Can’t sleep—goddamnit. What is it this time? Well, everything, of course…
Per usual. I don’t like sleeping, anyway—it’s a waste of time and I don’t like losing control of my mind for hours at a stretch. Also, I’ve never been good at it. ⠀
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Some of that was my own doing. I discovered caffeine sophomore year of college—Trinity was irresponsible enough to install a Mountain Dew machine fifty feet from the lab I usually worked in…and it took credit cards, no less, so I didn’t even need cash. I thought I’d cured sleep.⠀
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And I had. It just came with side effects. I passed out at least once that year, flat on the floor of the computer science lab after 72 hours awake. I’d hallucinate on countless other occasions, usually during all-nighters in the cavernous basement lab where my dad worked during the day…vaguely aware of people arguing behind me, before realizing I was the only one in the room. I’d panic, suddenly remembering that I was supposed to be meeting someone, before realizing it was 4:35 AM and the person was Switek from “Miami Vice”. It was crazy, stupid, and counterproductive. I still preferred it to being asleep.
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And I don’t do that sort of thing any more, of course…but there are nights—like now—when the prospect of several more dead-eyed hours in the dark seems no less stupid and counterproductive, and the idea of flooding my veins with some sort of stimulant and pounding a laptop until the sun comes up sounds like the most sensible course of action.
This is a stove clock, viewed through a glass cup. I took about forty photos of it a couple of hours ago, and this was the best one. Honestly I probably should have just gotten up at that point.