My Week 237: 3 AM Eternal Revisited

So I’m going through another bout of insomnia, a condition that I like to call “3 AM Eternal”, because I wake up around 3 o’clock in the morning and I think, “That’s OK—I still have a couple of hours until I have to get up”, and then I lie there for a f*cking ETERNITY before I fall back to sleep. And sometimes I DON’T fall back to sleep and then my mind just wanders down any number of bizarre paths. ‘Why don’t you get up and watch TV, or read a book or something?’ I hear you ask. The answer is simple: I love lying down. I mean, I am never so happy as when I am prone, snuggled under warm covers in a soft bed. Maybe it’s because so much of my day right now is spent standing and walking around a giant convention centre (which is also absolutely contributing to the insomnia), but the fact is that I am a horizontal person. And I’m sure that vertical people are very smug and proud of their defiance of gravity and whatnot, but they will never understand the pure and existential delight that I feel when I am flat on my back, glass of wine in hand. Yes, it IS difficult to drink wine while you’re lying down, but it’s a skill that many of us have carefully honed over the years. And if any of the wine happens to spill, Titus is always hovering nearby in the hope of lapping up a few precious drops (speaking of Titus, I’m alone in the house right now and he suddenly raced from the back family room to the front living room, where he leapt onto a chair and stared out the window. I said, “What’s wrong, buddy?” He didn’t answer. I looked out the window too, and saw nothing. A few seconds later, he muttered, “Never mind”, jumped down and ran to the back again. He’s a terrible guard dog.)

There’s nothing there. He’s just being a jerk.

But as I said, whilst I’m enjoying the wide-awake comfort of my bed, my mind tends to stagger from one absurd topic to another:

1) Is one of my co-workers a spy?

The other day, I was talking about motion sensor lights with a colleague and he said, “Oh, I have those. I also have security cameras all around the outside of my house.” “Ooh,” I said, “are you a spy?” and he laughed and said no, but kind of like, “Ha ha ha. NO.” And now I’m not sure, because isn’t that exactly what a spy WOULD say? Then he showed me his phone with four different screens displaying the view from each of his exterior cameras, and all I could think was what I would see if I mounted cameras all around the outside of MY house and was able to watch remotely: several tree rats doing sexy squirrel stuff (because it’s spring and tree rats are super-slutty), Jehovah’s Witnesses ringing the bell and then looking sad as they stuff The WatchTower between my doors, the meter reader trampling through my privet hedge to get to the gas meter, that one possum…frankly, it wouldn’t make for very scintillating viewing. Also, I had to google whether or not possums are nocturnal—the jury is out on that, but apparently people are very interested in possum trivia.

Possums are fascinating, I guess.

2) How much German do I know?

I took German for three years in high school. It’s remarkable how much I can remember at 3:30 in the morning. Ich gehe—I go. Ich spreche —I speak. Ich liebe—I love. Ich sehe—I see. I could conjugate German verbs all night. Ironically, I can’t remember the German word for ‘sleep’. My favourite German saying is “Das Mädchen hat Toilettenpapier auf ihrem Arsch“. If you want to know why, go back to My Week 146. My second favourite German saying is “Fritz fing fünf frische Fische” which is a tongue-twister that my high school German teacher used to make us say. It means “Fritz caught five fresh fish”. When I was in high school, I was pretty snarky (‘Just in high school?!’ I hear you say), and I used to mutter under my breath “F*ck Fritz and his five fresh fish” but now I have a lot of sympathy for Fritz, having to spend all day fishing just to feed his family, and I’m grateful that the fish are fresh and not frozen, because that would be frustrating for Fritz.

3) How hard would it be to learn to drive a forklift?

I don’t think it would be very hard. It looks like a golf cart with arms, and I can totally drive a golf cart—in fact, being able to drive the golf cart is the ONLY reason I ever go golfing. How fast does a forklift go? Could I drive around town with it? If Ken got one too, could we have Transformer-style battles? So many questions. But you know what would be even better? Remember in Aliens how Sigourney Weaver wore that human forklift suit? That. That’s what I want. I haven’t gotten a Hamacher Schlepper catalogue for a while but maybe they’re selling them next to their insanely priced life-size fake robot. And now I know what I want to do when I retire—being a human forklift would be the best job ever and it wouldn’t affect my pension like working at a private school would. Also, not as dangerous as planning warehouse heists.

