Sheet Music in a Minor Key

Gak! Between her work angst and mine and the dog’s restless but otherwise well wandering around the house after I’d finally gotten back to sleep, 4 a.m. came far too early. But here it is, waiting for no man, darned if they aren’t right about that.

I was plagued by dreams of powerlessness (in several of its recurrent forms that dreams bring, the first I remember from childhood, me being a very young Superman and my blue tights falling around my ankles as I prepared to leap a tall building in a single bound.) Fear of failure, fear of inadequacy, fear of being fearful. I dunno. I just know sleep didn’t knit the raveled sleeve of care, thank you very much Mr. S’peare.

And yet, life goes on. And yesterday I paid $25 for my ISBN to be converted to a bar code, only to learn that Edwards Brothers Inc would have done that for me (I think for free). Also requested my Library of Congress Catalog Number and met with my graphic designer friend about some help on my project starting in early March when she clears her own slate of duties enough so that she can get an untormented night’s sleep.

And speaking of night terrors: not ever from leg cramps again.

Ann heard this on The People’s Pharmacy a week or two back. Don’t know why I hadn’t run across this months ago when I was researching what was known about the cause of non-athlete night cramps except that this info is way far from scientific. Nobody even has an educated guess why it works, but literally tens of thousands must have found that it is effective in eliminating cramps at  night. (You have to wonder who was the first, and why?)

Put a small bar of soap under the bottom sheet near the foot of the bed.

And for her, this.

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fred
fred

Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

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  1. I have had a bar of soap under the sheets on my bed for about 3 years now. It works, but I also eat a banana a day and sometimes I drink tonic water with quinine. That keeps them away!

  2. That pillow is the height of creepy. Shudder.
    I wonder that “who was first” thing a lot. Like with artichokes. Seriously – who looked at that and thought it was edible?

  3. Color me skeptical about the bar of soap – smells like quackery to me, but then I’m the one who needs to see the randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study before I believe anything. And that pillow –! Yikes! If that dead zombie hand was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes, that might be enough to give me night terrors!

  4. There is a lot to be said for folk wisdom. Years ago, I cut myself pretty badly and first tried Neosporin – the wound didn’t look so hot after a day or so. So I tried unpasteurized honey and that did the trick. A number of years later, Medicine admitted that, yes, honey was an effective anti-bacterial agent.