Watching...While You Sleep...

Sleeping through the night has been a challenge as of late...since my return from the blissful end of summer escape I embarked upon with my kids. I guess this is partially because they are back to school, and we are no longer, all four of us, cuddling up in one bed, Gulf breeze tickling us through the screen, late night waves crashing, the kids bargaining and making deals on who gets to sleep closest to me. You know, they are possibly the only beings on earth who so fervently desire and defend their position at my side...so I suppose in my self-centered glee over being such a hot property, I allowed the arguing and battling to linger ever so slightly. We eventually instituted a system -- I would sleep in the second spot from the left, one child on my right, another on my left and the third on the far right, next to his or her sister or brother. And each night their positions would shift, so all three would have two consecutive nights all close and tight and snuggly, next to me. It was an awesome system...and bedtime went pretty smoothly as a result.

Then one night, the night we had returned from spending a full day driving from Longboat Key to Orlando and back again...the hours in between spent doing some serious damage at the deathly hot but virtually empty Magic Kingdom...Tim, who had the outer right hand spot, woke screaming at 2 a.m. And he is so quiet usually, so reserved and easy to reason with...but he was inconsolable...and through his sobs he complained that his feet were throbbing from walking all day long...and I tried to soothe him, but he was just miserable...and eventually, after pilfering through my parents' bathroom drawers and locating one Tylenol, which I forced upon him through his tears...he chilled a bit and then begged to sleep next to me (a speech I expect he will someday use as a co-ed on some sweet innocent young lady...ugh...). But this wasn't a ploy, I knew for sure...he was far too distraught...this little angel, who never gives us a minute of angst. His sister and brother were so concerned, I encountered little resistance when I asked Ellie to sacrifice her position...and I moved him to the number three spot, to my right. Almost immediately, Tim fell into an exhausted sleep...but the rest of us were wide awake, ramped up and hyper...looking at one another like: "What the hell was that?" So I said:

"Hey kids...what do you say to some late night TV?"

We high-fived and settled in.

I turned the lights off and began flipping the channels...finding Top Chef (yum...Tom Colicchio and braised pork belly take on a whole new level of deliciousness in bed late at night...) and Mad Men repeats (Don Draper...oh, so yum..so very yum...totally wish I worked with those guys) and Full House and True Hollywood Story and The First 48 (so scary anyway...but in twilight hours, alone with three children in a sparsely populated coastal

resort town off-season...yike!) and Frasier and Will & Grace and some Melissa Gilbert TV movie on Lifetime and Top Model (Cycle 6!! Joanie and the tooth-pulling nightmare...I loved Joanie...still my all-time favorite...)...But then, while flipping around I found a late night showing of my very favorite movie: Wuthering Heights. And I was filled with delight...right there, my two alert children groaning and annoyed....they knew the buffet had come to a close and I was sticking with this 1939 Laurence Olivier/Merle Oberon classic...my favorite since age 11 when I stumbled upon it on the Sunday afternoon movie on Channel 5. The possessive/obsessive love and loss and deep soul connection and strife and pain and parted loves...even at 11 years old, I totally got it...(sadly, I think the dashing but manipulative Heathcliff then became the future model upon which I chose my boyfriends...well, he and Elvis's fake cheesy movie persona...love those soft-hearted rock star/rage-aholics...but that's another story...). So, many times, the kids have been forced to watch Wuthering Heights in its black and white glory, seated beneath the 50th anniversary movie poster that hangs on our family room wall. As the other two rolled over and checked out of the late night TV fest, I settled in and could not have been happier. Insomnia never looked so good...

So flash forward to now...to this week...we are back home and each night the kids are in bed by 9 (ok...I'll confess my poor parenting skills...9:45...)...and I am without our little snuggling system and Gulf breezes and waves crashing (tan still rocks though...). But....somehow, I continue to awaken sometime between 2 and 4 o'clock every morning....and some mornings I can lay there and lull myself back to sleep with happy or delicious thoughts...but most of the time, I am completely awake. So, as a result, I have taken late night TV viewing to a championship level...me and my grey Stonehill College-logoed blanket curl up on the sofa, away from the sleeping family...my hot little hand fondling the TV remote. And the variety of craptastic viewing is truly unparalleled....

I love documentaries -- TV and movie versions -- you know, everything

from Intervention and Hoarders (oh, the vomit-inducing horror...) or True Life and Made on MTV to Supersize Me and Hoop Dreams and Streetwise (the gritty film documenting the lives of Seattle street kids in the early '80's -- prostitution, pimping, mainlining, thieving....my Mom and Dad, possibly giving birth to the lax pop culture exposure rules I employ with own children, brought me to see it in NYC when I was 14...). Documentaries are all over late night TV...I saw the controversial The Business of Giving Birth with Ricki Lake, which rips apart the medical profession and traditional obstetrics and hospitals and insurance companies in favor of midwifery and home birthing. And we also get to see Ricki Lake's bare pregnant breasts. That part was tough to watch. So the film is all hyper-educated earthy-crunchy hippie vegetarian liberal...and I can be easily swayed, you know, and am all about respecting the natural process...but then I look at Will and I know he would not be here if I was birthing him in our master bath at 4 a.m...And who the hell wants to learn sh*t or be preached to at 3 in the morning? Not me.

