Snoring

I hope that the title says it all.

I'm up, and contemplating reheating old coffee as opposed to brewing a fresh pot, because there is no sense in trying to go back to bed.

I'll let you in on one of my myriad little neuroses -- I can't stand to be breathed on. It drives me bonkers. I hate it. I don't know why, but I just do. There. I shuddered just thinking about it. I love this guy more than anything else on earth, and still, I can't stand to be breathed on by him. Or anyone else. It might be a space bubble thing, I've never analyzed it that closely.

I've gone through feeling guilty about it -- I mean, this is the guy I share everything with, and he doesn't seem to care if I breathe on him. I should adjust, or something. But after almost eight years, I have found that some things don't get better with forced exposure. It's just gotten worse.

So at any rate, he's in there snoring away. Loudly, which was the primary reason I couldn't sleep. I know exactly how loudly he was snoring because he likes to snuggle when he's snoring. And I know it's not a far step from snoring to drooling. So there I am, curled up on my side, pillows just so, blankets all snug, and he wants to crawl right on top of me and snore in my ear. Which involves breathing on me. And possibly drooling. I don't care how in love with someone you are, that just isn't cool.

And I do love him. I'm one of the few women on the planet lucky enough to be head over heels for someone who I also consider to be my best friend. After close to eight years (wow, time flies), he can still make me laugh, he still surprises me, he's put up with me in all my craziness and through two bouts with Crohn's. I love his family. We live in a little shit hole of an apartment, and we're broke most of the time, but hey, it's cool. We have each other, and we can still manage to keep each other entertained. We can pretty much deal with anything.

But the damn snoring. I can hear him now, even sitting in the living room. He has several types of snores. Today we have the guttural, sinuses-draining kind of snore. Then there's the little quiet ones -- not so offensive. The ones that really do me in though are the high pitched ones. The ones that hit a certain frequency that gets into my ears and rings around in there, and are actually physically painful. Ear plugs are a wonderful thing when he starts in with those. I've actually turned around and slept with my head at the foot of the bed at times when he snores.

I went to Mom for advice when I realized that this was going to be tricky. How do you deal with someone who is snoring right next to you? My Dad can be something of a world class snorer, so I figured she'd have something good for me.

She said that when Dad starts that, she carefully digs her elbow in to his ribs and sort of shoves him over so that he rolls away from her. Then she can go back to sleep.

I've tried this. It has an equal and opposite reaction with mine. He snuggles closer. The harder I jab him, the tighter he snuggles.

Which brings me back to the whole breathing on me thing. He snuggles close enough that its going right in my ear and it just creeps me the hell out. I can't deal with it.

So here I am, on a Tuesday afternoon, sitting on the couch and contemplating coffee.

If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.
- Katherine Hepburn