Fatigue

I spent most of Saturday sleeping.

From after lunch until dinner and from after dinner until bedtime, all I did was sleep. It could have been due in part to those back-to-back meetings early in the week that reminded me of Plainfield's seemingly intractable problems. After the second one, I had to take a break and blog later than usual. The experience of hearing so many heartfelt pleas for something better for Plainfield was quite wearing to the psyche.

The week ended with another, more particular situation that neighbors here had hoped would be solved, but it also is dragging on. A large group of young adults holds parties in a second-floor apartment next door, parties that start early in the evening and go on until the wee hours, on just about any day of the week. As luck would have it, my apartment and specifically the window by my bed get the brunt of the noise, but many neighbors are annoyed at the racket, the cars pulling up and leaving throughout the night, the stream of strangers (to longtime tenants) in and out of the building.

I was dozing over my Kindle just before midnight Friday and decided to turn off the lights and go to sleep. For once, the party was in abeyance next door. But then a strange noise woke me up and I had to get out of the covers and look. It was a young man who had climbed up the hanging fire escape ladder and was entering  the apartment through a window off the fire escape.

What to do? Call the police? Unfortunately, I had seen the same thing before and it just seemed like yet another  social rule that people in that apartment liked to break. Why go in through the front door when you could stand on someone's shoulders or on top of a car, grab the lowest rung and climb up to the window?

Forget sleeping, I was wide awake. Apparently some of the crowd had come back and the screeching, yelling, music and influx of cars pulling up under my window resumed. Now, readers know I often sit up blogging until way past midnight (that's how I know how long those parties last). So what's the difference? When one is older, sleep can become elusive. Feeling sleepy and then actually being able to fall asleep is like winning a lottery of some sort. I lost it on Friday.

Fatigue just overwhelmed me Saturday. I'm glad in a way it was cold and windy outside, so I didn't lose any of that recent spring balminess by snoozing away the day. As for Plainfield's problems, they won't come into sharp focus again until the special meeting Wednesday, which should be short, and the April 2 meeting, which will most likely keep me up late blogging afterwards.

Sleep is a necessity and many have mused on it. To see a compilation of quotes on sleep, click here.

--Bernice