You have 3 minutes staaaarting... NOW!!!

I’m having a month of tongue tied. I caught myself lisping today. Weird shit happens when you don’t sleep, and truth is sleeping’s been a problem for everyone in this house. Except Aaron, I guess, who could basically sleep upside down in the chimney.

Kan’s had 2 more night terrors. Here’s an event I won’t forget for the rest of my life: it’s midnight and I’m in that insomniac place where I’m resigned to watching Dateline on the computer until the sun comes up. My door’s closed. The kids’ door upstairs is closed. This is important, because you can’t wink in this house but everyone can hear it. And my door especially, well it just doesn’t fit in its frame. Despite my best efforts to saw parts of it off with my bread knife.

Anyway, I’m there in bed and I look up and even though there hasn’t been so much as a damn creak in the floorboards and I haven’t heard the kick it always takes to get my door open, Kan. Is. Standing. RIGHT THERE. INCHES AWAY FROM ME. And she’s doing her best zombie stare and her hands are doing their best lobster claw impressions. She starts crying without blinking, which is really fucking disturbing, and shouts, I NEEDA SLEEP WITHU. And I’m ashamed to say it, but I didn’t let her. I’m a miserable and terrible person who clearly was born without the ability to feel anything but fear, because I just carried her back upstairs (and wasn’t that sketchy as hell b/c I could feel her little hands twisting the skin on my back) and stayed with her until she fell asleep. Then, I had a drink.

Anyhow, because of the insomnia and a whole host of other reasons, I’ve been, like, in orbit or something this last month. Totally disconnected. I’ve been playing “scramble” on facebook, which is pretty much “boggle” only you’re online and playing live against a thousand people. I have a weakness for timed word games. And they’re so not good for me, because then I carry around this nervous energy that gets me so twitchy I pretty much hit the deck when someone coughs. And small tasks, like doing the dishes, I feel like I have to get them done in 3 minutes.

Finally. Finally? Like there’s been some coherent list happening here. I took this stuff called Simply Sleep (from the makers of Tylenol PM) last night. I know, the name alone. But it worked. Only too well, because I had trouble walking when I got out of bed AT TEN THIRTY and I almost shouted when I got into my classroom because the words on the page were too blurry to read.

Yeah, so that's all I got. Mamie?