Goodnight (Suckers & Helloooo) Moon
A paean to the wee hours--yeah, that's right, I used the word paean, big whoop!
Hoot hoot, lifelong night owl over here. The darkness and I have an understanding, which is the following: I love her.
(To all my astrology biddies: I am on the cusp of two sun signs, so naturally, the threshold of twilight seduces me.)
Am I also a little terrified and a lot intimidated whence she casts her long shadow? Oh, sure. You know all the bumps and creaks and shadows bring my cortisol to the yard!
There was a stint when my alliances were cloudy. A cross-country and track runner for a good hunka-chunka of my high school and college years, I would wake up at the crack of dawn to go for meandering runs. The one thing I miss about being up that early is there are far less people around, so you can better pretend the world is all yours. And you can do whatever you want with that power—you can fart up a storm!
(I thought about running at night, but as a woman in this world, there is, of course, the true crime genre.)
Though, at this point, I do not know who that person was. She exists now only as a temporal ghost, showing up in old photos and scaring the children. I’ve been watching Olympics track and field clips and lemme tell you something. The idea that I, at one point, did this, is bananas foster wallace. Or maybe it’s the hard proof the Internet needs that PEOPLE CAN AND DO CHANGE!!!
Yet even then, I would go to bed too late, silly late. Don’t worry, I made up the difference by falling asleep in all my classes.
For me, despite the light receding, the world shifts into color at night! The day is what’s black and white, ethos-wise. You’re either up and at ‘em, or cowering behind the curtains, at the assumed caffeine of it all. Once the sun clocks out, everything’s more manageable. And I am no wild child, I don’t need the nightclubs or the bars, I prefer the solitude. That feeling, again, that it’s just me on a lonely planet reaching out, tentatively, for other signs of life.
Is there nothing more delicious than staying up late texting or chatting with another daredevil bending all the rules of polite society? It feels like you’re getting away with something and that something is LIFE! Without fail, my chitchat compadre will still always go to bed before me and I am left dancing—my feet soft-shoeing all over the clock face doing a little Snoopy jig.
(On that note, may I recommend dancing with abandon in your own home? You don’t get elbowed in the neck multiple times, which is what happens when you’re short, and you get to pick all the songs!!!)
I go through cycles where I become particularly nocturnal. Yes, sometimes, it’s the sturm und drang of my depression creeping in. (Welcome back, babe!) But also regularly doing nightly comedy shows and getting home late, atoms still high-frequency buzzing, certainly doesn’t help my tendencies.
I’ve had entire evenings where I lose track of what happens after 10 p.m. I guess I could film myself Paranormal Activity style, but I have a feeling that, just like the movies, I would be horrified and unsettled by what was captured.
Lately, I keep insisting I will get on a more “societally acceptable” (AKA disgusting) schedule, and then what actually happens is I do shoulder stretches on a yoga mat while half-watching a prestige recap show at 12:45 a.m. Don’t worry, I already had my “midnight” snack. Or, as I call it, my closing peanut butter.
Small digression: I usually have 4 different books that I am reading at any given time. Some of them get attention every other month, some every week, and some multiple times a day. That doesn’t mean I don’t love them all the same.
(Yes, I also have books strewn all over my home that I’ve pulled out of my shelves like forgotten cups of tea in a failed attempt to “remind” myself I really want to get to them.)
But now, in addition, I have added one juicy British murder mystery audiobook to the bunch that I listen to compulsively like smoking a cigarette. I let myself have a little “book” if I have 15 minutes to spare.
And you better believe nighttime is a free-for-all in the reading department.
I listen to my audiobook while I get ready for bed. And then once I physically get in bed, I pick up ANOTHER book to read to fall asleep to, no matter how late the hour is.
The thing is I’m not against sleep. I love to sleep. Huge fan of the medium. I didn’t get enough sleep pretty much from adolescence all the way through my mid-thirties, so there’s a lot of catching up to do on Vitamin Z now.
And yes, I know how important sleep is to basic health, as much as your feral Wall Street traders would have you believe otherwise. Sleep is a chance for your mind to do a bunch of organizing and reconstituting and swoosh-whooshing (a very obscure science term). But getting myself there? You’re on your own, toots.
Yet, talk to me in the morning and good luck on any of it registering. I don’t want to leave unconsciousness or my fluffy abode. I am suffused with dread—falling somewhere on the moderate to ghost pepper scale—at the prospect of facing the day. Once I’m up, this dread usually dissipates after a little putter around, a pep talk from my stuffies, and some coffee, but this respite soon shifts into a post-midday melancholy. What is with this time of day? Can we get a recall on this window? It’s mental annihilation every time. But as darkness approaches, especially when I have nowhere to be or no one to answer to, I feel called to it like a clearance sale.
Perhaps also keeping me from going to bed at any sort of reasonable hour, I am a self-employed freelancer so my head won’t roll if I don’t show up at Goof Time Industries by a certain time. Not that that ever stopped me when I was an office temp!
It also behooves me to mention there is a little gremlin deep within me that loves lists. So I have also engineered a whole Rube Goldberg machine set of tasks that constitutes “going to bed” including brushing my teeth and smoothing out my eyebrows but also a gratitude journal but also a 5-year diary but also a spending log. No, I don’t know why I do this. Transitions are tough for me. It helps to ritualize them.
At the end of every day, I require a full debrief and exit interview.
My sleep hygiene is filthy, and so, rather than retire, I prefer to mosey. Dawdle and dither my way into unconsciousness.
It’s fine though. There are better times to seek slumber. As myself and all cats can attest, 3 p.m. is a nightmare. It’s a deeply offensive part of the day that is best left eyes wide shut.
Thus, I bid you a comatose afternoon. May you wake up refreshed, ready to embrace the dusk.
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THE WEAKEST LINK
My mother sent me a beautiful text koan. I had to redact the movie because I’m not trying to be messy like that. But safe to say, it’s wild this movie ended up in my mom’s algorithm. It’s one of Netflix’s myriad original offerings. And no, it’s not Joe Rogan’s latest special. And I can make that joke because I 100% know my mom recommends stuff without consuming it or knowing anything about it. She will do it based on how the wind hits her that day. Because I do the same thing. I am BECOMING (by Michelle Obama) her.
First part…
Seconds later…
Gorgeous!