Insomnia

How cute is this guy?  I'd count lots of
these if I thought it would help!

I'm retro-posting this because even though it would seem like not being able to sleep would give me plenty of time to blog, it hasn't.  I have had trouble sleeping for a long time now.  I'm taking steps to find a solution, but the causes of my sleeplessness are many and varied, so it's not as simple to cure as it might first appear.  "They make sleep aids, Jenny," I hear some of you saying (especially you, best-friend-who- has-spent-the-last-20-years-I've-known-you-in-school- [of some kind, be it regular 5th-12th or all that was beyond] studying-to-become-a-pharmacist.)  "just take one and go to bed."

Well, I would love to.  Problem is, I have never had a tolerance for any kind of pharmaceuticals, and even mild over-the-counter stuff messes with my delicate system and renders me catatonic and unable to function.  (I am already not functioning due to sleep deprivation, but the meds make me have a headache and feel icky on top of it and even MORE unable to function.  I'll take the lesser unpleasantness, thanks.)  In addition, I have dependents who need me to do things for them at certain times each day, and I can't fulfill those responsibilities if I'm knocked out by (safe, legal and even prescribed) drugs.  It's a paradox.  I can't not sleep, but I can't take drastic measures to make myself sleep.  Sigh.  Why is it always complicated??

Things I can't do while only getting a maximum of 3 hours of sleep per night for more than 4 consecutive nights:
1. Drive for any length of time.  Thankfully, the places I generally HAVE to go are within a 10 mile radius (and I would never get behind the wheel if I knew I wasn't safe to do so.  I'm mostly talking hour long trips across Atlanta here.)
2. Blog.  I stare at the blank screen and... I got nothin'.  Which always sucks, but even more so when it's in the middle of the A-Z Challenge!!! :P
3.Work.  Big things are happening for Lucy Jane and I have to come up with a solution fast, because even cutting out pattern pieces is taking WAY WAY longer than it should.
4. Deal with 4 Gremlins (cute as they may be) alone while Husband is still away for work in a non-irritable way.  ... I don't think I need to expound on this one at all.  Self explanatory.  I want to be all cuddly and happy with them and I can't when their normal being children-ness gets on my nerves.
5. Write letters.  At least, coherent and non-weird ones.  My 52 Weeks of Mail project has been all but abandoned and I feel terrible for that, but still can't seem to drag myself back into the mix and get caught up on all of the replies I need to write.  My brain is just all... fuzzy.


Things that make sleepless nights more bearable:

1. After reaching the point where keeping all the electronics off just isn't making any difference in being able to fall asleep, I have burned through seasons 1-3 of The Big Bang Theory.  It's good company.

2. Steam Powered Giraffe.  Every day I discover footage of them on YouTube I haven't seen yet and my fangirl crush on the trio of 116 year old automatons is growing steadily deeper.  (In a cute, non creepy kind of way.  Promise.  Although I did look up the cost of airfare out to San Diego to calculate how much meeting them in person and getting some autographs would cost.  They are super talented!  Don't judge me!  Watch enough of their stuff on the interwebs at 3 AM, and you would probably find yourself comparing a non-stop on Delta with a one-stop in Denver on US Airways too!!  Don't believe me?  Go watch yesterday's video a few hundred times.  Yeah, I thought so. :})


3. Tea.  No, it's decaf.  Even sleep deprived, I'm not an idiot, not by any stretch of the imagination.
4. Dreaming up new ideas for work, even if I can't immediately make them happen in my less than optimum current state.  I put them down in a notebook and some of them are quite good and worth following up on.  Once I've... gotten some sleep.  Sigh.


We'll try again tonight.  Meanwhile, I'm going to go try to get some basic things accomplished (making lunch, catching up/scheduling both blogs, going to the bank and constructing some fairies) in the hopes that it will wear me out sufficiently and I will crash into bed at a decent hour tonight (Friday.  Retro-posting, remember?) and get this sleep ship righted before next week.  Because I have a life I desperately want to get back to. o_O