I’ve lost my sheep, but I have Restoril!

I seem to be afflicted with what I call new mom insomnia.  Not too uncommon, from what I can tell.

It sucks. Sofie’s been sleeping through the night (10pm-ish to 6am-ish) for a couple of months now.  I, however, am not.

Is it stress?  Is it because after midnight is the only opportunity for me time?  Is it depression?  (Hmm… that reminds me, I might have some old Restoril pills from when I was diagnosed a few years back.)  No doubt, it’s some unsavory goulash combining all of the above.

One of my favorite all-time quotes is from Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles:

The clock struck the solemn hour of one, that hour when fancy stalks outside reason, and malignant possibilities stand rock-firm as facts.

I’ve fallen victim to this state on many an occassion.  It’s produced wonderful artwork; drunk dialing (without being drunk); drunk emailing (again, not literally drunk); ridiculous e-shopping indulgences (have I *ever* worn that Dolce & Gabbana camelhair jacket?); frantically produced research papers; blurry-eyed coding; compulsive Googling; random diatribes intended for no one to read (tonight’s was about renfaire freaks actors.  This guy echoed many of my sentiments.  Yeah, they might as well be carnies or mimes, as far as I’m concerned.); …

So, yeah, I loved that novel. I made it a point to visit the original manuscript on one of my London trips.

Hmm… I wonder what ever happened to Lisa, the sweet young woman I met in that English class that had me reading Tess.  We both fell in love with the book.  We had chatfests and movie showings and teas just to flame our desire.  (She also introduced me to Homemade Pictionary, for which I am forever in her debt.)  Last I knew, she was a manager at Border’s downtown and was planning to go to med school.

If only I could remember her last name, I’d spend the rest of these wee morning hours Googling her.

And I wonder whatever happened with that other Lisa with whom I worked in Oakland in the early 90s.  Very nice, however she closely walked the renfaire-freak-cult line (she sold incense and scented oils at faire), and from whom I learned about faire boogers (boogers turned black from wandering around dirty, dusty muckity-muck all day).  That just made/makes me cringe even more at the whole renfaire freaks players cult scene.  Yeah.  That sounds like loads of fun to me.  Loads of boogery fun, with giant turkey legs to boot. pfff.

If only I could remember Renfaire Lisa’s last name, too, she’d no doubt get her own Google-addressed browser window…

As a teenager, I found it remarkable about myself that I generally only got about 4 hours of sleep each night. Too much else I was inclined to do: listen to music, draw, write, plot my escape,…  (I’ve since come to realize I was clinically depressed way back then… thus, the most likely reason I wasn’t sleeping.)

The bizarro thing about it all is that I LOVE sleep.  I mean, really LOVE it.  Like, I’m one of those people who could easily sleep at least 10 hours a night, if circumstances permitted, and stay in bed for hours thereafter.  (On this subject, I’ve long liked to add that it’s been said Einstein needed 10 hours of sleep a night.)

My love for bed was such that John Gibson, the dear patriarch of the family that adopted me when I moved to Berkeley in 1991, lent me Oblomov as a precautionary tale.  An entertaining read, and I totally related to the whole inertia thing.

Okay.  So I just heard the newspaper delivery car zip in and out of the driveway.  (A neighbor must subscribe. I don’t/won’t subscribe to the SB News-Press.  Pahleez.  Wendy McCaw. Blech.)

Guess I’ll go brush my teeth and put on my jammies before I lay me down to sleep, only to ponder what tomorrow’s late-night rant should be… dog show circuit freaks or ballroom circuit freaks.  (As with the renfaire freakscene, I’ve come dangerously close to both of these, too.)

Aw, damn it.  I just remembered Renfaire Lisa’s last name.  Guess I’ll be up for a little bit longer.

yawn.

(update: It’s now 5:03 a.m. No luck on Renfaire Lisa, other than she and her husband joined UC Berkeley’s botanical garden in 1997.  I used to volunteer there, and met Ari.  He was hot, but much younger than I, and I was happily with Tim.  But still, I am an aesthete.  And he spoke German.  And man-crushed Goethe.  We bonded over Bjork and the fact that my aunt was married to a great-great nephew of Goethe’s.

Good thing I have NO idea what Ari’s last name is cuz I really gotta go to bed now.)

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