My retirement plan

4) Here’s a poem I wrote at around 4:30 am when sleep became a hopeless desire and I had a panic attack at the thought of being so tired that I might fall asleep driving:

Are you afraid
When you see the clock move
Forward
Marking out the remainder
Of your life
In incremental pieces?

5) It’s fifteen minutes before my alarm goes o….why are there dozens of Asian children doing some kind of line dance in this parking lot to a Gary Numan song?! Why is it my job to bring them individually wrapped chocolates every time the music stops?! Why are the children I don’t get to in time disappearing into oblivion?! Why can’t I just dream about puppies? Sigh.

By the way, if you’re reading my blog and you see an ad for the “Gut Doctor”, I can save you the 45 minutes it takes to find out what his three superfoods are. They are chicory root, probiotic TCPs, and Vitamin B Complex. He never actually tells you what vegetable to throw out, FYI. And I don’t make a single cent off any of his sh*t.

63 thoughts on “My Week 237: 3 AM Eternal Revisited”

  1. Kathleen Howell says:

    I do the same thing. Right around 3am. Not every night, but enough to be pretty darn annoying. Because I know I won’t fall back asleep, (mainly because my husband is sawing logs) and now I’m left with my thoughts, which never go the positive route. Sigh. I suppose I could just pick a book from the stash under my pillow, but I figure the book light will be too bright. And, yes, the poem in #4 is quite unnerving!

    Thanks for another awesome read and have a great week!

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    • Sawing logs with a chainsaw, am I right? The other night, every time I almost fell back to sleep, Ken would let out a loud snore. Finally, I punched him and he said, “Hey! I’m not doing it on purpose!” but I have my doubts…

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  3. Insomniacs Anonymous member here, ahem 1) possums are assholes and dangerous, they will rip off your face any chance they get. 2) that human forklift suit is AWESOME! But I’m afraid that driving a forklift isn’t like driving a golf cart, I have the scars to prove it. 3) Titus is adorbs even if he isn’t the best guard dog, lol. Also you must, MUST teach a class on how to drink wine laying down, that’s a class that would definitely generate a lot of interest, lmao. 🍷🍷🍷😎

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      • Yes I have, I use to work in a warehouse many moons ago. It’s not as easy as it seems but once I got the hang of it, it was a piece of cake. I use to work for a paper distributor and load 18 wheelers with pallets of paper for delivery. I was the only female warehouse worker and determined to learn to drive that darn lift. It was a standing lift, a bit harder to maneuver than one you sit it. Only two of the eight warehouse workers were willing to teach me and I was so grateful to them. The others were misogynistic assholes who wanted to see me fail. I worked my way up to distribution manager and eventually became their supervisor, ha! Joke was on them. I’ll have to try that wine/straw thing, it may be doable yet!

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  5. My problem isn’t insomnia but rather staying awake. A doctor prescribed synthetic thyroid hormone for me and it was a couple of years before I figured out that sleepiness is part of hypothyroidism. Also I’m still not sure I’m getting enough. I don’t envy insomniacs, though. I know insomnia says, “Here’s all this extra time that you’ll never be able to use because you’re exhausted all the time!”
    And I think Titus is a fantastic guard dog. He got up from whatever he was doing in the back of the house to come and make sure nothing was happening. Other than tree rats having sexy times.
    Maybe some of those superfoods would help me be less tired. Es gibt noch mehr Toilettenpapier.

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  6. My wife often has a terrible time sleeping, too, mydangblog, made worse (she spitefully assures me) by the slumbering sounds of me and the dog right beside her! I think sometimes she wants to do that thing to me that Kathleen Turner did to Michael Douglas in The War of the Roses: shove her index and middle fingers up my nostrils and watch me flounder awake violently!

    After reading this post, I can certainly vouch for one thing: I won’t be able to fall asleep tonight without conjuring that image of you in the power-loader exosuit from Aliens! You’d rock that baby (provided, of course, the instruction manual was written in rudimentary German verbs only)!

