Sleep=HAH--Nope.

     I really like those Lunesta commercials. You know, the ones with the delicate little Luna Moth fluttering in slow-mo over people as they softly drift off to sleep. I wish I could relate.

     Insomnia and I are old acquaintances. I can't say "friends". No, Insomnia is like that one person in sitcoms, who busts in at the worst moment, often uninvited, makes a damn nuisance of themselves and seems to exist for wacky hi-jinx. The family tolerates Insomnia, who arrives in a cloud of overly-warm nights and snoring humans, and rouses them to flop around like a beached fish in bed, fussing with covers, counting sheep and wondering if it's worth it to go warm up some milk. She drags them to work, barely conscious, and vanishes, right when you need to stay awake. Then, she returns around 9:00 PM, dragging a guinea hen named Ferdinand and a badly-tuned lute. She might leave around sunrise the next morning, but the damage is done.

     Usually, I chase Insomnia out with a few Unisom. But, the trouble is, two Unisom can escalate to horking down the bottle and doing the chinchilla dust bath dance until 6:00 AM. So, I'm trying to cut back, especially on weekends. This weekend, I have no LARPs or long car trips to wear me out. I have ignored the bottle of jewel-like, peacock blue gel caps on my nightstand. I have struggled to wear myself out, while maintaining enough stamina to do housework when the rest of the house is awake. Yet, here I am, giving up at 4:15 AM, and waffling on that precipice called "too tired to sleep".

     I don't know if it's my brain, addled by a lower serotonin level than is healthy. I don't know if I sleep too much. Maybe I drink too much caffeine. Whatever it is, I wish it would stop. I wish I could write Insomnia's wacky self off to Idaho to raise guinea fowl, or study the lute in Finland, or marry her off to some billionaire in Taipei, who is charmed by her whimsy and good-natured intrusiveness. Insomnia can write, or maybe visit when there's a nightclub that needs livening up or a project that needs finishing right the hell now.

     But, right now, Insomnia? Could you please take Ferdy and the lute and your adorably garish fashion sense back home? I'm trying to catch a slo-mo Luna Moth.