On the veld, morning stiffness would increase to the point of not rising with sufficient swiftness to escape the onset of hyenas.
That is to say, yes, you are a laughable pansy.
Hyenas are the best. If I have to reincarnate as a land animal, hyena is first prize.
I used to sleep on the carpet because my back felt better in the morning. Now, I can't sleep there because I keep waking up because of pressure points. But stiffness on waking is just age. At least for me, it makes no difference how or where I am immobile, but if I don't move for a couple of hours, I start out very stiff.
I still sleep on hard surfaces fairly often but I'm definitely finding it more difficult than I did, unless I'm really tired. Pressure points, especially my heels.
I don't think I could sleep well on a foam pillow topper either. Too soft.
I can't think of when I last tried to sleep literally on the floor, but I do still like a firm mattress. One of the serious bonuses of Tim leaving was being able to get rid of the foam pillow topper which he loved and I couldn't stand.
Come to think, what I disliked about it was the immobility -- I'd sink into the foam and not move and wake up in the same position in the morning feeling lousy. On a firm mattress I roll around and change position, and I wake up feeling better.
I don't remember ever sleeping on the floor, but I do sleep on the couch regularly. It's fine. No matter what surface I sleep on, I wake up slow and stiff and it is only circumstance that has kept me (so far!) safe from the hyenas.
Come to think, what I disliked about it was the immobility -- I'd sink into the foam and not move and wake up in the same position in the morning feeling lousy.
I had this experience the first time I used a memory foam pillow - it was awful.
(Ours isn't quite as sinking as that, at least.)
Also halfway through the night, pillows begin to feel really uncomfortable on my neck, and I throw them on the floor. If I didn't like them for reading, I probably would not use them.
I have trouble sleeping when camping (on a thin camping mattress), and I really don't feel like dealing with a bulky air mattress, but I was thinking about those old camp cots that people used to use. Are those a tad more forgiving?
I don't camp at all, but you're always in warm places -- what about a camping hammock?
I have a camping hammock, but have yet to try it.
It has to be really warm if you don't have a pad or underquilt with the hammock.
I love the idea of sleeping in the hammock. The kids still get a tad spooked at night, though, so I like being in the tent with them.
I would also consider just getting a nicer sleeping pad. It's a problem you can solve by throwing money at it.
Cots are fine, but I don't think of them because I backpack and they are too heavy.
You know what the only good thing in the back half of the Dune books was? The chairdog. Furry, soft, warm, specially bred for sitting on. I want a beddog. We're allowed to use computers, so it shouldn't take millennia of hybridization or anything.
You could also use the back half of the Dune books to level out a wobbly chair leg.
You should just buy a teardrop trailer. Those look so cool.
They do. I can't handle clausterphobic mega-organized spaces that require high levels of tidiness.
I haven't tried one, but I hear very good things about the fancy one from REI. The army-style cots are cheaper, but not so nice.
22 would definitely be external to the books themselves. Also a well-bred beddog could totally walk to your campsite with you, carrying your stuff.
The beddog could ride on the catbus.
29: A mashup of Dune and My Neighbor Totoro! That could be HBO's next big hit.
Anytime I can't get a human.
32 to 30. Humans move too damn fast, that's the trouble
Ume's opinionated catbus should rent a sloth.
Sloth is totally second prize.
The sloth litter box is a thing of horror because they only crap once a week.
To get back on topic, I'm barely able to move down stairs in the minutes after I wake up.
Whereas hyena shit, I'm told, is white and odorless, so thoroughly do those magnificent beasts digest their sustenance. Strong first prize.
33. My opinionated cat does not believe that humans should move at all when hosting a cat. One twitch and off she goes.
Ours, too. Or a noisy child clamors down the hallway nearby.
Boy, my childhood kitty Splotch was so great. She'd sleep in your legs while I was stretched out reading, on the couch or whatever, and she'd let me extricate myself to go do something, and then she'd let me re-insert myself back into position after I'd done the thing.
She'd sleep in your legs while I was stretched out reading
Which was weird because she didn't even know you.
I got one o' them memoryfoam mattresses. Its like sleeping on a giant marshmallow.
I imagine you puncture it, though.
Fuck off. Fucking parasite.
He punctures it in the morning, lets himself down easy for the day. Laydeez.
I was just punning on his name.
Yes. I got it. And honestly I feel like I'm doing more than my fair share of cock jokes here.
What the fuck kind of marshmallows are you people eating?
If you were sleeping on the floor every night would you either get/stay used to it? Is it like adjusting to a new mattress only slightly more uncomfortable? When I've had to sleep on very hard surfaces, it's always been for a few hours or one night, and I got up with a "never again" resolution rather than deciding to stick with it until I adjusted.
Probably if you were an ancient of days in less soft and mattress-y cultures, you'd just be used to it.
I can't sleep flat anymore. Hiatal hernia. Stupidest fucking minor disability ever.
What the fuck kind of marshmallows are you people eating?
The fuck kind, apparently.
