Can't Sleep

"Do I know where hell is?
Hell is in 'hello.'
Heaven is 'Good-bye forever,
It's time for me to go.'"
--Ben Rumson

It's almost 11:30 and I can't sleep. I'm sure, to most people out there, 11:30 is nothing. For many of the internet savvy 11:30 means things are just getting started. For me, it means I should have been in bed at least a half hour ago because I know that even without an alarm clock I'll be awake around seven. I can't help it. I like getting around eight hours of sleep, but I doubt I'll be getting it tonight.

So, here I am typing, listening to music and hoping that I'll eventually get tired and climb into bed. My brain just won't shut up, though. I doubt that when I feel really tired my brain will have quieted at all.

One of the things I'm thinking about is a blog post that I read earlier today. I really hate reading things like this. (The first time I really came across lists like this was my sophomore year of high school when I went on a trip with the marching band. We took a bus up to Seattle and I only brought one book which I had already read half of. When I finished my book I started to read the magazines the girls had brought with them.) When I do, I immediately start ticking off the things I am, or at least the things that I think I am, but doubt that I'm very objective when it comes to me. Anyway, I usually (think I) fit a reasonable portion of the list which is good, right? My problem is either the parts of the list that aren't written down or the ones that I don't fit are not equally weighted against the ones that I do fit.

I've lived my life knowing that I'm not really anyone's type. (Or for the people whose type I am I'm either a fetish, which isn't really like being a human in any way, or those people are as much of a coward as I am or likes to live by the idea that it should always be the guy asking.) Most of the time, I'm okay with that. Tonight, apparently, I'm not. I wonder why? Why do I suddenly feel lonely. Why do I feel like my life will forever be empty? What purpose does it serve?

On Saturday, I was visiting with some friends, Heels and Johnny Logic, and at one point Johnny Logic had stepped out of the room and Heels and I were talking about working at places we don't particularly like to work. She told me, to the best of my remembering, that she'd really love to quit her job and just spend the day with her son, but, she said, she has to go to work.

"You do it for him?" I asked, looking down at her son, who was getting very interested in my big toe.

"Yep," she said.

"That's what I need," I said, sighing a little. "Something outside of work that makes work worth it."

"It's the only way to do it," she said.

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So, the speakers crapped out last night a little after midnight and I decided to go and read rather than write without music. I fell asleep, eventually, which probably means writing this actually made me feel a little better. That's a nice change.