Last night I read for a bit (The Egyptologist – review coming soon) and went to bed. Nothing special. But suddenly, doing! My mind was spinning.

I didn’t even get the benefit of some sort of creative thought process, that guilty pleasure of laying in bed, knowing I’m burning my candle but marveling at the story, the game idea, the train deal, whatever, that’s got my brain afire.

Not this time – I was just hypersensitive – I’d hear a motorcycle go past, then a plane, then a train. And owl started to hoot. The wife began to snore. By 2am, I knew I wasn’t riding the bike in that day. By 3am, I was out on the couch, eating a big bowl of cereal (for the blood-draw of digestion) and reading (for the meditative effect). And still no sleep. I heard the clock strike 4am. After a bit, the cat settled on the ridgeline of my on-edge body. I think finally I dropped into a death-like sleep, only to be woken an hour later with the wife got up. Lumped back to the back bedroom for another hour’s sleep.

A lot of this is from work-stress, investment-stress, getting-old-stress, find-an-agent-stress. And round and round it goes.

So a long day at work, lots of coffee, lots of frustration, lots of blinking. Now I’m home – tried to take a nap but work called for another hour’s remote-effort. And the breast cancer people called (what about that ‘do not call’ list I’m on, dammit?).

So now its 8pm, and I’m trying to stay awake as long as I can, just so I’m not up at 4am.

And the title to this piece? What’s the farthest from sleep (i.e. ZZZZZZ). Okay, dumb joke.