Things I Do in the Night

I was awake to see the torrential downpour that flooded the National Road on Saturday night. At 1:30 AM I pulled back the curtains beside my bed to watch sheets of rain coming down and ponding on the road. I watched for a long time, listened, and counted the seconds as the traffic light down the road changed from red to green to yellow to red.

I do that a lot, in all kinds of weather. I watched the ice storm the night before. Sometimes I watch our local deer herd pick or race their way across the four-lane road and filter down into the neighborhood via my yard. If it happens between one and four-thirty AM, I've seen it, heard it, felt it, or smelt it. (That includes dog farts. They happen more than you think when the dog is asleep, which begs questions about our own fortunate obliviousness.)

My name is Laura and I am an insomniac.

There are two kinds of insomniacs: those who cannot fall asleep and those who cannot stay asleep. I fall into the latter category. My ability to fall asleep is almost super-human; most nights it takes less than a minute. It's as though I'm a light switch: either on or off. Ben and my father are like that too; we all fall asleep instantly and wake up in the same manner. Shawn and Andy, however, are like irons (the kind I never use because my family doesn't give a shit about going to school or work looking like they just fell out of the overhead bin on an Airbus A318). They take a while to wind up and a while to unwind. Shawn's falling-asleep routine takes over an hour. He's got to shower and get into bed. He reads on his phone and reads his Kindle. He rolls around and thinks Shawnly thoughts. He pets the dog. He pets the cat. And by 12:30 a.m., he's finally asleep. (Years ago I banished Shawn to another bed because he snores and kicks, so this routine doesn't affect me at all.)

I consider myself the more fortunate of the two of us. That is, until 2 AM rolls around.

So why is it that I cannot stay asleep? This bizarre pattern began three or four years ago, and I blame my bladder. Everything was going to well until it decided that it could no longer do its job for a full night. I strongly suspect that it's protesting the fact that I incubated two life forms in its personal space. Bladders are sensitive creatures. They get huffy, and once they're mad, it seems they stay mad for the rest of our lives: Oh, you're planning a road trip? How cute. Better allow an extra hour for all of the stops you'll be making. Caught in a stand-still on the interstate? Hope you have tinted windows and a wide-mouthed water bottle. Oh, do you have to sneeze? Good luck with that because I'm gonna let loose like a pack of kindergarteners at a Christmas cookie party. 

So when the little jerk wakes me up to pee, I'm up. That's it. I can't fall back to sleep. I pee and then I go back to bed and listen to the dog snore (or fart) and watch whatever varmints are prowling around outside and sometimes eat a box of cookies  handful of carrots and eventually succumb to the blinding light of my phone and the deplorable torrent of social media. It's proven that the bright screens of our handheld technology keep our brains awake rather than putting them to sleep. In fact, scientists who study insomnia recommend vacating the bedroom entirely when sleeplessness hits. Get up, they say. Leave the scene. The worst thing to do is to lie there and roll around for hours and stare at the clock.

Are you people serious? Show me one person in the entire world who follows this advice. Find me a person who actually gets out of bed and goes downstairs and polishes the silver or scrubs the algae off the side of the fish tank. (Reminder to self: scrub the algae off the side of the fish tank. You don't even know what's in there these days.) None of us go any farther than the fridge, and then we take whatever we've snatched back to bed and fill our sheets with crumbs and then roll around in the crumbs and look at besweatered basset hounds on YouTube.

My doctor doesn't know if my insomnia is due to anxiety or my autoimmune issues or just general bad luck, but he prescribed me Ambien.

Don't flood me with Ambien warnings. Yes, I've tried melatonin and it affects me adversely. Yes, I've tried chamomile tea--did you read the part about the peeing? How do you people drink a cup of liquid before bed? My kidneys and bladder get together after dinner every night and triple-dog dare me to put the kettle on the stove. Just one cup. It's only Sleepytime. Everybody's doing it. You'll feel great. 

So when I really can't sleep and I really need to sleep, I bite an Ambien in half at 2 AM and swaller that sucker down. Usually it takes about 20 to 30 minutes to fall asleep, but it works. I don't take them often, but once a week or so, I'm really glad to have that Rx bottle there.

There is, of course, a down side to Ambien. Perhaps you've read about people who do things when they take Ambien? In 2006, Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy crashed his car near Capitol Hill. He had taken Ambien.

Why the hell would you take Ambien and then get into your car, you ask. But the news reports answer back that many motorists have no memory of getting behind the wheel to begin with, that the Ambien made them do it. These people are called "Ambien Zombies" and use the "Ambien Defense" in court, often successfully. In 2009 a flight attendant from Texas took Ambien and woke up in jail, having run over three people. She was sentenced to only 6 months. Other people have figured out that if they can stay awake, the drug gives them a freaky high, complete with flashing lights and moving walls.

Okay, maybe you should be flooding me with Ambien warnings. Fortunately, these side effects and these incidents are extremely rare. But there is one thing I have been known to do on Ambien: I shop online.


In those brief moments before the drug has completely taken hold of me, when I'm irresistibly drowsy but for some reason fighting to stay awake, I get on Amazon. And damn you, Amazon, for storing my credit card information and providing users with that super-convenient Buy It With One Click button. You suck almost as much as my bladder. And at least my bladder only ruins interstate travel. You cost me hard-earned money.

There is, however, an upside. You know that feeling when you come home and there's a package waiting on your porch? It's like Christmas. It's out there, it's waiting to be brought in and opened, and it's even more exciting when you have no fucking idea what's in it. What the crap is that box doing there, you ask yourself. I don't remember ordering anything. And then you wonder who might have sent you a little surprise. Your mom? Your best friend? Your spouse?

Nope. In fact, it's you who have sent yourself a present. How thoughtful of you to think of you! You're such a good person, always thinking of you.

I have no answer to my insomnia problem. Indeed, I don't even know the cause. I do know that I read some really fantastic articles in the night. I get ideas for essays, I find knitting projects I want to attempt and pasta dishes to try. And I bookmark all of them. And then I forget about them entirely when I wake up quite naturally on my own at 5:30 a.m., no matter how rough the night has been (yet another sign of a sleep issue).

Perhaps I need a sleep study. Perhaps I need a long-term solution that doesn't depend on pharmaceuticals and cookies carrots. But my insomnia problem evaporates from the forefront of my mind during the day. I forget all about it until 2AM rolls around again and I remember that, dammit, I should have called somebody or done some research or at the very least purchased a chamber pot. Insomnia is a chronic problem for an estimated 10% of adults, and far more have bouts of sleeplessness. $63 billion is lost in work performance every year due to insomnia. America is losing its health, its productivity, and its sanity to an inability to rest. I'm not quite sure when I'm going to get some.

On the other hand, those three 12-inch nonstick skillets I ordered in the wee hours of Cyber Monday 2014 cook a hell of an omelet.