swestrup | The Slumber Bum Awakens.

I slept very well last night for a change. There are any number of factors that could account for that. We changed the sheets on the bed last night, and I always sleep better on fresh crisp sheets. I've also been having trouble with my pillows (they're older than I am, and they've started giving up the ghost), and <lj user="taxlady"> let me use one of hers. Its much thicker than I'm used to, but at least it isn't hard as a rock. Finally, the temperature is dipping towards freezing at night again, and so we put on the extra winter blanket on the bed, and its much cozier now.

Since I like the room cold, I usually have the big air-conditioner set to blow-through all winter, so that the room gets a taste of the outdoor weather although it never seems to dip below about -10 C, no matter what the weather outside does. Last night it got down to 4C, so it was probably 10 or 12 C in the room, but it sure felt nice and cool. I went to bed early since I was feeling soooo tired, and ended up getting 11 hours sleep.

I awoke with the prickly sensation of half-frozen eyeballs that told me it had been cold at night (and reminds me why the Inuit have fat-filled epicanthic folds). I stumbled downstairs and hit the button on the coffee maker and climbed back up into a HOT morning shower. The first one of the season.

Now, I have a shower most mornings, but when I've been sleeping in a cold room, the routine varies a bit. Rather than just setting the shower to a nice temperature and doing my ablutions, I set it to hot and just stand under it for a bit. After a few minutes, it no longer seems hot, but just nice and warm, so I crank it up a notch. I do this 3 or 4 times until I reach the point where there is a most interesting sensation happening.

I find it hard to describe, but my skin is telling me that the temperature is now TOO hot, and should be burning me, while at the same time its reporting being able to handle it without difficulty. If I turn it up just a *tiny* bit more, as I stand there with the steaming water pouring over me, I can sometimes feel a strange happy shuddering sensation deep in my core, as if my insides had started shivering without the rest of me. I *think* its my core temperature rapidly being raised to the temperature of the rest of my body, but I dunno. Its a very nice feeling though.

The shuddering never lasts long, and about then the shower reaches the point where the hot tap is on all the way, while the cold is shut off, and the temperature is falling, so I quickly finish my ablutions and get out, often having to rinse off in luke-warm water. I quickly towel off and wrap myself in a fluffy bathrobe to keep me warm, and I grab a large cup of coffee from the machine downstairs, and sit and read my LJ.

Its a very nice way to start the day!