A lot of people have been asking me why I have fallen off the blog map.
OK, maybe three people have asked but they have been rather persistent. I guess that award-winner on the splendor of Twinkies and other Hostess products two months ago was not enough for you people.
It’s not that I don’t love writing about mostly nothing. There is nothing more freeing for a reporter than to abandon all sense of responsibility and any hint of relevance when she sits down at her computer.
I guess this must be what people get out of tweeting and if I could hiccup in 35 words or less, I might like it. But I mean, really. How could I possibly do justice to the Ho-Ho with those limitations?
So I will now confide in you the real reason I have not blogged much lately.
I’m too tired.

My husband Rick thinks it’s a real problem. Not a medical problem, mind you. That would make him feel really bad if, say, I actually had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. It would actually make me feel good to have an excuse for my persistent exhaustion but yeah, yeah, I know, it’s a very serious problem and nothing to joke about and I wouldn’t feel good at all. But I’d like to just have a tiny bit of satisfaction.
I am tired when I wake up, which is when I first start thinking about going back to bed. I fantasize about napping most of the day, even though the rare times when I try, I’m terrible at it. By 3, I am in a daze, completely unable to operate heavy machinery or write a coherent sentence. By 7, I begin planning on going to bed early. And by 7:30, I collapse in a stupor on the couch that lasts for at least 10 minutes until someone needs me.
On weekends, I occasionally try to convince Rick that we should rent a movie and he laughs at me because so far in our 18 and a half years of marriage, I have never stayed awake for an entire movie. But if I’m really persistent, he will usually break down, get a movie I insist we will both enjoy, like maybe “Sex and the City: The Movie” whereupon I watch for approximately seven minutes before falling into a drug-like state that includes drooling and snoring.
Occasionally Rick wins and we get “The Hurt Locker,” both of us thinking that no way can I fall asleep with people getting blown to bits on surround sound, but alas, I didn’t make it to the first casualty.

A week ago, I took my daughter Amanda to an allergist and I ended up making an appointment for myself to come back the following week. I was very excited about this because I have never seen a doctor who asked more questions about a patient’s every twinge and pang and I wanted in.
But I never expected, when I answered his questions about snoring – in my case, apparently loud enough to startle the dog across the street – for him to suggest that I might have a sleep disorder and would be a good candidate for a sleep study.

A sleep study?
I could barely contain myself. I get to sleep and people study me? They encourage me to sleep?
I had a lot of unanswered questions.
Like, “Do they have those Heavenly beds with the comfort pillow tops like Westin hotels?”
“Cable?”
“People Magazine? Oreos?”

Not that I necessarilyto have all those things but it would just make it nicer.
Who would be the person watching me? What if it was some really cute guy? Would I have to go buy new pajamas? Not wash off my make-up?
Would I have to wear those sticky electrode things all over my body that would make it difficult to toss and turn the way I usually like to? Would I end up getting even less sleep? That would stink.
With all of these thoughts consuming me, we were watching “The Biggest Loser” the other night when they showed before-and-after videos and in most of the before, contestants were seen either eating in their cars or getting into bed with alien-like oxygen contraptions over their faces.

I looked at Rick.
“Those are for people with sleep disorders,” he said smugly.
I never thought about that. That could really impair my sleep. I thought they’d just study me and tell me I needed to come in on a regular basis and sleep some more for them.
This was not going to work. And worse, it might even keep me awake at night thinking about it. 
Then again, that would give me time to start blogging again.