Let Me Tell You About My Night

It's 7:07. and I am brewing my second cup of coffee — okay a second mug, and fairly large mug at that because it is a breakfast blend. This is not normal; one mug is normal — not two. But then again, there was nothing normal about my whole night.

I'm not entirely sure what time I went to bed and sleep, but my best computation is that it was ~11:30. While my bladder usually forces me to go on two nighttime excursions to youknowwhere, it is usually not as early as 1:30. But it sometimes is, and I can count on getting back to sleep.

But not last night.

After my trip to youknowwhere, I was restless and uncomfortable and then spent two hours going from our bed to the guest bed and back to our bed before giving it up for a lost cause.

So, at 3:30 I was up drinking my first mug of java, making toast and puttering on the computer. I posted a photo to Flickr and put together a photo blog that you may have already read here. Then I did some reading on Free Will and supreme court decisions that depended on a notion of free will as opposed to Determinism, followed by a video documentary on Darwin, which seemed rather appropriate with it recently having been Darwin Day.

It was then around 6:30. Was I get sleepy? "Perhaps, I shall go to my recliner to see if I might get a few zzz's." The mind then wanders as the mind will, and I think to myself: "Self. Did you forget your sleeping pill last night?"

It seemed to me that I had double-checked once before bed, but did I check the wrong night? Do I recall checking Tuesday when I should have checked Wednesday (note: I am writing this on Thursday morning after Wednesday night)?

So, I checked. Sure enough, there were two pills in the Wednesday compartment: one sleeping pill and one Celebrex. Well, no wonder my legs seemed sore because I had also neglected my morning Celebrex pill and had put the soreness just down to just forgetting that one. So, I had missed two arthritis pills.

Unfortunately, that is how a night without a sleeping pill goes for me. In my case, it is not usually the getting to sleep but the staying asleep that is the problem. It's not a strong pill, but it is enough to dampen the wildness of my aging brain and give me a half-decent night of sleep.

Except when I forget to take it. Strangely, the pill doesn't work then.

I don't forget often — sometimes months go by between memory lapses — and when I do forget , I usually figure it out much earlier. But last night, I was so sure that I had taken it that the possibility didn't even enter my mind until 6:30.

I rather think that for me at least, this puts to rest the notion that a sleeping pill is just a placebo or psychosomatic. Because I had thought I had taken it, but my body knew that I hadn't.

Perhaps I will take two tonight.