If you tried to list all the people who changed the world, the list would long and inevitably incomplete because we’ll never know who invented the wheel or the genius who figured out how to make soap, however, can even Einstein or Newton even remotely compete with the genius who invented “The pillow” ? I don’t think so! Because without a decent nights sleep, would Einstein and Newton have been able to do their thing? Au contraire! This morning I had a Eureka moment. I’ve been sleeping for months on this pillow which I thought was good for me because it’s a special neck supportive pillow only as the months passed my poor neck has been feeling decidedly unloved and the last few months I’ve been waking every morning with an aching neck and an aching lower back that I have to stretch out before I can do anything. I’m not Einstein, (obviously or I’d have bought myself a new pillow months ago) but I knew there could only be several reasons for this change; the mattress had died (it was guaranteed 20 years and we’ve only had it nine), my stress level is so off the scale that I’m going catatonic (stress over what?), the rubbish chair I sit in while obsessively writing has caused me repetative strain injury (definitely a possibility so I’ve stopped being lazy and now wheel the Goblin’s superior chair into my room every morning), I’ve been abducted by aliens every night and used as a guinea pig or my poor neck…and this seemed most likely…was being ruined by my evil pillow.”
Last night I lay down with my “supposed neck supporting” pillow and prepared myself for sleep by relaxing to my self-hypnosis Paul McKenna’s Instant Confidence. Just hearing his voice melts all my muscles before he even gets to…”count backwards…” (I know I need this CD because I’m still having a hard time telling people I write…at least in person…I don’t have any problem telling the Universe in one go obviously. The day I can even think to hand out one of my business cards without blushing will be a watershed. As it stands I’m no where near the shed, but I’m up to my waist in the water. I haven’t yet handed out a single business card to a stranger). But my poor neck…the tendons that are supposed to allow it to turn from left to right have been mutating into steel cables. I fell asleep after finishing my “instant confidence” and then woke this morning feeling complete unrefreshed. I helped the Goblin off to work and then went back to bed. I subjected myself to another episode of “Instant Confidence” and then decided to get some more sleep, but I suddenly had this urge to try the Gobin’s pillows (he was at work…he’d never know) so I flung away “the evil unsupportive neck pillow” and dragged his pillows over to my side of the bed and lay down expecting to feel the same pain I’d felt the other evening when I’d tried to add another flat pillow under my “unsupportive neck pillow”. That bright idea had made my neck hurt so badly I felt like throwing up so I expected similar discomfort, but I was wrong! I lay down on the Goblin’s magic pillow and I felt like I was in heaven. I lay there and thought, when I turn on my side it’ll hurt, but no it didn’t! It was still heaven! I slept for three hours and woke up without a backache and my neck feels so much better. Who needs enemies when they have a rubbish pillow? Why didn’t I try his pillows months ago? Idiot!
I’d already decided to buy myself a new pillow, but finding his were perfect, I called the Goblin at work and said, “Hello Goblin…I used your pillows this morning and I love them…can I have them? How would you like a brand new pillow? Being a lovely Goblin he said he thought that was a very good idea and I look forward to a night of heavenly sleep after which I shall wake up and feel so energized and refreshed I’ll write a whole chapter…but in which book? Hmmm? I think it might have to be Dancing the Maypole!