Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Toe cramps… not the name of my new punk band…

When Vicky and I went to bed last night, I fully expected to go right to sleep. (Way to ruin the suspense there, Mr. Writer Man!) After all, I just had my first full day of – well – awareness since taking the Seroquel. Vicky and I had gone to dance class only to find I was still too weak to handle the strain. (Seriously, the meds kicked my butt.) And, after all, it was after 10pm – Time for sleep!

Ha. I laugh at sleep. Ha!

Kinda wish I didn’t, though.

As the clock slowly dredged its way round the bend to 11pm, I decided I was tired and… I wasn’t going to budge until I got some sleep!

Midnight. Vicky started to snore. I’m not the only sleeping beat box in the house. So, I laid back and thought about the new play. I was trying to explain this process to the doc the other day. It goes something like this: There are an infinite number of possibilities, what your characters can or should do, but the number that makes sense is very finite and the number that works is even more so. The number of possibilities of what works well is teensy weensy, to use the technical term. So, my little exercise involves running possibilities through my head until I narrow it down to the best choices. For instance, you have two characters arguing about their marriage, you should: a) whine more, b) have one get eaten by a T-Rex, or c) make a joke about penis size. If it’s one of my plays, you’re looking at a) or c)… but you’re not ruling out b), you just haven’t figured out a way to make it work.

12:20. Hey! I slept! That was nice.

… But now I’m awake again. And the clock is passing 1am. The plan is to get up at 5am and go for a bike ride. I need to step up the amount of exercise I’m getting… cause I’m not getting any! But it’s going to be awful tough to do that if I don’t sleep.

As 2am approaches… toe cramp! OW! Left foot! It’s horrible! Stop. Stop. Stop.

There… gone. It’s 2:30… and it’s back again! Feels like the whole foot is imploding! Stretch! Stretch! Shit! It’s not working! I slide towards the edge of the bed and try to plant my foot on the floor but this only results in a comical half-slide off the bed. But through endurance and perseverance… and no choice, it slowly – very fucking slowly – goes away.

It’s 3:15. Need to sleep. Vicky’s snoring greedily and with a very satisfied meter. I touch her arm. I rub her skin.

Wait a second, pal. That’s not gonna put you to sleep!

Okay. Leave the wife alone. Need to drift. Drift. Like a boat. Drifting. Drifting. On waves. I just read about Sweden’s first tidal power generator. I start thinking about my solar stock. Maybe I should – shut up, for crying out loud! It’s 3:45! You need to sleep! You need to –

Something bursts my eardrums with demonic glee! It’s my alarm! How do I turn this thing off, again?

… wait a minute…

It’s 5am.

Hey! I got about an hour of sleep!

Yep! It’s gonna be a good day!

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