active

I've never had a supposedly normal sleep pattern.  The seemingly essential 'eight solid hours' has always seemed unnecessary.  For most of my life I've got by on four-five hours at some point in the twenty four.  (This may account for some of my physical problems later in life.)

But there is something mentally repugnant about spending one third of my life asleep.  Think of the big picture.  When you reach sixty, you will have spent twenty years doing nothing conscious.

Usually there was so much going on, so much I wanted to do, that sleeping felt like an intrusion.  At seventy-five I 'should' have spent twenty five years asleep.

engaged

I take your point.  But the science says your brain needs enough time-out to clear undesirable amyloids from its pathways, and process the day's events for storage as memories.

married


On the days following interrupted sleep when I'm not exhausted, I feel like maybe a don't need that much sleep really. And then after the third or fourth night in a row, I'm so foggy I can barely function. I'm not sure when that cleaning activity started, but I sure wish it was earlier in the sleep cycle.

wed

eloped

hurry

quick

dead

slow

stop

cease

desist

end

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There's an old legend which sounds quite believable to me, concerning the two young princesses Elizabeth and Margaret.

Margaret was annoyingly trying to pull the hair out of Elizabeth's doll, and the future Queen stamped her tiny foot and said "Kindly desist from pulling my dolly's hair.  You know it distresses me beyond measure."

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Like it. 

Another one.  I can't, sadly, remember who the story's about.  It might have been Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin and Nobel laureate; if not, some other Scottish notable.  As a small child he caused his parents great concern by showing no inclination to start talking.  Until one day when he was three, and his younger brother was whinging annoyingly.  When he suddenly said, in perfect English and clearly some irritation: "What ails thee, Jock?"

termination

fired