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    • Ja ja! I actually have a white noise machine in the bedroom to muffle the dulcet tones of Ken and the dog, although sometimes Ken is the clarion call of a trumpeter swan, and no amount of white noise is going to help!

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  7. Allen T. St. Clair says:

    I am with you on the horizontal life. My biggest life goal is to be able to lay down wrapped up in comfy covers until I resemble a pot smoker in an anti-drug commercial.

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  8. I too am a horizontal person and am lucky enough that as soon as I reach a horizontal plane the mercury switch in my head turns my consciousness off. I really struggle to stay awake if I’m lying down and any pillow talk I have with my wife quickly deteriorates into monosyllabic grunts followed by silence 😉

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  9. The take away for me this week is that Titus has a drinking problem. He is likely dipping into the wine when you aren’t looking and that’s why he hears shit that isn’t there. Maybe put the cameras inside your house to prove my theory. Sleep tight my friend.

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  10. ‘Never stand if you can sit, never sit if you can lie down’
    I go through phases of waking at about 4am. I think it is related to my IBS. Eating earlier and having main meal at lunch seem to help. I usually get up, go to the loo and have a paracetamol or aspirin. Then I fall fast asleep just before the alarm is due….
    Titus was just checking for elephants.

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  11. In high-school my German language teacher introduced herself as Frau Meyers. I thought Frau was her first name. I could never figure out why she gave me such strange looks when I addressed her by her ‘first’ name when I saw her in public.

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  12. I enjoyed this post. I could read it all night.

    Didn’t know that there are other people who drink wine and other beverages while laying down. I also eat ice cream while laying down.

    Bragging time: I can sleep anywhere, anytime, and awaken myself with little problem. We were once camping on Okinawa when a typhoon changed course and came our way. I was blissfully asleep as the tent was blowing away. I can awaken at three, chase a raccoon away, feed the cats, let them in and out, and then throw a whizz, and get back in bed and right to sleep. My wife is a troubled light sleeper and despises me for my superpower.

    Cheers

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  13. I have the exact opposite problem….then again I’m not sure it’s opposite..what’s it called when you keep sleeping and sleeping and sleeping?…but to make things fun through in the retain able random conversations like you posted. Sometimes I think I try to stay asleep to figure out those mysteries a little bit longer

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  14. Oh girl, I can relate to this one on so many levels, it makes me nervous to crawl into bed tonight! I do have to say, though, I would trade your 3am ruminations for mine any day (or night in an all-out war with day). But I would not inflict that on you…lots of death and destruction involved. Those poor sheep never knew what was coming.

    Anyway, I am also one prone to remain prone…forever the optimist, there is always the hope that I might fall back asleep- submitting to vertical feels like giving up.

    Oh, and have you tried a camelback? I’ve discovered it virtually eliminates the spill factor whilst trying to enjoy your glass of wine horizontal fashion. 😉

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  15. I have never driven a forklift but love to drive our tractor. It can do way more than a fork lift. It has a bucket on the front (they also make forks that can be attached to the bucket) and we have a brush hog, rototiller and blade attachments for the back.
    I have to wonder about those security cameras – what makes them so secure? I assume they are accessed through the internet so can they not be hacked????
    I think I would need an IV to drink laying down. LOL.

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  16. Suzanne, you are like a dose of wonderful in a time when I need it more than I can say. The slutty tree rats had me on the floor- I was wondering what all that frolicking was in the trees across the street!

    I have written many insomnia poems, but none as good as yours. Why the fuck is is always 3am?

    Prone is good! Wine is good! I don’t know if I have ever even seen a forklift in person, but if you learn to drive one, I am coming to drive around town with you. I will be the one lying down in the back with the bottle of wine!!!

    I hope you have a fantastic week!

