Both Sunday and Monday night I couldn’t sleep.  Sunday it could’ve been because I’d had such a good day and night that the bright light of it all cast my quiet mind into shadow.  Maybe I shouldn’t watch Breaking Bad AND Dexter before lying down.  Monday I spent the entire day exhausted, with a lump in my throat, like a weepy sleepy child.  When I got home from work I picked up some food for my wife and I and we watched football.  I slipped into a dozen or so micronaps during half-time and by the time the game was over I was wide awake.  I laid awake and stared at the dark ceiling wondering what it would feel like to have one or more of my toes chopped off.  I would lie on my stomach and wonder what the knife would feel like if it slid into my kidney.  I would turn on my side and wonder how far an invading rodent could chew through the veins and arteries in my leg before I woke up screaming.  When I was able to push those thoughts away I would hear selections from Macklemore’s “Can’t Hold Us”, which I absolutely loathe.  It drove me mad.  By the time I finally slipped into sleep I was completely insane with my own darkness.

Last night I chose to combat this unending brain train head-on.  I stopped by Target on the way home and picked up Star Trek Into Darkness and a bottle of Crown Royal.  I watched the movie while drinking whiskey, then watched the special features, then watched Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  By the time I was done cramming my mind with virtually weightless pop culture and dulling it with 9 fingers of whiskey, it was 2am.  I opened the window in the living room and laid down on the couch and fell into an easy and long sleep.  It worked!  I had finally won a match over the darkness.

But this is no life plan.  I slept on the couch because I knew I would snore like a bear pulling a Buick out of its ass and I didn’t want to disturb my wife.  This desire is two-fold: I don’t want to disturb her out of love, and I also didn’t want to wake up to discover I’d driven her from the bedroom with my noise and feel the subsequent guilt that accompanies that discovery.  I can’t drink myself to sleep every night, I can’t sleep on the couch every night, and I doubt I could find as fulfilling a double-feature every night.  There has to be a better answer; and actual solution.

Perhaps I should get back into my hobbies.  I had said that I’d be reading, writing, and making more music these months, but my laptop is dead, so music is kind of out.

If you ask someone “How are you?” are they constantly answer something negative or frightening, how long do you keep asking before you abandon them entirely?  In my experience, it’s one day.  That’s why the face I wear looks so pleasant; ’cause that’s how you need to see me.  But that’s not me.

All kidding aside, Macklemore needs to stop making music.