Mostly Anecdotal

I prefer to sleep through the night. I don’t always get what I want—nature calls, the phone rings, usually a wrong number, the dog barks at the cat, the cat hisses at the dog. The alarm goes off, but that’s expected even if you’d rather sleep. Thursday night was different, a new goblin deigned to spoil my sleep, a beeping sound. A sound that took some time to work out because it was dark. The power was out, so why was there beeping? It was definitely coming from inside the house.

Zeus had been doing his thing emptying the heavens in our yard, a much needed shower, and Thor was speaking in a deep rumbling voice, who knew that the Greek and Norse gods worked together. I mistook Thor’s voice for my wife’s snoring. Yes she does, my wife snores. Anyway it was the beeping not the snoring that woke me. It woke her too.

I finally found the source of the beeping it was the battery backup to my computer. It was telling me the power had been out for 30 minutes already, and warning me that time was running out on shutting it down properly. “It’s the backup power supply,” I said, sliding out of bed. I shut down the computer silencing the insistent call to do it now, and crawled back in bed. It was difficult getting back to sleep. The power was still out, and no glow from my night light conspired to create an unfamiliar environment.

All day long I’d had a tune stuck in my head, why it returned now I couldn’t say, damn Death Cab for Cutie. In hindsight it’s easy to see that it was a mistake to start singing, but in the moment it seemed perfectly normal. The song, “I Will Follow You Into The Dark,” I sang, Catholic school, as vicious as Roman rule/ I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black.

Gail woke “What the hell are you doing” she said. “I’m trying to sleep.”

“I’m singing,” I said.

“I know you’re singing,” she said,” but why when I’m trying to sleep?”

She had me there, I should have just said I was sorry and rolled over and gone back to sleep but I didn’t.

“I’m singing.” I repeated, “I find it easier to get to sleep if there is music playing.”

“It’s not working for me,” she said.

“How can you not like music to go to sleep by,” I said. “I have a sweet voice,” I said.

“A sweet voice,” she said, “music,” she said.

I started singing again, more quietly this time. My wife it’s true as vicious as Roman rule/I got my ego bruised by a, I paused, nothing seemed to rhyme. She was wearing pink pajamas. I got my ego bruised by a lady wearing pink pajamas, that would never do. I know when to stop, and Zeus and Thor do too. It wasn’t long before I got back to sleep without any music and without my night light.

The power came back on a few hours later along with half the lights in the room. I must have turned them on checking to make sure the power was really out. Only two more hours until I had to get up. I slept fitfully. When I woke I found myself thinking I should work on my singing. I won’t tell Gail, I thought, I’ll keep it a secret and some night when we go to bed I’ll sing her to sleep. Lullaby and goodnight, No Death Cab for Cutie for her.

I won’t sing for you, my ego is still bruised, but It is a lovely little song. I Will Follow You Into The Dark by Death Cab for Cutie, give it a listen.

Quicktime 7 required

Tags: music, singing, sleeping

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 11th, 2007 at 12:43 pm and is filed under Home, Marriage, Moments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.