insomnia

I stopped for a drink with a classmate last night, and upon arriving home, my alcohol induced sleep worked like a charm. That is, until about 2 am, at which time the caffeine from the coffee that I had before class burned off the alcohol and left me wide awake.

As I lay there, trying to coax myself back to sleep, an Ashlee Simpson song began running through my head. Knowing full well that Ashlee Simpson songs were not going to be very conducive for sleep, I forced it out.

I settled in, ready for sleep to come, when I realized that my nose was disproportionately cold to the rest of my body. Unhappy with the temperature of my nose, I pulled the covers up over my head. But this style of sleeping has never suited me. Covers over my face always leave me thinking that I'm going to suffocate during the night...and as I lay there, I envisioned the oxygen levels slowly decreasing underneath the blankets. Soon after, and feeling much like someone that had a plastic bag wrapped over their head while being trapped inside a refrigerator, I burst out from the covers gasping for air.

Once I was sure that oxygen was again filling my lungs, I started to wonder if I would have a chance with Heather Armstrong, over at dooce.com, if she ever left her husband. I realized, though, how pathetic it was to have an internet crush on someone, so I began considering my chances with Sarah Michelle Gellar instead. Of course, coming off of the success of her movie The Grudge, I knew that I had no chance at all, with her career still being in high swing and all...so I made a mental note to revisit this fantasy if she ever decided to do Scooby Doo 3.

I really did want to get back to sleep, so I decided to go the whole Zen route and regulate my breathing, while clearing my mind. So there I laid, deeply breathing in that Freon tinged air. Naturally, all this cold air was also quite dry. And in no time, my tongue was the consistency of sandpaper. Knowing, though, that if I got up to get a glass of water, my whole body would be wide awake, what with the flowing of blood and all, so instead I chose to close the mouth and breathe through the nose.

Which was fine, except that the air was still just as dry. And through all of this nose breathing, my mucous soon crystallized. Laying there, I could feel all those snot crystals, much like Folger's Crystals I imagined, hardening in my nose. After a few more seconds of this, my nose itching more and more with each crystal that I imagined was forming like a stalactite in my nostril, I found myself in a flurry of nose scratches.

Once assured that my decrystallization scratching had worked, I got myself comfortable again. And that damn Ashley Simpson song started running through my head again. Now, while I don't condone lip syncing, I have to admit that some of her songs are quite catchy. So I laid there and listened to it for awhile. But by this time, the floodgates were open, and my brain simply couldn't be contained. Did I pay that Verizon bill this month? Thai food might be good for lunch tomorrow. How much longer can I drive on my sixteenth of a tank of gas before I'm going to have to call AAA for a tow?

And I thought that once technology got to the point where they could implant little computer chips into our brains, I was definitely going to order one with an on/off switch. Of course, with a computer chip it will be very easy to download porn off the internet and straight onto my brain, and then I would simply have one more reason to stay awake.