An Insomniac’s Guide to Sleeplessness

19 Jul

I’m slightly insane (I conceal it well from the outside world), but during bouts of insomnia the quirkiness gets amplified. My life devolves into a heinous blur of narwhals, 90′s sitcoms and Hello Kitty. If you suffer from insomnia, you understand.

Here’s my suggestions for wasting away those looooong nighttime hours:

1. Watch the entire series of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” I suggest the episode Once More With Feeling. It features a demon who makes people break out into spontaneous song and dance. Bonus: free to watch online and because you’re sleep deprived, it makes total sense.

2. Star gaze and lightning watch. I always feel bad when thunderstorms happen during sleepy time and I miss them. Appreciate the random weather patterns that blow through at 3am.

3. Look up fun facts about alpacas. I’ll get you started: In Ancient Incan culture, a person’s wealth was measured by the number of alpacas they owned. True story.

4. Watch 1980′s rom-coms. My favorite is “When Harry Met Sally” but there are like thousands to choose from. Also, anything with Cher or Dolly Parton is a wonderful choice (Moonstruck, Steel Magnolias, 9 to 5, Witches of Eastwick…etc) They’re all lurking around the interwebs for you to watch for free.

5. Concoct strange grilled cheese sandwiches. This should take place when you’re at that weird stage that happens at 4am (you’ve gone 10 hours without food and it’s almost an acceptable hour for breakfast.) Here‘s an inspirational recipe that combines Pop-tarts, brie and bacon. The perfect sandwich for a delirious insomniac.

6. Write your memoirs. It doesn’t matter if you’re a 19-year-old mathlete or an elderly cat lady, you should write down your life story… then send it to me at missbunnysunday@hotmail.com so that I have something to read when I can’t sleep.

7. Watch terrible slasher movies. You remember that huge pile o’ crap that happened when the horror genre was revived in the mid-late 90′s/early 2000′s? It was the era of “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and “Scream.” Google ‘em and watch the delicious cheesiness that is the 90′s teen slasher flick. I highly recommend “Urban Legend” with Jared Leto.

8. Mmmmm………. Jared Leto.

9. Start a drinking game. If you’re up this late anyway, you might as well be drunk. Flip through television channels and drink whenever you come across commercials for sex or rotisseries. You’ll be plastered in no time.

10. Look up facts about narwhals. Hint: They’re the alpacas of the sea. This will make sense if you’re as sleep deprived as I am right now.

11. Read books about developing your psychic abilities. In this sleepless state, you are susceptible to believing you’re a powerful conjurer. Don’t be surprised if your kids/pets/partner are less than supportive when you scream, “I AM MERLIN!!!!!” into their sleeping faces at 4am.

12. Watch paranormal movies and tv shows. Become convinced that the coffee table is trying to steal your soul.

13. Make hand puppets. Take off your socks and transform them into glitter-faced new friends. This is a great time to work through the veritable stew of crazy that’s been keeping you awake all night. Work on your daddy issues or practice saying “no” with Sylvester and Edith… or whatever you name your sock puppets…

14. Go to this site and marvel in wonderment. Warning: contains adorable platypuses (platypi?), alpacas and sea-alpacas.

15. Porn. I hear it’s good.