Fuck. The hardest surface I slept on was in this stupid bullshit "leadership" camp in HS, with a rock under my ass, which I thought was immovably embedded in the hill but proved in the morning not to be. And the asshole camp people had us camping in a goddamn frost pocket literally two metres below the inversion layer. And jokingly ha-ha told us about snakes taking refuge in unoccupied sleeping bags, so I didn't go stand by the fire all night like a sane person. Assholes.
Probably if you were an ancient of days in less soft and mattress-y cultures, you'd just be used to it.
People in Samoa (traditional sleeping surface is a couple of layers of woven straw mats over concrete) didn't complain about it as I recall, but of course that doesn't mean old people weren't sore.
Come to think of it, the really traditional sleeping surface would be layers of straw mats over a platform made of irregularly shaped volcanic rocks, but I don't think anyone actually slept in a house that was that traditional -- they still existed, but I don't think I remember seeing people sleeping in them.
13/18: Self-inflating sleeping pads like this one are much more comfortable than basic foam camping mats. Though they can be punctured by cats.
Yes, Thermarest or similar are definitely the way forward - but only use them inside tents or similar, not on bare ground, because of punctures.
It's remarkable how much difference even a very small amount of padding makes. The jump from "bare hard floor" to "unfolded corrugated cardboard box" is really substantial.
Jammies bought me one of those, and it really isn't the worst. I tend to slide off it, though.
59: you're going to think you've gone to heaven when you try a bed.
The Thermarest self-inflating ones are pretty tough. You want something under them, but they aren't as fragile as the newer inflatable kinds that are less heavy.
You know what's durable? The hide of a genetically engineered dog.
Are you being gross about Spike again?
47 Come out of the safety of your pack and say that to my face. Coward.
Ume brought back futons from Japan, which she slept on on the floor for the first few months she was in the UK. They weren't that thick, and when she started dating NW he was keen that she invest in a bed, but she was sentimentally attached to them and kept putting off the purchase. Then one afternoon NW took a nap in the bedroom by himself, so that evening I pissed liberally on the futons to demonstrate who's the most important male in her life. She had to throw them out and buy a bed, which made NW very happy.
Ume might have wondered once or twice if it was really cat pee ... but I still piss on their bedding occasionally, just to remind them both who's boss.
You started that. And I'm confident Spike isn't literally a dog, despite the pseud.
66.last Solidarity little sister.
65: Bring down your own gazelle fair and square, then we can talk. Layabout.
69 was me. Fuck off, human, before I chew your bones to odorless shit.
And I'm confident Spike isn't literally a dog, despite the pseud.
I associate the name Spike with Tom Petty. ("Hey, Spike, you're scaring my wife!")
More so than a post about how sleeping hurts?
Basically the first thing I did after getting back from Japan last month was buy some tatami mats and a floor futon. Hells yeah, said I, who needs beds? No one peed on it, but the scavenging seven-year-old claimed the futon mattress as her kill and dragged it off into a closet, where she now nests for hours in the dark while listening to audiobooks on her tablet.
Joints are timeless. Tom Petty isn't.
And by joints I mean the bones lourdes' kid gnaws in her lair, even if mom is too polite to mention it.
I slept on a camp bed when I went to a music festival with my dad last summer. It was definitely better than sleeping on the ground.
Mostly Tom Petty makes me grimace. But every now and then his songs make me think, "oh yeah, we really did grow up in the same town." When he's not being too heavy-handed and forced cheesy, and is being just more ratty. I think the ratty era ended with Free Falling.
I do like hearing other parents who think of their children as barely tamed animals prowling through their homes. Although mine are of course almost released into the wild.
66 is hilarious, and the best part is that I can't tell which adult is acting as amanuensis.
The kids I teach aren't even mine but are 100% goddamn animals. Literally crawling all over me (in absurdly adorable fashion).
but the scavenging seven-year-old claimed the futon mattress as her kill and dragged it off into a closet
I dragged off a bean bag and put it in a bath tub in an unused bathroom, in my childhood home, and nested there for years.
They prod my keloids and pose a stuffed rabbit on my head. If they were bigger it would cannibalism for sure.
Hypertrophic scars. Whatever.
The advice I have received for back health is to sleep on the firmest mattress you can tolerate. Following this advice has served me very well.
71: That's odd. I've never heard that Tom Petty song. And I'm kind of a fan. I even went to a concert.
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"When people passed by the plantations while [workers] were spraying chemicals, they suffered from bleeding and fainting, and some were hospitalized,"
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They should have hospitalized all the people who were bleeding.
77: I told you it was a safe assumption. Actually, I also slept on a floor futon in a closet in college.
Its the internet - you aren't supposed to know I'm a dog.
I probably don't want to know how many times that's been reworked into "On the internet, EVERYONE knows you're a dog."
I'm happy with my cardboard box. I've always been a modest man.
Why would it matter which amanuensis I used? Any of my humans may be replaced by any other.
When I first got my apartment in China my 70 odd year old roommate welcomed me with brand new planks for my bed. Hauled them up five flights of stairs, wouldn't let me help. Sleeping on anything else would have been churlish.