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  17. I feel exactly the same way in the morning, finally comfy, stretched out from my usual pain in the back fetal position. In fact sometimes the only way to relieve a thigh pain I’ve had lately is to stretch out flat on the bed. I think it has to do with a knee replacement I had in 2005….all information you don’t need to read of course. Save it for when you can’t sleep tonight, it definitely will do the trick. My upstairs neighbors leave their apartment between 4 and 4:30 so I’m up. Sometimes I get up but most times I lay there and think, like you do, frighteningly similar actually, till it’s light. And btw, possums are nocturnal. I found that out when our Doberman had a fit at night and I saw this huge white pointy face on the patio.

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  18. I very rarely get insomnia, but when I do, my mind kind of wanders into strange places; mostly thinking about what I should have said, or what I should have done–in my whole life, ever!
    Thanks for letting me know what that bothersome “gut doctor“ had to say. I always wondered, but thought if I clicked on it, they`d try to sell me something.

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  19. I think this is my fave of your many marvelous posts – a few weeks ago I took a bit of a closer look at my neighbor’s hummingbird feeders & the next day they asked what I’d been doing! they’d seen me on their camera!!! as for sleeping, they don’t call it the ‘witching hour’ for nothing. boy, can my mind lock onto about the most inconsequential things. I’ve become a rather light sleeper, so I use ear plugs & drink tulsi tea before bed, both very helpful. as for doggies, they work 24/7, ready to risk our yelling at them at all hours lol take care, dear

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  20. It’s not often that I can’t sleep but when I can’t I really can’t and it drives me nuts so I feel the pain. The random thoughts you have a pretty normal and I’m amazed you remembered the poem.

    There’s nothing wrong with being horizontal btw 😀

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  21. Your German experience reminds me of the time I went to Germany, but beforehand I decided to learn some rudimentary phrases. I borrowed some Berlitz tapes from the library and would listen to them while washing dishes, vacuuming, etc. Because I was always doing something else, I had the volume set Very High so I could hear exactly how the words were pronounced.

    Fast forward a few weeks and a group of friends and I are on an outdoor patio and one of them asks how my German is coming along. “Great,” I say, “I can order five beer in German.” I clear my throat and holler, “FUNF BIER BITTE!” Then I decide to yell for more things I never consume, such as a Cigaretten and a Light. All this German, at the top of my lungs…and not noticing that every. other. person. on the patio is staring at me.

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  22. I am also largely horizontal – woot woot, and I basically don’t sleep ever. And I’ve definitely asked myself the forklift question, but embarrassingly, that was during my up and about hours, so you can imagine the kind of stuff I get around to in the dark.

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  23. Not to be an ass, but my new puppy already sleeps better at night than you. 😏

    Seriously, three straight nights, three straight 7-hour sleeps once the light goes off. We died at went to perfect-puppy heaven. In fact, there wouldn’t be any problems at all if I weren’t worried that the jealous, snapping Ludo was going to kill the little Marvel at any second. They get over that shit, right?

    See what you’re missing not dreaming about puppies?

    I remember bits of German from high school, too, but the phrase I use most is “Du bist eine ei,” which no one ever taught me I just started using when I put the words together. My friend from high school used to laugh hysterically and encourage me to use it more. “Tom,” he’d say, “Call that guy an egg!” So I would. It’s not a bad thing. There are good eggs and bad eggs.

    Now I have to get back to work and move things around with my manual forklift. You Canadians might call it a “hand truck.” 🙂

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  24. Hilarious. I’ve never been a good sleeper, but the best trick I ever learned was to NEVER look at the time. That’s the route to subconscious torment. My the maddest thing I do is set my alarm to snooze. Every ten minutes. For nearly 2 hours People say ‘why don’t you just set your alarm later and have the extra sleep?’. But I LOVE my snooze time, I’m at my cosiest and comfiest. It’s the only way I can deal with the day. If I set my alarm later, I’d never be able to just get out of bed. I don’t know how folks do that. I’ve been using herbal supplements for sleeping and feel they are really helping (valerian, hop, passion flower mix). As for the forklift; I’ve done warehouse work and though I can’t drive a forklift, used to have to ride on, what I think is called an order picker truck, where you go up high on a platform to pick stock, me plus the driver. Terrifying! I only used to use the manual hand pallet trucks. If empty, we’d turn them round and use them like skateboards to get round the warehouse faster 😉

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