Some nights when I can’t sleep, it’s because of the Slideshow of Terrible Ways to Die. Other nights, it’s Horrifying Screenplays of Fires/Intruders. Tonight, it’s the Parade of Awkwardness.

I knew I was in serious trouble when my brain wanted to remind me of a houseguest experience where I was basically a fish flopping around on the tiles. I felt incompetent and bumbling next to my smooth and gracious hostess, and so didn’t offer to help when I should have—and when I did offer, I didn’t know what I was doing and messed things up. I misunderstood a question, and so seemed to be demanding to be served a drink. I’d gained weight recently and all my clothes were too tight for me, so I wouldn’t take off my cardigan even though it was in the high seventies. I tried to act all free-spirited and confident, and in doing so broke their pretty rope swing. She offered me a choice of an item from her collection, and I was so nervous I’d accidentally choose her favorite, I chose nothing—as if I were rejecting the gift.

This was more than ten years ago, but I have every moment carefully preserved so I can examine it in perfect detail. I do museum-quality work.

I SHOULD be sleeping beautifully, I worked so hard today on the playroom today. So many toys have so many pieces, and the pieces get everywhere so it was like an Easter egg hunt. I rooted around under bureaus, beds, chairs, the couch, the DVD shelves, the crib—and I found almost all the pieces to everything. I’m still missing a few puzzle pieces, but I need to deep-breathe and let it go or else I’m going to start ripping open couch cushions saying, “It has! to be here! somewhere!”

And I could almost cry, the way things were already getting messy again within an hour. One reason I don’t try to be a better housekeeper is that being a better housekeeper makes me a worse person: I’m on edge all the time, angry at my family for messing things up, finding someone to blame for whatever’s not perfect, finding fault with our whole house and everything in it, seeing every place where the hardwood is unevenly shiny. When I let things get messier, I calm down; when I make things tidier, I start snapping at people and not letting the kids play with their toys because I’m NOT looking for all those pieces AGAIN.

But of course, below a certain point, which is where we finally were, the kids can’t play with their toys because nothing has its pieces anywhere near it anymore. It’s a fine line, and right now I’m on BOTH wrong sides of it: parts of the house are too clean and organized, and parts of the house are too messy.

I’m trying not to let my “There’s too much to do, so I won’t do anything” impulse take over. I’m trying to keep chipping away at it, believing that each Skittle found under the recliner and thrown in the trash makes a tiny but cumulative difference in the overall household cleanliness. It’s like putting away a basket of tiny white laundry: it seems like you take out a hundred pairs of socks and there are still more socks, but eventually if you keep at it, the basket really does get empty.

Well, and then it starts filling up again, moments later.

You wanted to discuss my uterus, right? Oh good, me too!

I finally worked up the nerve to talk with my OB about the risks of having another baby: I’d be over 35, and I’ve had four c-sections. I’ve been wanting to ask about it, but I was worried he’d do what a lot of people do when I mention wanting a sixth baby, which is to suggest I have a psychological problem. I think this is funny when it’s kidding (one of the best moments of my pregnancy with Henry was hearing a librarian joyfully shout “ARE YOU CRAZY??” in a quiet library), but some people are serious.

This’ll vary from family tree to family tree, but in my parents’ generation, two kids is typical. In my grandparents’ generation, three or four kids is typical. In my great-grandparents’ generation, five or six kids is typical. A set of my great-great grandparents had nine kids, including twins twice. And a set of my great-great-great grandparents had eleven children like it weren’t no thing. On Baby #6, my female ancestors were just getting warmed up.

My OB earned points by acting as if it could be just as psychologically normal to have six kids today as it was 100 years ago. He opened my file and looked at the surgical reports and medical history. He said he didn’t see anything in my file that would argue against trying for another baby if I wanted one.

I tucked that information under my ribs. I keep peeking at it.

I am having SO MUCH FUN with a site Paul found for me called Postcrossing. I collect postcards, but I’d like this site anyway: you send postcards to random people, and different random people send postcards to you. Hm. That does not sound like so much fun when I type it out, but I LOVE this thing and think you should try it. Even PAUL is trying it now, after seeing how much fun I was having.

If you want to try it, I’m giving away a “starter kit” over at Milk & Cookies. And when I say “starter kit,” I mean I’m taking five blank postcards from my stash, adding five 94-cent international-postcard-rate stamps, and calling it a kit.

Sleeping is a KER-RAZY thing to do. It doesn’t seem that way when I’m having an easy time sleeping: I do my whole day, and then I climb into my nice soft bed and go to sleep until morning. Perfectly natural! Any children’s book can explain to you how it works!

