The Insomnia. It's Back.

I suffer from a very select form of insomnia. I call it reverse insomnia.

Other people have a hard time falling asleep. I can fall asleep almost instantly upon lying down. It's when I wake up four or five hours later that's really the issue. Come two or three in the morning when I can't fall back asleep is the highly-irritating, insanity-inducing problem.

This is another condition (and I mean that in the literal, clinical sense) that I inherited from my father. I add it to the list with the poor dressing, the incessant historical marker reading, and the nose (which my Great Aunt Bergliot informed me this weekend actually originated with my Grandpa Finn. I knew the Norwegians were involved somehow). My dad deals with the issue by going running--not because it helps him sleep, but because you need something to do or else you might go crazy. I once looked at a list of his GPS clocked runs. This is information from the GPS system Dad attaches to his wrist that clocks his distance, calculates his speed at all times, and is downloadable to a satellite map to track his route. (This is opposed to the GPS system that he attaches to his car so he can see where he's going as he's going there: "Look, Laura! You can see my digital car on I-215 heading south. No, wait; my digital car is turning southwest now. Isn't that helpful?" Almost as helpful as noticing that your actual car on the actual freeway is turning right.) The GPS system, in addition to recording information to make a pretty map of his runs up the canyon, also saves the time he did these runs. And the majority of them happen at 2:45 AM.

I told him that it's very difficult to go back to sleep when you're outside in the cold running around the neighborhood. The front yards on Twinbrook St aren't very conducive to early morning napping, particularly when you're the bishop of Twinbrook St. The Petersons probably won't look at it too favorably when they wonder, "Who's that homeless guy in the red sweatsuit with socks on his hands sleeping in the driveway? Oh wait, that's just Bishop Paulsen."

I'm pretty sure he thought I was funny.

I deal with my reverse insomnia the way the Internet taught me to. One, I get out of bed and go sleep on the couch. Staying in bed just trains your body not to sleep when its in bed. Two, I don't (or shouldn't) read in bed. Same thing--trains your body that your bed is not for sleeping. Three, I don't get pregnant (and this is one I just picked up on my own) because pregnancy wakes you up all the time, what with the discomfort and the lack of breathing and the frequent unavoidable urination, giving your mind greater amount of time in which to keep you from going back to sleep.

Because that's really the problem. My mind. I can't turn it off. Not like in the Einstein couldn't stop thinking because of all the important discoveries he had to make, unless you consider these things that occupied my mind in the last hour vitally important (and trust me, my mind thinks they are VITALLY IMPORTANT, enough to keep me awake thinking about them for hours):

1. Did I shut the car windows on the car before I went to bed? Because the car smelled like pizza and it would maybe be a good thing if I didn't do it, unless it rains like it did last night, in which case it would be a very, very bad thing.
2. What am I going to teach on Thursday?
3. Are my students nervous for the test they have tomorrow? Are my other students ready with their drafts for tomorrow? Are they awake preparing these things for tomorrow?
4. I forgot to buy ginger.
5. Are those car windows still open?
6. Tyler is very large. He takes up a large portion of the bed. Next time I get married, that husband (the one whose hand I will only hold and who I will only very occasionally kiss) will be 5'2".
7. "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." What does that mean? Is that a cheesy Paul lyric or a drug-induced John lyric?
8. Due to the pregnancy, I'm breaking out like a fifteen year old teenager. Maybe I can go a whole week without popping this zit on my forehead. Yeah, never going to happen.
9. What about those car windows?

And finally,

10. This blog entry. Which meant I had to get up and write it. Feel free to notice the time it's posted. Also feel free to forgive me for any lack of coherency.

And feel free not to point out how, like running, it's very difficult to go back to sleep when you're typing at the computer.