Sleep, Kenneth Koch

I'm sick today.



Slept 4am til 6am, woke with drymouth, something lodged in where the nasal passage meets the mouth, and an imploding skull. Passed back out, drank some water, hoped it would pass. Woke again at quarter til 10, late for work, worse, clogged nose and body ache.

So I called in sick to the Graduate Teaching Assitantship Orientation that I am a part of, as a second-year composition instructor. I am on the orient-er side. I hope I'm not missing anything big. With my luck, I bet they're doing the Show Me How session, which I was looking forward to all week.

I have been trying these sleeping pills I got last year around Xmastime (yes, I will accept sleeping pills for Xmas, even in August). They're a prescription, Hydroxyz Pam is what the label says, 25mg, I think they're a benzo. They didn't work in Fall, they didn't work over summer, but I kept em around. Tried em once last week combined with Melatonin and I woke up feeling absolutely amazing, kinda buzzed actually, slept for like 9 hours. The buzz was like being stoned, where little things that usually annoy you make you laugh and your body feels like it's floating through the world. Very carefree mood all day. I was still anxious below the surface, doing the negative self-talk-y things that I'm still identifying triggers for, but I could laugh at how ridiculous the entire affair of beating myself up over little things sounded. It was pretty hilarious, calling myself an idiot for things I did in gradeschool, social faux pas, and drunken slip ups I overanalyze.

Then I tried the pills the next night, and they didn't work.

And the next night and they didn't work.

I'm still trying, hoping they will produce something beneficial, like sleep, but no.

Actually, they have been producing writing. In my insomnia, I keep a small legal pad next to the bed, fill it with little poems about sleep, about drifting, little Kenneth Koch exercises where I take a stereotypical poem like an ode to a lover or a sonnet about love, mostly sappy romance stuff, and then do something to ravish it tonally, hopefully for humor. Replace all the verbs with body parts. Replace all the adjectives with sex toys. Take all active verbs (keep passives and to bes) out and replace them with pieces of furniture. Remove the word love and replace with mutations of office lingo. You know. Stuff to eat the time instead of waste it.

As much as it's nice to write again, my insomnia effects my health more the longer it persists. I am physically ill now.

I have an appointment with a sleep doctor tomorrow at 8am. Something tells me I'll be up then.

But if whatever new pills I get prescribed (staying away from Ambien...I hear it can make you sleep-cook), I want to put this out: anyone know any other sleep-inducing, non pharmacological remedies?

Call Me Old Droop-Eyes,

J