The Creative Insomniac

You probably fell asleep just fine, but now your eyes have popped open and you've tossed and turned for the last fifteen minutes, glancing at the clock again and again to see the red numbers mocking you. What? You didn't fall back asleep for another hour. The clock still says 1:42. It just said 1:42 an eternity ago. It might be that you're stuck in some strange time warp where the minutes really do click by like millenia, or maybe you're an insomniac.

Don't fret. All is not lost. Sure you may feel like the only thing that's keeping you from the sweet taste of sleep is your own sick mind which keeps alerting you to the fact that your mouth seems too dry and your eyeballs actually hurt. But don't focus on the BAD stuff. Just think of all the terrific things you can do with your new found time. Weren't you just saying the other day that you wish you had more hours in the day? Well here you go.

With your insomnia you could...

1. Search the internet for all the diseases you may or may not have based on your particular symptoms for the day.

2. Flip through all the catalogues that have been sent to you in the past week and decide that not one piece of clothing would look good on you until you go on a diet.

3. Research all the different diets on the internet. Imagine how good you'll look after you finish: Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, e diets, Nutrisystem...

4. Find the bag of trailmix you left on the coffee table and pick out all the pieces of chocolate and anything that might be a cashew.

5. Facebook stalk all the people who are probably peacefully sleeping at the moment and flip through all their pictures. Decide that maybe they could stand to research e diets too.

6. Listen to the ticking of the clock and bemoan the fact that you're wide awake.

7. Scroll through pinterest. Laugh at all the lame quotes and pin all the pictures of country kitchens that you can find.

8. Consider working on the project you left sitting out on the kitchen table but then realize that it would require turning on the light, which you are very opposed to at this hour. No matter what.

9. Sit in the dark and concentrate on being sleepy.

10. Check your email, even though the only ones you'll be getting at this time of night are from Groupon or your kind friend in Belarus who would like to bequeath a large sum of money to you.

11. Learn a language. Just think, if you keep this insomnia thing up you could be ordering croissants in Paris at two in the morning.

12. Invent some tremendously brilliant and useful gadget that will make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. Never mind that when you wake up in the morning your so-called "brilliant gadget" will seem either mundane or idiotic by light of day.

13. Work on your novel. After all, doesn't it seem like all your good ideas come to you in dreams. Well this is happening at the same time that you should be having those dreams so your ideas will probably be fantastic.

Oh, what the heck, maybe after all this you'll just try lying back in bed again and see what happens. Maybe you'll even surprise yourself.