mr. sandman?

i think i'm at my best, as a writer, when i can't sleep. my mind is filled to capacity with crazy thoughts, masking themselves at the time as creativity or brilliance. i'm convinced that every noise i hear is either michael and steph upstairs trying to get my attention to tell me there's another fire outside my window, or that the cats are again wrestling with a poor mouse. in truth, the noises are the natural nighttime noises of my creaky old house or the wind against the windows.

i haven't gotten a good night's sleep in a couple of weeks now. i'm not sure what's going on, but i've definitely been perfecting my skills as an insomniac. it follows a predictable pattern -- i go to bed at my usual time, feeling sleepy, but a few hours later i begin the cycle of tossing and turning and waking and sleeping and mind-racing and impatience. by the time the morning comes, pillows and blankets have all spilled off my bed onto the floor. and i feel exhausted.

when i wake up in the middle of the night, i refuse to get out of bed, because that's admitting defeat. i'd rather wait it out, prove to my brain that i CAN and WILL go back to sleep. and looking at the clock is the other big no-no. but last night, i cheated... i folded... i looked... and what did i see? the numbers on my clock said, gloatingly and victoriously: 3:29. ugh.

my head was full of what seemed at the time to be the greatest, most well-composed blog post of all time. i'm going to go on believing that to be true, too. in all reality, my head was full of irrationalities, overtirednesses. my mind was skipping around like a scratched record, always returning to the following: to what degree? how far? what now, then?

what does it all mean? why can't i get a good night's sleep? i'm going to the gym after school today to try to exercise my energy away so that maybe i'll have a restful night tonight.

(coincidentally, NPR right now is talking about a lawsuit involving instances of sleepwalking in patients taking the sleeping pill ambien. huh.)