart is pounding, and I know I won’t be able to contain my scream, already imagining my flight from bed and into the center of the room where I’ll have to thrash and flap, slap and wave to get the ugly thing from my head…
But there’s no spider either. There’s only the chill of the night air on my face and the film of moisture covering it. My scalp tingles, and my breathing settles as I orient myself to the now familiar surroundings. No spider, no baby, no mom. Just another hot flash. It’s only 3 am, so I lay very still, listening to the night sounds from outside, thinking about going back to sleep. Thinking about disconnected aspects of yesterday. Thinking about today. Thinking about closing my eyes.
But no. I think instead about my banner. About photoshop. About why the hell I can’t figure out how to do what I am trying to do. And then an hour into my thinking and wondering, and never quite cooling down after what feels like an eternity, I remember. Dooce has a tutorial I read some time ago on how she does her mastheads.
Eureka! I can’t lay around in bed now, waiting for sleep that will never come. It’s too hot, I’m drenched, and it’s only a matter of minutes before I begin to freeze. I don’t have to drive to my VBF’s house until 5:30 to walk, so I sneak out of bed, careful not to step on the Big who is snoring on her sad and stinky excuse for a pad, head downstairs to make coffee, and back up to the office to check out her — Dooce, not the Big — archives. It’s 4:35.
In less than a minute, I’m there. It’s in the Friday, March 2nd post of this year. Her tutorial. Yes! But before I reread what I know will help me through my photoshop agony, I catch up on her latest posts while slugging down my first cup of coffee — which isn’t doing anything to cool the raging inferno that used to be my body.
So much for the crappy theory that exercise and alcohol deprivation helps reduce the intensity of hot flashes. Oh. I forgot. I’m supposed to give up coffee, too.
Uh…when pigs fly.
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