If You Give An Insomniac A Cookie

It’s 3:52 a.m. and I am wide awake.

This doesn’t happen to me very often. I’m usually a really good sleeper. I’ve had a few sleepless nights the last couple of weeks, though, and I’m not sure if it’s due to my recent surgery and the after effects or just the fact that I’m not tired because I’m not doing anything to make myself tired.

Or maybe it’s the fact that The Husband Dude stayed up late watching T.V., then crawled into bed next to me at 3 a.m., wrapped himself around me, and proceeded to cut down the whole damned Redwood Forest right in my ear.

After laying there for half an hour, unable to sleep, I got up to make some herbal tea and listen to the rain. Of course, at that point, I was even more awake so I started trolling social media and my blog and I realized that my link to my newest collection in my Zazzle shop was broken. There was no way I was going to sleep knowing that link wasn’t working, so I had to go and fix it, which I was never able to.

I apologize if you have tried to view my Hysterectomy collection of cards and gifts. I’m working with Zazzle to fix the problem and will let you know when you can view the new products.

Meanwhile, the dog decided that since I was up, she needed to go out and pee. When I let her out, she didn’t like the rain and tried to come back in, but I have a strict “if I have to get my ass up and walk you to the door, you HAVE to pee or poop” policy. So we had a standoff through the window until she finally popped a squat by the patio and then came running back in.

Soaking wet, of course.

I had to grab a towel to dry her off, but realized there was only one of the handful of old towels I set aside specifically for cleaning up her messes, because the others were dirty. I decided I might as well wash all the towels until I remembered I’m not allowed to carry big loads of laundry upstairs to the laundry closet because of my surgery restrictions.

In my fully awake state, I could’ve easily deduced that there’s no way a handful of towels weighs ten pounds, but at 4 a.m. with an entire mug of SleepyTime herbal tea in me, I couldn’t quite do the math.  

Let’s be honest…I can’t do math when I’m fully awake.

So I sat back down with my laptop, and here we are.

That sounded an awful lot like the insomniac’s version of “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie”.

You’re welcome.

 

It’s still weird, though, being up at an hour you’re not used to. I’m acutely aware of all the sounds this house makes now. I can hear the rain. I can hear Shane’s TV in his bedroom. He uses it as a white noise/night light. 

I can hear Kova go back into the bedroom and flop back down on the floor. Apparently, The Husband Dude’s snoring doesn’t bother her one bit. Mr. Luna is alternating between watching out the window and fighting me for the blanket I’ve got wrapped around my legs. I refer to the blanket as his girlfriend, because he likes to do unmentionable things to it.

On a side note, you’re probably wondering why I have a blanket wrapped around my legs when it’s forty thousand degrees outside with 80% humidity.

Mostly, it’s because I sleep in the same bed with a human furnace and the feline Romeo. Our canine has a thick fur coat and the teen sleeps upstairs in what can only be described as the Easy Bake Oven part of the house. The only way we can sleep at night is to set our AC on “Titanic Iceberg” in order to sleep in this kind of heat. So, when I do venture out of bed at night, it’s a bit chilly.

But back to the insomnia…

Apparently, it’s not that unusual for people to be up this early/late, based on the number of likes I got on Facebook when I randomly posted that I’m awake. I’ve noticed, too, that when I review my Google Analytics to see what kind of traffic I’m getting on this blog, a lot of you are reading it in those wee hours of the morning.

So I guess I’m in good company.

I have a question for you insomniacs, though. Do you get a lot of random thoughts about weird shit when you’re up in that half awake/half drowsy mode?

For example, when I was laying there trying to drown out the buzz saw next to me, I suddenly started thinking about cloth diapers. I don’t know why. I never used them.

I’ve always tried to be “green” as much as possible. I try not to use an excessive amount of chemicals for cleaning. We recycle plastics, cardboard, paper, glass…the usual. I try to “upcycle” things in my house and give them new purpose, rather than send them to the landfill.

But cloth diapers. I just never could do it. I’m guilty.

Two hundred thousand years from now when humans are extinct and some alien race is exploring the barren Earth, they’re going to find fossilized human excrement wrapped in plastic decorated with strange little hieroglyphics called “Elmo” and “Blues Clues”. Further, these little plastic preservers of poop will be wrapped in even larger plastics known as “Diaper Genie” bags, strung together and resembling fecal sausages.

There will be tons of these artifacts in giant buried craters known as “landfills” and the advanced alien race will puzzle over what it all means.

Consider it my contribution to the time capsule of humanity.

You’re welcome.

And now, there are birds chirping. Really?!? At this hour?!? What do they possibly have to talk about right now???

I’m imagining some mother bird in her nest, hopelessly tired and trying to gather breakfast for her babies who wake up BEFORE  the ass crack of dawn.

We’ve all been there, mother bird. We feel your pain.

Another random thought…do you realize how many sayings we’ve adopted because of birds?

Empty nesters.

The early bird catches the worm.

Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Maybe we need to print these sayings on diapers so that the aliens can one day wonder why we were so obsessed with birds. I mean, they’re already going to see the ginormous yellow bird that hangs out with Elmo.

Maybe they’ll think Big Bird was a deity that we worshipped.

Would that make Oscar the Grouch the fallen angel in this equation?

I have so many questions now…

But I’ll leave them for another time. I’m going to sprinkle some lavender oil on my pillow and try to get some sleep before the sun actually comes up.

I’ll leave you with an image of Mr. Luna humping his girlfriend-blanket while Barry White plays in the background.

You’re welcome.

Stay weird, my friends. Normal is boring.