But when I’m NOT sleeping, and I’m the only one awake in a house of sleeping people and animals, it seems like something out of a science fiction novel. Something about androids, maybe. They need to power down for 8 hours to recharge. The lights in their eyes go dark, and their limbs go slack. They need to be properly stored or they’ll collapse to the floor and be damaged.

That IS what it’s like. At night, human beings must find a safe place to lie down, because our bodies are going to lose consciousness. There we all are in our dark houses, unconscious, while hour after hour goes by unnoticed and unfilled. Picture those houses, stretched out across the miles, all quiet and still. CREEPY.

When I write my thesis on this (tentative title: “Sleep: That Sh*t Ain’t Right”), I plan to study in depth why there isn’t more looting. It seems like we’re easy targets, lying there with our slack limbs and lightless eyes.

I’m on watch, though. You go ahead and sleep.

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Pay-it-forward updates:

My Life is showing the giftie she got.

Sticky Feathers has a new contest up.

Scenic Overlook has TWO contests up.

I really do like you guys an awful lot. I keep meaning to say so. Often when I write a post, I don’t get back to the computer for hours and hours, and when I do, I go through the comments one by one, and I’m laughing and delighted and clenching my teeth at your cuteness and funniness. I just want to SQUEEZE you. And I think, “I should tell them so!”—but then it’s the next day before I write my next post, and by then all I’m doing is trying to get One! More! Sentence! written before I have to read Skippyjon Jones AGAIN or clean up spilled cereal AGAIN or take someone to the potty AGAIN or clean up an accident AGAIN, so I’m all head-down-and-to-the-task, and I don’t mention it. But I really do like you a lot, and I think of you often while I’m reading Skippyjon and vacuuming cereal and so forth.

Here are just a few, a sparse few, of the things you’ve written that have given me that rush of love feeling:

The New Girl. OMG, could I agree with her more about the acceptance of good news and the delivery of bad news? NO I COULD NOT.

Flack & Proud has a whole sidebar section of Unsolicited Advice for Women, and this one is probably my favorite.

Semi-Desperate Housewife asks an interesting question about how your parents raised you, and also I loved what she said about “It’s just my thing”.

Lippy on Life is discussing a dilemma I know ALL TOO WELL: how to decide whether or not to have another baby (she’s accepting votes!).

Not that You Asked… is so funny about how mean she is when she’s pregnant. I read, like, half of it out loud to Paul, but for some reason he was looking at me pointedly instead of gasping with laughter the way I was.

This post at Through the Looking Glass made me crack up again and again and again. Every time I hit a new “HUGE GAP IN CONSCIOUSNESS” I was off again (and again and again).

Princess Nebraska BLEW MY MIND with this post about what she’s not good at. This is the kind of post everyone reads and immediately wants to copy.

Eleanor Q. has written some helpful hints for a successful naptime. My favorite part was “The legs, preparing for their fall,” with the cute photo of baby legs, but I also laughed pretty hard about the way most people suck their thumbs.

Under Construction taught me to make salt caramels, and how I lived life before salt caramels I don’t know.

Miz S’s post about health fads would be worth it for the title alone, even if the rest of the post weren’t also awesome.

Yesterday I threw out six trash bags of trash from our house. SIX trash bags. And that’s just the TRASH: not stuff “good enough to give away,” but containers of dried-out Play-Doh, scattered beads, a stack of Gymboree gift boxes I’m never going to use, cheap trinket-type toys, paper airplanes, and pieces of broken toys.

This is the kind of task that is equal parts satisfying and discouraging. The satisfaction is obvious: six bags of trash removed is a clear improvement. But it’s also so discouraging: how did things get this bad? and how can there still be so much left to do?

The clutter book I’m reading is equal parts annoying and useful. I think all self-help books are annoying, and this one keeps cheesing me off with its tone. But here are the useful things I’m already putting into practice:

1) You can only have as much stuff as you have room for.

2) If it’s so important, why is it in a never-opened box in the basement?

3) Stop bringing more stuff IN.

4) If you’re not using it, give it to someone who can, or else get rid of it.

5) What does this item represent?

That last one is for things like, why am I saving a big pile of still-in-their-packages child-proofing devices, when it’s clear that if we haven’t used them by Baby #5 we’re not GOING to use them? And the answer is that when I own these items, it makes me feel like I own Safety. It also applies to things like books, where people often feel that they’ve purchased Information. And it applies to heirlooms and keepsakes that are in boxes in the basement, where people often feel like they’re storing Memories they’d otherwise lose.

I find this concept exceedingly cheezy—and yet useful and applicable, which explains why I’m a little crabby. It turns out I am saving a number of things in case of Apocalyptic Situations and/or Economic Depressions. I feel like if I have piles of fabric and twenty-five pounds of dried beans, then I will be all set in case of zombies, nuclear disaster, and/or economic ruin.

