She’s Come Undone (Pillow Talk)

I’ve been falling apart over the last couple of weeks.

I’m not sure whether it’s the refugee lifestyle, the lack of husband, the commute, the SKRUG, the lack of embassy networking events in Philadelphia, the GRE test looming on my calendar when I don’t even remember what the formula for a circle arc is, or the fact that this is what I see when I leave work (yes, antlers and the nose. the nose.):

Mainly, I think it’s the pillows.

When Mr. B isn’t around, I’m used to sleeping on two pillows (and with a spoon). Thus it has been since God created the Earth or second grade, whichever came first.   However, his joyous arrival last Wednesday night for the four-day Thanksgiving holiday resulted in a  razkulachivanye of my pillows, meaning I was down to one for four days in a row.

I can deal with a lot of indignities.

But I cannot deal with sleeping on one pillow.

“Can you move over so that our pillows overlap and I can at least pretend like I have two pillows,” I whispered lovingly to Mr. B in the dark.  But, alas, among the many gifts that God bestwoed upon Mr. B in his infinite wisdom, one of them is that he doesn’t wake the hell up for ANYTHING (he has once slept through a fire alarm.)  I poked him several times, but to no avail.

The next day I woke up feeling a bit procrustean, but no big deal.  I figured I could stretch out and all would be ok.  When I stretched to the right, I heard an enormous crack, not unlike the bursting of a dam, and then, I couldn’t turn my head to the right  without experiencing pain on the lower right side of my neck.

I tried again and panicked.

I poked Mr. B again.  “Wake up, I think I’m going to die.”

Unfortunately, it wasn’t much cause for alarm since I usually wake him up this way.

“Do you have a cold,” he said, rubbing his eyes without the slightest sense of emergency.

“No, I’m falling apart at the seams.  I think I have tetanus.  That’s the one where your muscles freeze up after you step on something, right?  I think I stepped on an almond in the kitchen yesterday. I can’t turn my head to the right. I think I sprained something.  Or tetanus.  Or lockjaw. ”

“Let me try,” he said, and twisted my head.

“OW,” I said, because it really did hurt.

“So don’t turn your head that way,” Dr. Boykis advised.

“This happened because you took my pillow.  I can’t sleep on less than two,” I angrily confronted him.   “Or maybe because I sit in traffic almost three hours a day,” I mused to myself.

“Or maybe an autoimmune disease,” my subconscious gently murmured.

Mr. B shrugged and went back to sleep. Living with a hypochondriac has made him soft.

Although when he was sleeping, I took his pillow.  Because you never know.

By the way: no, there’s no way in hell I’m googling my neck problem in case Dr. WebMD is there to tell me I have  early onset dementia.  At this point, I’m  just hoping it kind of goes away on its own if I ignore it, kind of  like the Gulf Oil spill. And by ignore it I mean touch it and try to massage my neck every five minutes. If you don’t hear from me over the next week, it means they had to remove my neck.

_P.S. Ok, I just googled it.  [I’ve been falling apart over the last couple of weeks.

I’m not sure whether it’s the refugee lifestyle, the lack of husband, the commute, the SKRUG, the lack of embassy networking events in Philadelphia, the GRE test looming on my calendar when I don’t even remember what the formula for a circle arc is, or the fact that this is what I see when I leave work (yes, antlers and the nose. the nose.):

Mainly, I think it’s the pillows.

When Mr. B isn’t around, I’m used to sleeping on two pillows (and with a spoon). Thus it has been since God created the Earth or second grade, whichever came first.   However, his joyous arrival last Wednesday night for the four-day Thanksgiving holiday resulted in a  razkulachivanye of my pillows, meaning I was down to one for four days in a row.

I can deal with a lot of indignities.

But I cannot deal with sleeping on one pillow.

“Can you move over so that our pillows overlap and I can at least pretend like I have two pillows,” I whispered lovingly to Mr. B in the dark.  But, alas, among the many gifts that God bestwoed upon Mr. B in his infinite wisdom, one of them is that he doesn’t wake the hell up for ANYTHING (he has once slept through a fire alarm.)  I poked him several times, but to no avail.

The next day I woke up feeling a bit procrustean, but no big deal.  I figured I could stretch out and all would be ok.  When I stretched to the right, I heard an enormous crack, not unlike the bursting of a dam, and then, I couldn’t turn my head to the right  without experiencing pain on the lower right side of my neck.

I tried again and panicked.

I poked Mr. B again.  “Wake up, I think I’m going to die.”

Unfortunately, it wasn’t much cause for alarm since I usually wake him up this way.

“Do you have a cold,” he said, rubbing his eyes without the slightest sense of emergency.

“No, I’m falling apart at the seams.  I think I have tetanus.  That’s the one where your muscles freeze up after you step on something, right?  I think I stepped on an almond in the kitchen yesterday. I can’t turn my head to the right. I think I sprained something.  Or tetanus.  Or lockjaw. ”

“Let me try,” he said, and twisted my head.

“OW,” I said, because it really did hurt.

“So don’t turn your head that way,” Dr. Boykis advised.

“This happened because you took my pillow.  I can’t sleep on less than two,” I angrily confronted him.   “Or maybe because I sit in traffic almost three hours a day,” I mused to myself.

“Or maybe an autoimmune disease,” my subconscious gently murmured.

Mr. B shrugged and went back to sleep. Living with a hypochondriac has made him soft.

Although when he was sleeping, I took his pillow.  Because you never know.

By the way: no, there’s no way in hell I’m googling my neck problem in case Dr. WebMD is there to tell me I have  early onset dementia.  At this point, I’m  just hoping it kind of goes away on its own if I ignore it, kind of  like the Gulf Oil spill. And by ignore it I mean touch it and try to massage my neck every five minutes. If you don’t hear from me over the next week, it means they had to remove my neck.

P.S. Ok, I just googled it.  ](http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003025.htm) Or just neck tension. OR BOTH.