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          A                 "Pre-Sleep"                aNAda #44   A
        A                                                            A
     A                      by Phairgirl               04/16/00         A
 A                                                                          A
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	"Each time I write lines for it,
	Someone improvises it.
	Life is so much cleaner on the page."
		--Kevin Moore


	Dammit... it's only 4am.

	I stare blankly at the computer screen for yet another night, hoping
 someone will crawl out of the woodwork and perpetuate some kind of
 conversation, anything to keep me interested and busy so that I don't feel
 the urge to try and sleep.  It's pretty tricky, the whole coming-home-from-
 work-at-3am thing, since not wanting to lay down and trying to keep busy are
 both quite difficult at that hour.  Sometimes it works.  Sometimes I have to
 turn away with my head hung low, no longer able to resist the evil
 temptations of trying to sleep.

	There really isn't much to do to keep occupied until that inevitable
 6am rolls around, and my eyes are finally too heavy to reopen, and I have to
 drag myself through the kitchen to my bedroom and crash quickly and quietly.
 However, I can't stand the thought of having it any other way.  Sometimes
 there's a movie showing late on some crazy pay-channel, sometimes there's an
 interesting conversation online that keeps me satisfied, occasionally I have
 a new magazine to read or a crazy project to divert excess energy.  But when
 there isn't, when I'm forced by nothing but boredom to turn in early, that's
 when I hope I'm much more tired than I feel.

	Either way, it all ends up the same: I round up a cat or four, change
 into sleeping apparel, turn off all the lights and things and curl up under
 the blankets.  Eventually, I have to turn off my lamp and wait for sleep to
 hit.  Of course, I prolong this as much as I can.  Every cat happy, check;
 no clothes left on the floor, check; got a good CD to play as I drift off,
 check; ANYTHING ELSE I CAN POSSIBLY THINK OF;..... finally, check.  Lights
 out.  And that's when the fun begins.

	First I lay on my back.  Then I lay on one side.  Then a cat comes up
 to be pet.  Then I lay on the other side.  Then I lay on the other side
 again.  Then I lay on my stomach.  Then I lay on my other other side.  Et
 cetera.  And at some point in all of this trying-to-get-comfortable
 business, even with a good CD playing and a cute kitty purring in my face,
 my mind keeps wandering to places that I don't want to visit.

	In fact, it amazes me, the insanity of the human condition with which
 I bother myself.  I'm not a socialite, and I'm certainly not on the prowl,
 but for some reason, when I'm trying to sleep, all I can do is wish that
 someone was next to me.  And that's such a crazy, violent thought when I'm
 awake, because I've only been happy when I've been alone.  It's a duality
 that I don't care to deal with in the waking hours, something I'd rather
 shove back into the recesses of nothingness that aren't seen, and therefore,
 don't exist.

	When I'm awake, actually, all of this kind of makes me laugh.  It
 sounds like something written by a crazy woman.  I mean, I'm the first
 person to yell and scream that relationships are awful, horrible beasts, and
 that people should be more self-sufficient and less dependent on others to
 make them feel happy.  In fact, it wasn't until I came to that realization
 myself that I was ever able to cope with things that life threw at me.  And
 it's a tenet that I hold so dear that I don't ever want to claim that I
 would need otherwise.

	But when I'm attempting to sleep, in that awful lag time before I
 have finally drifted off, things cross my mind that I would never, ever
 admit to the real world.  Crazy obsessions, crushes, conversations,
 everything.  It's miserable, lying there, wanting so much that I can never
 bring myself to actualize, not even on my brightest, happiest day.  I live
 out my dreams as I lie there, my imagination running wild.  And every time,
 it ends up the same: I fall asleep, and in the morning, I wake up again.

	You know, life is so much simpler if you don't care about anyone, and
 nobody cares about you.  There's no worries in the world when you have
 nobody to think about but yourself, and you don't have to deal with anyone
 thinking about you.  You can have all the secrets in the world, and it
 doesn't matter, because there's nobody from which to keep them and nobody to
 tell.  Simple.  Easy.

	...empty.

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 {  (c)2000 aNAda e'zine *                       * aNAda044 * by Phairgirl  }
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