Insomnia

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11:09pm.   Oh crap.   I’m up already?

 I just went to bed an hour and a half ago.  I should be in deep REM sleep.  Usually I don’t wake for my ‘man over 40’ bathroom break until two or three am.   Ok, maybe I can close my eyes I’ll drift off again.  Let me think about something, well there is that new policy I have to write tomorrow.  I hate policies, I guess I could try and reach out to my counterparts to borrow one of theirs to use as a template  but the guidance from the state is so new, nobody has written anything I can use.  I always feel like a Lawyer should write these things, especially the new ones, not me.  Crap, I’ll never get back to sleep if I think about work.   Calculating taxes and planning if I won this weeks’ lotto jackpot always helps me, let me think of that.   Let’s see, If I won $2,000,000 megaplier, then I could take home about 1,250,000.   Pay off the house and get some toys, and I’ll be at one million.  Using the Trinity study and creating my own self directed annuity then I can pull about 40K/annually or a bit over 3K/month.   Well that means one of us can stop working, and it’s not going to be me.  We’ll have to account for the medical insurance out of pocket.  That’s an extra 1K/month minimum.  It’s going to come out of my paycheck or hers.  This isn’t working.  Maybe if I calculate our lifestyle at three million….  What about four.            

11:22 pm.   Well I’ve been through every financial model and permutation of lottery wins I can think of and I’m still wide awake.    It looks like my own person version of counting sheep is failing me tonight.  Damm, that usually works!   My back is acting up, maybe I can get a pillow.   I should really get one for the office too.   I hate that i’m more chained down these days.  I really like engaging people but it seems like all I ever do is go over relentless mounds of paperwork and never ending emails.  With the cutbacks they keep getting rid of people. I wonder if they want to get rid of me?  maybe I didn’t respond to the vendor properly.  I know my boss gave me that look.  If I keep think about that I’ll never ever get to sleep.  Let me try and close my eyes and think about nothing.

1:05 am.  Well I guess I drifted off for a little bit, but that didn’t help.   I wish I could get to sleep.

It’s so quiet here, well that’s because the kids are asleep.   That’s good, I hope the tutoring is going ok.  My child is too damn smart to need a tutor.  If the freekin’ school system would just realize that a cattle prod coupled with a few hours of one on one is all he needs.  But that’s not how the school system is structured. It’s why he’s not getting an education and I have to do it all over again with the next one.  At least when they aren’t in school I won’t have to think about daycare costs.  I mean $600 a month just so I can go to work, and I have a deal… it’s insane.. Wait, i can’t keep thinking about this now. I’ll never get back to sleep.   Well only fifteen more years until they are both out of the house.  

1:41 am.  Crap.. this isn’t working.   All I keep thinking about is work or bills.   I’m not going to get to sleep like this.  Reading didn’t help.  Maybe I can play a video game.  I’m half way through the latest Legend of Zelda.   It’s a huge game.  Maybe it’ll help me forget about the last email I got this afternoon.. I’ll never get to sleep if I keep thinking about that one.     

2:33 am.   Well I just finished two shrines, and I don’t want to play anymore.  This is so weird.  I’m too awake to sleep but too tired to even play a video game for more than an hour.  I guess it’s good, maybe I will finally fall asleep.  You know what, maybe I should take that melatonin.   It’ll help me sleep, but I have to be up at 4:30, I have to get the workout in.   If I take that stuff, I tend to be groggy in the morning.   It’s surprising that something that is labeled ‘all natural’ actually works.  Maybe it’s actually not as green as they make it out to be.   I guess any lab manufactured chemical compound is technically ‘all natural’ because everything comes from earth, and earth is natural, right?   This isn’t working.  Maybe I can walk around the house.  I just saw that motion sensitive light turn on.  That means something is walking around outside.  I wonder if it’s the possum?  Those things are pretty cool, especially when they run up the trees.  I hope it’s not the neighbors cat again.  Footprints all over the damn car and then I have to have my wife nag at me to get it cleaned and then she’ll want me to get the oil changed or fix the brakes.  “That’s a man’s work”. What happened to sexual equality?  And Brakes, tires, it’s all so expensive now.  A set of tires used to be $200, now it’s closer to $600.  I don’t recall my pay tripling.   Gas went down, why didn’t tires?  It’s all made of oil, isn’t it?  

3:00 am.    (walking around downstairs)  Well didn’t see anything at the windows.  I do like the glow coming from the curio cabinet, it’s such a cool effect at night.   I should probably just walk up and down the hallway.   That way my footsteps won’t wake anyone.   There is grandpa’s picture.  I wonder what he would think if he knew the whole family had his stuff spread over the entire country?  I wonder if Dad has any of grandpa’s stuff?   I wonder if anyone is going to want my stuff?  Wait, that’s too morbid, i’m not going to tire myself out if I don’t stop thinking like that.   I definitely have been pacing too long because my legs are starting to feel achy.  I guess I could stretch my calves like my friend taught me, that may help.  I should just go back up to my chair and see if I can fall asleep.  

4:00 am.   Well screw it.  This isn’t working.   I’m just going to get up and get my workout in.  Maybe I can come up with some good ideas for posts for the blog while i’m on the treadmill.   It’s been awhile since I’ve written about some of the things that kept me up tonight.   Maybe I can write about stress and the resulting insomnia.  It’s a good idea but I probably shouldn’t do it today though, I’m so delirious from not getting any sleep it’ll wind up being a really weird post.