August 23, 1998

I miss my 2 AM thinking sessions. See, I can't do them anymore because, as my dad says, "I have to start getting back into my school groove." I know he's right, and that if on the day before we start school again I stay up until 3 o'clock, might be sufficiently dead the next morning. So, I won't complain about the annoyingly correct logic of my father. Instead, I'll try to explain the magic of feeling like you're the only person awake for miles around. I'll put you in my shoes, or should say, slippers, and guide you through my sleepless (some could say insomniac) world.

It's after midnight, and you're still lounging on the couch watching Conan O'Brian being silly. Your little brother is sprawled on his trusty sleeping bag in front of the television (his room is "too hot to sleep in," although the rest of e family spends quite a lot of time in that area of the house every day), and the older one is sitting near you, laughing his head off at the antics flashing in front of you. The show ends, you stand up and go hoppity-hop upstairs. In your room, the mic run on the wheel and climb on the ceiling of their cage, the tiny fan on your TV whirs loudly, and the CD player blinks, telling you that the music you were playing that morning is still waiting to be taken off pause. Exactly how much electricity was wa ed that day? You'll ponder that later. Right now, you'll turn the volume down low enough so your parents would be totally out of line if they came and yelled at you for playing it, and sing along with the musician for a while.

You have some form of reading or writing material lying on your bed, and as you lay back on your mountain of pillows- there are about seven all piled up in a corner-, you pick this up and look it over, either laughing at your scribbles fro earlier that day, or searching the pages for where you left off before dinner. This could take a while. If it's writing, you'll add more thoughts, or revise some coding you may have screwed up before. If it's reading, you'll concentrate on the story for t least 45 minutes. During this time, you hear your mother finally settling down to sleep, and your brother deciding to crash on the couch for the millionth time this summer. After a while, everyone is quiet. You are alone.

Even the crickets outside your window are quiet as the minutes blink away on your digital clock. You look up every now and then, well aware of the silence surrounding you, and wonder why you hated this feeling when you were younger. Now yo turn the music off, and take a stroll around the room. It's a short walk, but when it's over most of the clutter that had bothered you an hour before is gone, put away or pushed into a corner. Now you sit in front of your tiny vanity table and wonder ho you should wear your hair that night. Put it up, and have the pony tail bother you when you finally put your head flat on the pillow and sleep? Or leave it down, and have it bother you while you sit up and read? You put it up, knowing that you'll just p l out the scrunchie before you lose consciousness anyway. Now you're back in bed, leaning back on the mountain and hugging a stray pillow to you. The mice are still running and climbing, so you watch for a while.

You're probably going to go out with your friends tomorrow. Hopefully something interesting will happen. The dots on the ceiling above your head remind you of the spiders you've killed and left the remains of. One day you'll wash them off. as killing them a sin? "I'm gonna clear my head...I'm gonna drink that sun...." You're a sophomore now. What does that mean? What was it like to be a freshman? Your back didn't hurt today, and you didn't think once about taking a pain killer. You ay be able to stay out of re-hab yet. The computer was mean to you, though, and so was your little baby brother. Can't wait till he starts school again. The sky was beautiful today. So bright that you practically had to shield your eyes, and not a cloud n sight. "Do you wanna be a polyester bride?...Do you wanna hang your head and die?.......Do you wanna flap your wings and fly.. away from here?" Of course, you were outside for about a minute that whole day, but windows don't lie. You should've en out. Why weren't you out? The summer's too short to waste staring at the computer screen. "I left Bethlehem... I feel free.... I left the girl I was supposed to beeee....."

These are the thoughts spinning around in your head tonight. These, and a thousand more by the time you turn off the light. This is the first time of darkness. It lasts but a moment, until you realize you didn't take your antibiotic or you vitamins, and if your dad counts pills tomorrow, you might have some explaining to do. The light's on, and you hoppity-hop downstairs. While you're down there, you peck around the kitchen and find a few crackers, a fruit roll-up or two, a glass of milk, nd maybe a piece of cheese. These odd cravings come one after another, and it lasts for approximately ten minutes. Next, it's upstairs and into the darkness once again.

Now the clock is leaning towards three, and to make yourself sleep, you spin tales in your head. OK, so Jess comes back home, and- wow!- Alex is waiting for her......no, that's too soon.....try again..... "You've been so... kind and ge rous"....stop singing!.....the fab five is sitting in front of a fire..... they're at Katrie's wedding...... forget it, you'll figure it out when you actually write it... sleep.... come on.....................

Half and hour of this, and then it's 10:30 in the morning. Then it becomes 11:12, and you decide to get up. At noon you go downstairs.

I miss this. With this kind of sleeping schedule, I was never tired. I also missed half the day, but I think I would rather spend it in dream world anyway. Now a days, I'm constantly ready for a nap, and my mocha lattes just aren't giving me the amount of caffeine I desperately need. Maybe if I add some Coke, a few spoonfuls of sugar, and have five cups instead of one, I could make it through a morning without drooping eyelids. It's a thought.