pillow talk

We have a California King bed.
It's 6' x 6'.

Which means that I have all this extra space and Grant is still short two inches of space unless he sleeps diagonally; which I don't ever see happening.

I sleep on my left, he sleeps on his right.
I have to be the closest one to the door.
He likes facing a wall.

I'm the more violent one and if someone breaks in - I'm going to be the first one looking for blood since I'm the Mom and that's how we react if we think our kids are in danger. Aside from that, I don't tend to be the one that sleeps as if I've slipped into a coma.

The way I see it is if someone breaks in, being the female and not straying from our instinctual belief that if that person isn't dead - we're going to have to spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulder waiting for them to come back and finish the job - me being closest to the door is the best bet.

If I'm the one that happens to be whacked instead, Grant should be awake enough at that point to complete the killing-of-the-intruder task.

He would be really fucking pissed if someone killed my ass.
He waited 25 years to date me.

As luck would have it, my left side sleeping requirement and the door co-exist nicely together with his habits and the whole wall facing thing.

Win/win.
If we ever rearrange the room, we're both totally screwed and we'll probably have to break-up or go to counseling.

Okay, you've got the general layout now, right?

Now picture four foot of open space between us.
laughs...
This is NECESSARY!

It's been pointed out to me in 4,000 horrendous different ways that I sleep like a wild animal. He's all cocooned in his little straight line and I... am not.

I've heard it all.
These are among my favorite:

"Did a hurricane come through the room when I wasn't looking and just whip through your side of the bed?"

"You're like a bird. I expect to wake up and find sticks and leaves in the bed because you're obviously building a nest..."

"Are you alright? Because it looks like there was a 12 person struggle going on up in here!"

"Really, did you have an imaginary fight in your sleep with a pack of wolves? I can't tell who won."

Meanwhile, if there was enough room between the bed and the wall for him to slide out from underneath the sheet and his pile of blankets and comforter - his side would look like it was never slept in. I always joke that I'm going to get a comforter with a stripe down his side and I guarantee you that that stripe will stay in a single straight line.

I don't know how he does it.

I finally broke him of the BAD HABIT of trying to cover me up while I'm asleep. To do this, he would literally yank out bits of comforter I was laying on. NOT gently either, might I add.

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW FUCKING ANNOYING THAT IS?!

I understand that gesture is suppose to be very sweet.
I really do.
I do!
Seriously!

Great!
You get credit for the thought.
Now, STOP WAKING ME UP AND LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE.

Oh my God.

I understand that you like to be covered to your ears and evenly under every square inch of smooth blanket and all that.

Me?
I could live without a flat sheet - entirely.
They're just a pain in the ass.
You'll find that kicked to the bottom of the bed by morning.

I want my blankets swirled around me like a nest (no comment) and I want one leg sticking out from under my comforter with the rest of it trapped under me. I LIKE IT! I know where everything is! If I get cold, fuck me - eventually my dumb ass will twist into a position where more of me is covered. Whatever.

I'm totally fine with whatever I'm wearing hanging off my shoulder and my pillow squashed in unrecognizable shapes under my head. I'M HAPPY!

I'm FINE.
Don't touch me unless you mean business!

It took a YEAR to make him understand that trying to sort out my disaster area and waking me up, was not a pleasantry to me - it just makes me cranky. For no reason. There is NO benefit.

Then I just lay there wide awake trying to figure out why the hell he insisted on doing that before he left the room and went about his day all happy like.

I lay there and seeth because NOW I'm miserable, cranky, tired and questioning what the hell I did that you're getting even with me for. Stop it!

hiss...

Anyway, for some odd reason, Grant and I share some of the same idiosyncrasies. I don't know why. Maybe it's because we shared the same water supply as kids. I don't know. But for whatever reason, we're both a little retentive about reading before sleeping.

To ME, this means shutting up and reading quietly to myself.
To GRANT, this means announcing to me every little fact he reads about that he finds interesting in the news.

The following is a recreation of the conversation that took place the last time...

Grant: "Hey, listen to this"...
putting my magazine down to look at him...

"Research confirms a theory first put forth in 1973 that magnetic fields drive both the in fall of matter into black holes and the production of light energy created by the process."

Me: Great.
goes back to reading said magazine...

Grant: "A black hole's gravity is enough to draw matter in and keeps it spinning in a stable accretion disk. But before it can take that final plunge, the material must lose some of its rotation speed, called angular momentum."