So I flip past the loftier selections and head right for the dreck... Well, not the infomercials and Billy Mays products (RIP, by the way...Hey, wait, sidebar...when will this summer of death

cease? I mean, earlier this week we lost PatrickSwayze and then today it was Mary of Peter Paul and Mary...you know, not an A-lister like MJ or Farrah or anything, but she'll be missed, right? Pretty lilting voice of "Leavin' On a Jet Plane"...bummer...I am ready for 2010...). So, right...I am more likely to settle on a little late night Golden Girls marathon -- who can resist really? Betty White is pure genius and that Blanche is such a hot b***ch...who doesn't love a bunch of old broads talking about geriatric sex over cheesecake? And I love a late night Real World/Road Rules Challenge...such drama and intrigue is even better post-midnight. Oh...that reminds me of the late night marathon I caught one sleepless night when I was pregnant with Will -- Tough Enough on MTV, featuring goateed WWE star Al Snow, bloated by testosterone...with whom I promptly fell truly, madly, deeply in love...a crush that I could not shake until the child was outside my body. Bizarre pregnancy...late night TV can be dangerous...

But it can be good for you too...the other morning I totally scored and caught the opening

sequence for The Other Boleyn Girl...not dreck at all, but a nice, easy way for me to get the (not so)

full effect of reading the book that has been uncracked but perched on my nightstand for eons, while drinking in the Tudor tumult and scan

dal...and Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman sporting those sexy medieval fashions and stabbing one another in the back over Eric Bana and his Henry, VII codpiece. This sexy Henry the apparent rock star/rage-aholic predecessor to Heathcliff/Elvis...I would have been right there egging those two crafty maidens on. I watched the entire film...and totally felt fulfilled...like I accomplished something meaningful. The book is now back on my living room bookcase...I'll get to it eventually, so don't start giving me sh*t quite yet...you know, like I should be using these late nights to make a dent in my reading list...of course I should, but late night is for completely checking out...no thinking, right? Right.

The best thing about being alone with the remote in the earliest of morning hours, is

rediscovering old classics, guilty pleasures and sentimental favorites. The week I returned from Longboat Key, one of the first nights I took my late night party to the family room sofa, I happened upon the late 1999 teen flick, 10 Things I Hate About You...the vehicle that introduced the departed genius, Heath Ledger, to the American public. And I had remembered liking it back then, thinking it was so smart and well-done...all these cute little teens, so much more talented and interesting than our current crop of Hollywood train wrecks and meth-heads...Julia Stiles and Joseph-Gordon Levitt and David Krumholz...and Heath. And based on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew...so again, not dreck.

So I watched...and I loved it even more...this story of the Stratford sisters and their protective dad and

the plan hatched to bribe Heath's mysterious character to date the prickly sister so a bevy of other lads could have access to her perky and desirable younger sister. And how the prickly sis and the mysterious suitor are a perfect match...and they fall in love in spite of themselves. And the story is multi-layered and sharp and, let's face it, the film spoon fed Shakespearian themes to high school kids through modern twists on classic plot lines, with a long-haired hero and a**-kicking soundtrack...perfect, thoughtful selections that carried the film's vibe effortlessly. I listened to the lyrics and welled up for Kat and Patrick...totally feeling the love and heartbreak...I

jumped up that first night and googled the film, retrieved the song list and promptly downloaded each track...Letters to Cleo's remake of "Cruel To Be Kind" (Well I do my best to understand you/but you still mystify and I wanna know why...) and Joan Armatrading's version of "The Weakness In Me" (I'm not the sort of person who falls in and quickly out of love/but to you I gave my affection, right from the start...)....an absolute must listen...(go ahead...click the link). But truly...the pinnacle, the whole reason I stayed awake through the night watching is for that one scene...that final revelation where the prickly Kat confesses her love and heartbreak with an original sonnet in English class...Oh please...twist the knife...I love it.

So....being reintroduced to this little celluloid gem, right there, late at night as I battled

insomnia... ten years later being captivated even more so by its simple genius...watching

it with experienced eyes, knowing how Heath's story ended..but seeing his appeal and talent and charisma....on top of that I have been able to re-live the experience the whole next day via

Napster...all totally worth being awoken at an ungodly hour and

becoming a miserable b**ch by 9 a.m. the next morning. Totally worth it. I would stay up every night if I was promised a

happy surprise awaited me...you know, not Melissa Gilbert...or Ricki Lake's bare body...or even some model enduring an epic tooth-pulling...or geriatric sex and cheesecake... No, I mean a

discovery...a gem...something new to divert me until morning....

I mean...can you think of anything better to pass those lonely sleepless late night hours? Oh, well, I mean...other than an overnight Don Draper retrospective, of course....yum...

Or one more night cuddling my three under the Gulf breeze...

xo

Photo 1: A pre-bedtime public snuggle, celebrating one of our last nights on Longboat Key... Caesar salads and Chateaubriand at Euphemia Haye...maybe that's what was keeping me up???

Photo 2: Yes...I took three children to Disney all by myself...I rule!

Photo 3: Joanie...hide that snaggletooth, sister...fierce!

Photo 4: Olivier as Heathcliff...suspicious, possessive, protective and obsessed...but undeniably gorgeous...perfect boyfriend material...

Photo 5: Tiny from Streetwise, prostituting at age 14, circa 1983...nothing else to say, really.

Photo 6: "Pain don't hurt." But another loss does...RIP.

Photo 7: Those Boleyn girls with that hot piece, Henry, VII...wrecking havoc, taking down kingdoms and fathering little red-headed b**tards all over England...my kind of guy!

Photos 8 & 9: The cast of 10 Things... unsung genius...

Photo 10: How you doin', Don...?

Photo 11: Ellie and me by the Gulf. Close my eyes and we are right back there in the salt air...late night TV could never compare...