Yawn....excuse me.

0315hrs of a Tuesday morning…

So is the not sleeping soundly through the night an age thing in your fifties or a health thing, or the fact there is so much running through one’s mind at this age, so much to be done, that sleep in a nice chunk is elusive? I will admit that I slept more when I lived alone, but that was because staying up at all hours and sleeping at weird times affected no one but me. Now I have a husband, the housekeeper, the gardener, the children, the man who has to check the plumbing, the electrical guy, the continuing parade of cable/dsl people who can’t get me a decent internet signal…and the postman.

The waking at three and four a.m. to toss and turn or in my husband’s case pull out a book, and in my case try to find an old movie I’ve seen fifty times so that the dialogue can put me to sleep or pull out my laptop and see if inspiration is awake as well.

The problems with university fees and the more immediate problems of getting in (youngest daughter), the football career of the youngest son, the continuing evil machinations of the ex-wife, the book that needs finishing, the articles that must be written, the meeting with the lawyers, the appointment with the dermatologist to check out that pesky red spot…. The mind can drift and smash up against the rocks for hours. My methodology is to get up and be about it. My husband reads until he falls back into slumber. His way I think is better as by early afternoon my bum is dragging, my brain is mushy, and I don’t nap!

It’s an art – napping. Some of the great minds I’ve read - Churchill, Roosevelt, Hawkins, Wheeler, and the like were all nappers. I can’t do it. I’m always afraid that something will happen and someone will need me – hubris or that pesky rescue complex again? MY daughter’s grandfather, a champion napper, passed on the skill to her.

And at what age is the first news article you click on the front page of the New York Times “Tests Begin on Drugs That May Slow Aging”?! I’m laughing at myself because boy that was a warp speed click for me! Apparently “testing” is the key word here, but at 59 years-of-age I’m optimistic! The big talk about aging slower has been severe calorie restriction, but you know if I can’t have my KIr Royals and my scones, I’ll give up a couple of years.
I’m amused that I can skip right over this comment, “Evolutionary biologists, the experts on the theory of aging, have strong reasons to suppose that human life span cannot be altered in any quick and easy way.”
NO! I want an easy way. Crimey I’ve been looking for a way out of exercise for years – with no joy, but I’m still wating for THAT pill. Yes indeedy. Huzzah!

Now here’s my guy: “My rule of thumb is to ignore the evolutionary biologists — they’re constantly telling you what you can’t think,” Gary Ruvkun of the Massachusetts General Hospital remarked this June after making an unusual discovery about longevity.”

“The Food and Drug Administration does not approve drugs to delay aging, because aging in its view is not a disease.” Apparently the people at the FDA are all under thirty! But I’m with Indiana Jones on this one, “it’s not the years, it’s the milage.” I adhere to that philosophy that once you give the body up, you should have used it up for all it’s worth!

And so you have the views of my brain at three a.m. on a Tuesday. Um...over at Powder Room Graffiti I"ve been moved to the back page after one day but you can still find the article at this place (I hope!)/Please have a look and comment.

Ciao