Insomnia

Allright, so I thought I was over it, but apparently I'm not. You know, sleep is a capricious friend sometimes. If you want to, you can't, and if you can, you don't want to (which applies to a lot of things, I know, but that would take us too far now, wouldn't it).

Generally speaking though, I love to sleep. I love being in bed, especially since my present appartment doesn't have any other comfortable place to slouch about. I also have very particular (you might call it neurotic, I don't care) sleeping rituals:

First - pyjamas. The greatest garment invention of humankind, I think, well, since the loin cloth anyway. Take away my underwear, my fancy outfits and beloved print T-shirts, but don't leave me without my pyjamas. It's a no go.

Second - reading. Reading before going to sleep, or after I wake up, that's me in a nutshell. Sometimes I even manage to read when I get home from going out and I am totally wasted, and of course I can't even really decipher the letters - let alone the meaning - of a text anymore. But I don't know, reading just soothes me, it calmes me down, it sort of sings me into sleep. (Granted, it doesn't always work -> see tonight.)

Third - water beside my bed. A habit I've started only fairly recently, but for some reason I am super thirsty even at night/during the night these days. (Spare me with any psychoanalytical interpretation of what I might be really thirsty for.) Interestingly enough though, there's a strange thing with me and water: when I get up in the morning, I can't drink water (unless there's really nothing else available and I am dying and I need to take like a package full of aspirin to feel at least halfway human again), I have to drink juice or tea or coffee or something "tasty" first. Water just tastes gross in the morning, I think.

Fourth - a pillow. I need a pillow. I just need it. I remember horrible, horrifying, gruesome camping vacations where I had to sleep without a pillow for a week or so; it was hell. I can deal with the hardness of the ground, the claustrophic feeling your legs experience in a sleeping bag, the noises, the insects - no problem. But without a pillow, I become an unhappy camper.

So here we are: 4 basic conditions of my sleepy happiness. And it doesn't work tonight. I'm not anyway near tired, I'm not even rubbing my eyes. I feel like I could go out and run or something like that. I wish I had tranquillizers or sleeping pills, you know, the heavy-duty stuff. All I have are these homeopathic drops that taste like the alcohol we used to make in chemistry class as an experiment, and which of course won't help even if you swallow half a bottle (you don't even get drunk). Life is just down right cruel, sometimes.