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Pay-it-forward updates:

Cookiemonks has her new contest up—it’s Etsy-themed, with a choice of prizes.

You know, one of the problems with tackling clutter is it gets SO MUCH WORSE before it gets better. Working on it makes me SEE it. Also, with toys: I’d like to be able to give away some of the toys that are perfectly good—but of course, pieces are all tangled up with other pieces, and some pieces are probably under the bureau, and ARRRRGGGG!! Forget it!!

I have been such a crab about it, you would not believe it. Snapping at people! Making sarcastic remarks! Doing something I hate when other people do it, which is to make exasperated noises and fling a project down, saying “ARRRRGGGG!! Forget it!!” BAD BEHAVIOR.

Also, it’s pretty crabbifying to look at all the stuff going in the trash: all the stuff I thought the kids would like, all the little things I bought on a whim or after careful thought, all the presents—going right back out of the house. I realize that’s The Way of Material Things (it’s not like I imagined them playing for years with a straw doll), but it’s depressing to see so much of it at once.

Speaking of material, let me set you to work on a Clutter Challenge. I make the kids’ beds with bottom sheets and pillowcases only. The top sheets, brand-new and with factory folds, I keep in a stack in a closet. I probably have a dozen of them, or maybe more. It’s perfectly good fabric!

If we DID go into a Depression Era, I could make clothing out of it! Or curtains! I’d just have to learn to sew! I’d be kicking myself so hard if I’d thrown out enormous pieces of beautiful, brand-new cloth. Some of them are such pretty patterns!

Or, I could use it to make reusable fabric wrapping paper: I bought fabric ribbon on 75-90% off last Christmas for this very purpose.

Or, we might want to use them as sheets again some day. Never mind that the bottom sheets are much more worn, and/or wearing out completely and getting thrown out.

Or, I could offer them to one of you—maybe someone who makes quilts and could use big pieces of fabric. But fabric is heavy to ship.

Or…what?

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Pay-it-forward updates:

My Version of the Story is showing the giftie she got and posting a new contest (it ends tonight, so hurry!).

Not the Daddy has a new contest up.

Living and Learning says there are only a few entries on her contest, so the odds are in your favor if you enter.

When I finally get around to appointing my Cabinet, I’m making Akimbo my Chief Science Adviser. She is a real scientist, and she talked me down out of a full-fledged virus fret at ONE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING. I need someone like that on my full-time staff. I’m sorry, Akimbo, but I’m going to need you to work nights.

Of course then my worry mutated, like the virus I worried would mutate. But still! That was some impressive scientific service! And would you guys please click through and give her a hard time for only having ONE single post on her whole blog? We obviously need her to tell us MORE SCIENCE. Even after I started worrying about mutated viruses, I thought to myself, “Akimbo would have thought of that, because she is a scientist. And SHE says SHE is not worried.” And I went to sleep.

Still looking for a Chief Spelling Adviser: it took me several minutes to figure out that it wasn’t “advisor” (or “cheif”).

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Pay-it-forward updates:

Semi-Desperate Housewife is showing the giftie she got, and posting a new contest.

I’m up late, doing what I am nearly always doing when I’m up late: worrying.

This time it started because I like to have something to watch on TV while I’m stirring the fudge, and I’d finished my disc of The Wire so I just turned it to PBS. It was a program about this awesome thing they’ve discovered: a way to generate stem cells from regular old adult skin cells, instead of in controversial ways. The problem is that the way they get the skin cells to do this is by introducing a special kind of virus. And that virus! Oh, guess what? It causes cancer! They showed lumpy pink mice.

Well, and they’re working on that. But in the meantime, is that not the makings of an apocalyptic novel? A virus some scientists are using for good, but have not yet perfected! It escapes! The whole world gets cancer and dies, except for the select few who will now spend their time plundering stores, figuring out how to fix a broken leg with no doctor, and trying to contact other survivors!

So there I am, lying awake picturing my children—and everyone else’s children—dying of cancer. Oh, the weight of all that imaginary human pain! And I was cursing myself for having so MANY children. Why did I have any children at all after the first one, when I realized his continued existence was absolutely essential to my continued will to live? I was trying to lay in reserves, but instead I dramatically decreased my odds of living my life’s dream: dying as an old lady who never had anything truly bad happen to one of her children.

Well, so you can see why I had to get up and bask in the light of the computer. Seasonal Affective Disorder can be treated with UV lights; Nighttime Worrying Disorder can be treated with monitor light.

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Pay-it-forward updates:

Living in Maryland is showing the giftie she got, and posting her new contest.

Pink Elefant is starting a new contest.