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For my next kindle purchase, I'm thinking of Kotsko's Neoliberalism's Demons. Opinions?
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I think it has a brilliant thesis and I enjoyed the first third of it but I think its written above my grade level.
I'm basically opposed to the word "neoliberal" being used without either sarcasm or detailed definition, but I did like Awkwardness.
Last time I slept in a tent it had a heated queen-size bed in it. Never going back.
I can take a bit of cold. Can sleep, in a sleeping bag (and recently have done so), in sub-zero temperatures (when you don't even want to wake up and emerge from your sleeping bag cocoon, because: COLD!). But I need a nice pillow, and that's my princess and the pea standard.
Speaking of cots, this is the REI sale week. If you're a member, and since you're middle class white people who camp let's assume you are, you get 20% off one item. It's probably not going to get cheaper to get the nice one.
And this is how to build your own teardrop trailer.
You could build a pretty sweet teardrop trailer out of cob.
because of various mental health problems girl x is suffering from (in part caused by school exam time taking place at the same time as the SAT subject exams), I am sleeping on the floor of her room on the mattress intended for the now defunct trundle bed. it is like unto a rock. however it's actually been ok, and preferable to sleeping with her to ward off demons and insomnia (not actual demons). she is a kicker. once you go away to college, having your mother sleep with you is not an option, so I hope we find some better coping strategies. maybe during the next bout I'll try to take it to the next level and sleep on cardboard, which I hear is full of corrugated comfort.
our younger cat recently pissed on girl y's clothes, and given the precision, apparently to express her disapproval of booty shorts.
Last time I slept in a tent it had a heated queen-size bed in it
That's between 5% and 10% larger than a normal queen-sized bed, depending on your monarch's coefficient of thermal expansion.
re: 75 and 83
xelA has a nest behind his bookshelf, with a couple of old padded activity mats from when he was a baby, and a rug, and some cushions and teddies to make a little space he can go into and sit with toys/books. He also hides there if he's up to no good.
shit, as I get older I have lost my ability to sleep on soft surfaces. Those foam mattress toppers are instant (subjectively) neck and lower back pain. I greatly prefer sleeping on my therma-rest mattress. And the foam ones sprung leaks all the time, even when not bringing the dog along on camping trips.
The Exped inflatable sleeping pads are the ones backpackers go to when they are side sleepers and need more padding (because of hips digging in). They have heavier versions for car camping, too. They are much, much thicker than the Thermarest pads. I used one happily for a few years until it developed a minor puncture that I couldn't find.
They're not self-inflating, so either buy a pump or use your breath.
I tend to find it near impossible to sleep in any other position than curled on one side - and at that point the floor starts to hurt hips and ankles - being the things that stick out.
Not necessarily mattress related but it seems to also be true that I sleep better under a weighty covering.
Some people cut their way into the middle of the tauntaun, some people just lay down underneath it.
I have got better at sleeping in a hammock, though. Or maybe just better at putting one up in the dark so it's comfortable.
Under what circumstances would you need to put up a hammock in the dark?
Do you holiday below the decks in a man of war?
I can see the skill would also be useful if you were sharing a damp cave with a hibernating bear whom you did not wish to disturb. But you can't just leave that statement hanging there, no matter how comfortable it is as it gently swings.
Under what circumstances would you need to put up a hammock in the dark?
Under what circumstances would you want to put up a hammock in daylight? The hammock's for sleeping in. I sleep during the night, when it's dark.
Not necessarily mattress related but it seems to also be true that I sleep better under a weighty covering.
I am intensely curious to try one of those weighted blankets, but even though they claim to be not hot, it's really hard to imagine how they couldn't be.
Maybe it's just lumps of lead in a net.
@118 me too, on which note, opinions on woollen duvets?
I didn't even know that existed, unless it's just a blanket.
Distinct from woollen blankets. Also @118 - I expect it could be replicated using some kind of elasticated netting.
Do you holiday below the decks in a man of war?
To be fair, this fits my image of ajay. He could be tourism director for the Ministry of Defence.
opinions on woollen duvets
I don't have much of an opinion! I know people swear they're pleasant in hot climates, but it's hard to get past the cognitive dissonance.
123: when you think about, the British Empire was really just a prolonged episode of particularly insistent tourism.
Weighted blankets were initially developed as an alternative to restraints on psych units. They are supposed to be soothing.
120 I first read that as "wooden duvets" which was a great image.
The implications of 126 for 118 are left as an exercise for the reader.
They used to run mental institutions on the basis of "If it would cost us money to prevent pain or discomfort, science shows that people with mental illness cannot experience that kind of pain or discomfort."
My favorite quilts are the ones with worn holey wool blankets used as the filling. Probably because they're soothing. They are warm eventually -- takes longer to warm up than a fluffy down duvet does, but then you're good for the night.
They stay warm for long enough to get up to urinate and come back? Asking for a friend whose prostate isn't getting any younger.
The French word for duvet is couette. Couette with cheese.