Midnight tribute to Bill Holden

As you might imagine, it can get a little weird staying in a different hotel room every 3-4 days. Beds change. Room layout changes. Sometimes you use the mosquito net, sometimes you don't.

But of course the big deal is being able to find the bathroom in the middle of the night. An embarrassing secret I will admit is that I have often slept with my headlamp around my neck, just so that I could safely light my way to the john should the need arise.

Well the other night, we'd gone to sleep for the first time in our beach-front bungalow here in Mui Ne. As our room has no screens, we rigged up our mosquito net to hang over the bed before retiring. It's really kind of cool to crawl inside - kind of turns an ordinary bed into some combination of 4-poster masterpiece and cool secret hideout.

Now I remember reading for a bit then turning my head lamp off and putting it inside my book (The Great Shark Hunt) as a bookmark. At some point I wake up and need to use the restroom, but I don't really wake up quite completely enough to get the job done properly (while I'm not a sleepwalker, this sort of thing has happened to me maybe 4-5 times in my life). I somehow get out of bed, can't see a thing (are my eyes open? I don't even know now), trip over the 3" threshold that divides the main room from the bathroom (keeps the shower water from running out) and smash my forehead into a tiled corner of the bathroom wall that just out next to the sink.

I distinctly remember that (though it took some reconstruction of events the next morning to determine where it was exactly that I smashed my head). And then I have some memory of thrashing around trying to get back into bed (did I even pee?) and then didn't wake up again until 6:00.

Michele on the other had awoken to me thrashing around on the outside of the mosquito net, blathering on and on about how "I'd broke my own rule". She had no idea that I was hurt and though I was just being my usual weird self. She told me to knock it off (I have no memory of this), pulled the mosquito net apart so I could get into bed and went back to sleep.

In the morning there were several big streaks of dried blood on the net, where my head had rubbed against it.

Michele says it doesn't look to bad, but to me it's kind of like a combination of Harry Potter's lightning bolt and the poorly sewed up seam on Herman Munster's forehead.

And of course the "my own rule" that I broke was in not sleeping with my headlamp. Even in the midst of bloody delrium, always time for a little self criticism.

;-)

At least I avoided old Bill's fate.

Paul