Me: nods

Grant: "Many people are familiar with the phrase 'bodies at rest tend to stay at rest, and bodies motion tend to stay in motion,'" said study team member Jon Miller, an astronomer at the University of Michigan. "The same thing is true for orbiting bodies — they tend to stay in stable orbits, unless acted upon by a force."

Me: trying to figure out a polite way to say I don't care... I just smiled instead and then went back to reading...

Grant: "If angular momentum from the disk were not dissipated away, gas in the accretion disk would circle the black hole forever in a stable orbit, like the planets around our sun."

Me: I'm not even looking up from my magazine at this point, or responding... he's all into space and I don't know jack about it other than what I've learned from him... I stick firmly to the earth and interest in our bodies of water...

Grant: "Magnetism's role - Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, the researchers studied GROJ1655-40, a binary system made up of a seven-solar-mass black hole that is stealing gas from the surface of a normal star. The siphoned gas accumulates in an accretion disk around the black hole."

Me: staring at the ceiling... one page, I'm just trying to read ONE PAGE...

Grant: "The spinning gas generates its own magnetic field, and this field powers a "wind" of charged particles blowing away from the black hole."

Me: ...all's fair in love and war, right? So I say back...

"Now they have a birth control ring that you put in and don't have to remove it for three weeks. It offers a full month of pregnancy protection by delivering a continous low dose of hormones. It's called NuvaRing. HEY! Did you know that you can get text messages to your phone from places like babycenter.com that will notify you when you're likely to be most fertile."

silence... I got my tubes tied 15 years ago... this isn't even an issue, but still, it was fun to say out loud...

10 minutes later
he must have forgotten...

Grant: "The wind, which Chandra detected, transfers angular momentum from the inner regions of the disk outward. This slows down some of the spinning gas, allowing it to fall onto the black hole."

Me: "Listen to this question! 'My Guy's condom tends to slip off. Why?" and the response is: Sounds like the condom is too big or too small for his size. While he's thrusting, it either slides away or pops off, explains Mary Jane Minkin, MD, professor of ob-gyn at Yale University School of Medicine. "there's no standard condom size, so have him try different brands and styles until he finds one that stays put," she says. If the rubber tends to come off post ejaculation but before he's pulled out, your guy is likely waiting too long and needs to withdraw his penis sooner. "After orgasm, a guy instantly starts to lose his erection, making the condom loose," adds Dr. Minkin."

more silence
finally...

Grant: "Did you really just read the answer to that question as being, "The condom is too big or too small"?

me being all proud of my profound and insightful reading material... I pipe in with a resounding...
..."Yes!"

deafening silence

Grant: "The magnetic field also causes turbulence and friction to build up within the disk. The friction heats up the gas to millions of degrees, causing it to glow brilliantly in the ultraviolet and X-ray bands."

twitch

Me: "Know what a pale or whitish tongue usually means? Iron deficiency. Shows up more often in vegetarians and vegans, since top sources of iron are red meat, poultry and shellfish"

stare
silence...

Grant: "The researchers believe magnetic fields play an important role in the activities of black holes of all sizes, whether they are stellar-mass ones whose accretion disks are fed by companion stars, or even galaxy-anchoring supermassive monsters whose disks are formed from the stellar winds of multiple stars. The finding should also apply to other objects that have accretion disks, such as neutron stars and white dwards, Miller said."

Me: "Gradasil is the only cervical cancer vaccine that helps prevent against 4 types of HPV; two types that cause 70% of cervical cancer cases and two more types that cause 90% of genital warts cases. It's only for girls between 9 and 26 though. They don't know how long it'll last either."

clearly I was being too quiet...

Grant: "What are you reading NOW?!"
Me: An Astroglide ad.
Grant: ...

Me: "Want to know the names of date rape drugs?"
Grant: "Not really..."
Me: "GHB, Rohypnol and Ketamine"
Grant: ...
Me: "Hey! A G-spot article! I MUST read this. Shhhh..."

it's quiet...
then...

Grant: "We already know that disks around some young stars are driven by [magnetic] processes," Miller told Space.com. "It would not be a major surprise if all accretion disks rely on internal magnetic properties, at least partially."

Me: "Did you know that 1 in 5 people in the United States over the age of 12 are infected with the virus that causes genital herpes? That's like, 45 million people"

Grant: "OKAY! Can we go to sleep now?!"
Me: "Sure"

So, what have we learned from this story...

One...
It's best to read to yourself at night in this house.

and...

Two...
He reads intellectual stuff at bed time.
I apparently read smut.