Stupid Brain

Listening to: the voices in my head.

It's 2:37 a.m., and I'm awake.

Why, you ask? Good question. Ostensibly, my insomnia is due to too much caffeine. Apparently, I'm getting old (the gray hairs that multiply every time my roots start to show agree).

But something happened in the three hours I lay awake in bed. My brain started going...and going...and going...until it got to my query letter. I've been trying to revamp it, but have been stuck on one particular paragraph that I couldn't seem to fix. For several very frustrating days.

And just like that (imagine me snapping my fingers here), I had the solution. I don't normally leave a nice warm bed to write in the wee hours, but I was terrified that the shiny new sentences would evaporate by morning. There was nothing to do but get out of bed and get them on paper--or laptop, rather.

So here I am, working on my query letter at nearly 3 a.m. Yes, it is a certain kind of madness, this writing thing.

But at least it's a fun madness.

Early Morning Calls

I love my friends, I really do. Even when they call me at 1:15 a.m., leave a long, rambling message in which it is discovered that they called me for song lyrics, and neglect to wish me a happy birthday while they're at it....

*Grits teeth* I do love my friends, I do love my friends, I do love my friends....

The Insomnia Returns...

Listening to: Less than Jake, "Mostly Memories"

Well, I guess I won't be taking Ambien anymore. My doc only prescribed it last month, after a long bout of insomnia left me frazzled and on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I thought it was a freakin' godsend, and I really loved that I could fall asleep without laying awake for five hours. Yeah...that was nice.

It got me into a nice sleep schedule after about a week, and I started falling asleep quickly without even taking it. Good stuff! I took it again Monday night after laying awake for an hour, fretting over family stuff.

Then I read that it carries a risk of, of all damn things, sleep-driving. Now, I wouldn't be terribly concerned if I didn't have a history of sleepwalking. I probably haven't done it (that I'm aware of) since I was about thirteen. One of my favorite sleepwalking stories involves my mom, drawn by the sound of running water in the bathroom at some ungodly hour of the night, discovering me just about to climb into a very hot shower. In my pajamas. Asleep.

I used to worry that I would sleepwalk my way into traffic or something, but I never imagined that sleep-driving was a worry. That and, according to the article, sleep-sex, sleep-food-preparation-and-consumption, and sleep-dialing*. Imagine those phone calls....

I can certainly live without sleep drugs, although I'm sure my time spent laying awake in bed, elbowing The Husband in the ribs to stop his snoring, will once again increase.

Yeah, I'll take that over hittin' the highway in my sleep, any day.



*My freshman year of college, I had a conversation with a friend, on the phone, while asleep. I had fallen asleep watching Liar, Liar, and I proceeded to tell her that I was--I'm not joking, here--a lawyer who couldn't tell lies. In that case, however, she called me and I answered the phone in my sleep. I have no memory of the conversation, but she called me the next day and told me all about it--she'd spent the intervening time worrying that I'd developed some grievous mental illness that caused hallucinations.