Evolution, Revolution III: Ass End of the Night

Evolution, Revolution III: Ass End of the Night

The section, we call "Thoughts from the Ass End of the Night."

I'm a bit of an insomniac. I go through phases. I can go months sleeping my needed 6-7 hours a night.

Sometimes, I'll have a night or two where I sleep a couple or three hours.

Occasionally, I'll have long bouts with the condition. The longest, and scariest, of these came early this year. I had a lot of things on my mind, and I ended up going about three months where I'd go at least 5 nights a week on less than four hours sleep--truth be told, I probably should have sought help, and if I ever get to that place again, I will.

But most of my insomnia is a sporadic thing, no different than what most people suffer. I'm the type that wakes up in the middle of the night, usually to take a whiz, and can't fall back to sleep.

It's a frustrating thing. But the worst thing I can do, I've found, is lie in bed trying to fall back to sleep. I usually make myself get up and do something. Watch TV. Read. Do Dishes. Or write junk for the interweb.

This blog is mostly about what's on my mind. It's a purgative, it gets the junk out of my head.

And at night? When I can't sleep? Sometimes the stuff don't come out as funny. At worst, the Ass End posts can become maudlin' whirlpools of self-loathing. At best, they can be stream-of-consciousness gems, if I do say so myself.

I post what I think of as a gem, from November of 2004:

Thoughts from the Ass End of the Night

Ah, the Insomnia Posts.

In the past, a staple of the BSTommy experience. Here lately, I've been sleeping a bit better. But the past couple of nights have kinda sucked. And here I am, up and around at 2:30 in the AM.

I was having a dream. Not a bad dream, or a good dream, particularly. Just a dream about something pretty mundane, driving. But the dream was a bit tenacious, in that it kept wanting to be dreamed even while I was awake. I woke up out of the dream, but kept struggling to knock the dream out of my head. I'd try to start thinking of something else, or nothing at all, but my brain would just kind of fall back into the rhythm of that dream.

Sorry, boring, I know. But it's what woke me up. I'm the one more annoyed. I'm the one up at 2:30 instead of sleeping.

Maybe if I'd just wandered back into my driving dream, I'd be asleep now.

I'm quite the fool.

Obi Wan had something to say about fools.

Obi Wan had some balls, talking to Han Solo like that, what with his Wookiee.

I always kind of thought of that guy who travelled around with Michael Landon in Highway to Heaven as a wookiee. We got to talking about that show at work one day, and I couldn't think of the actor's name, or even the character's name, so I just referred to him as Chewbacca.

We talk about Highway to Heaven a lot at work.

A lot.

I've been struggling with a light cold for a couple of days now. More than anything, it just leaves me feeling worn out and run down. But I've got the stuffy head and scratchy throat, too. That may be part of my problem with this whole being awake thing. Come to think of it, I don't feel really good right now.

Maybe I'll call in tomorrow.

Eh. I'm too stupid to call in.

Is it cold where you are? It's kinda chilly where I am. In the 30's. Cool enough for a fire. But there's no fire. Thus, it's kinda chilly.

My radio just scared the shit out of me. I'd hit the sleep button for the radio, where it plays for an hour while you go to sleep, in hopes of falling right back to sleep...stupid mundane dreaming had other things to say. It was playing in the background...George Noory's talking about A.I. and all that jazz. But the radio cut off a few minutes ago. I figured I'd hit my 59 minutes. But it just cut the hell back on. Turns out the station had been doing the dead air thing while George was at station break.

You have no idea how much that frightened me.

I've been screaming for the past 20 minutes because of it.

Yep.

I went out to Nashville this past weekend. Saw my friends Julie and Jason. We hung out. It was weird just how much heading out to Murfreesboro felt like I'd just been gone a week or two. I've been out here in East TN for four months now. File that one under time flies, I guess.

Picked up the Proclaimers CD with I'm Gonna Be on it, just in case that little booger got in my head again, while I was at Great Escape. The only way to exorcise that demon is to play a song over and over, don't you know?

Or, you could use Mr. Burns' memory eraser. But that seems like an extreme measure, for an 80's pop tune.

Anyway. I've bored you folks enough. Let's try this sleep thing again. No stupid insipid dreams about driving my truck. Power of positive thinking, and whatnot.