i'm wide awake...i'm wide awake...i'm not sleeping...

for the past two weeks, i've perhaps slept a total of 50 hours. maybe three or four more. i slept more when i had newborns in the house. tiny creatures who demanded attention deep into the night in the form of food, love, binks or simple reassurance i was still there and i still adored their very souls.

sure. sometimes i pretended to be asleep when they needed these things. when their very whimpers tapped me on the shoulder and reminded me i was responsible. but in my acting, i'd be awake, in the dark. listening to my husband care for them or waiting for his hushed voice as he brought them to me.

now. now it's just me and 2 a.m., and 2 a.m. isn't the best company for me. i've not a clue why i'm doing this to myself. coming home from work late doesn't allow me to immediately dash to bed. i simply can't. impossible to shut my mind off.

now it's happening even on nights i don't work. weekends. i can't seem to recall a complete night of solid, satisfying r.e.m.s (here's where i start dancing to "shiny, happy people" but you can't see me...).

so i pace a bit. pick up here and there. scan the tivo list. catch up on emails. clean out emails (seriously? 164 emails sent in the last couple of months? no one needs to hear from me that much, though i dig hearing back from them. yes. 'them.' i have friends and such, so trust that all those emails aren't going to one person). i watch television shows online. read websites for magazines i subscribe to already. read what's going on in your lives. chat here and there with some friend who suffers from the lingering effects of a former third shift job he no longer holds. get some very nice visits. very nice, indeed.

it's silliness. i've reached a point where it's truly becoming mind over matter. when i do slink off to bed, i make a promise to myself that i have to be somewhat rested by the time i'm yanked out of sleep about four hours later. somehow i manage to not be a raging beast come noon. i don't yell. i don't argue.

i don't do much.

it's showing. sometimes, when the ups or fedex man makes his daily appointment at my doorstep, i expect it to be a camera crew from some tabloid program at the door with a producer hovering under a boom mic, asking me when i gave up. "when did you let your house become a halfway house. a place for transients? what has made you like this?"

(sidebar. do you think if i let things go utterly out of control, packrat like, mike rowe will show up? someone keep tabs on me and i'll let you know when to visit the "dirty jobs" website and suggest me for a program. i mean suggest my environment. heh...)

i'm exhausted. every morning, as i glance at the mirror, take a deep breath and count to 10, i tell myself "not again. please? for me?" for now, i'm left staring back at the beauty of a tired face and disheveled pigtails. and my reflection is taunting me. "sure...we'll go to bed at 11 tonight. and btw...you look stunning in pigtails."

yep. so if you need me, look for me around 1:30 a.m. or so. cripes. i'm up longer than the neighbors living behind me i'd dubbed "the vampires" simply because they only come out at night ("watch out boy, she'll chew you up..."). even they're heading to bed before the sun considers an encore.

i babble a lot more when i'm tired, too. sorry!

maybe i really just wanted an excuse to add this video. this song tears me apart. god. it's perfection in verse, chorus, verse. the homage to the stones near the end ("pleased to meet you...hope you guess my name...") is bliss. commit to it. then try to convince me this isn't some generational theme gifted to us. it's rattle and hum, baby.

somehow, in some aspect of my life, i want to have this song played for me.

a lullaby, perhaps.

U2 Bad (Rattle and Hum)