For those who don’t have to deal with me on a regular basis (meaning everyone but my boyfriend, who gets a big elbow in the ribs every night when I can’t sleep) I’m a chronic insomniac. Occasionally I’ll fall asleep at a reasonable time of night, and even less occasionally I’ll sleep 8 full hours. But more often, I spend my nights lying in bed for a few hours wishing I could fall asleep, then getting up and prowling around my apartment grumbling about how I can’t #$&* sleep, then flopping exhausted into bed and falling into a semi-coherent not-quite-sleep state around 4:30 or 5, and rising at 8 perky as a Dawn of the Dead extra.

I’ve tried all the over-the-counter sleep aids, they’re strictly amateur hour. I’ve tried various prescription drug cocktails, they’re great as long as you ingest enough to knock out the entire Jets offensive line for a week. I’ve tried every homeopathic and herbal remedy suggested on the internet (down to slathering my face with lavender and lemon rinds before going to bed) and of course chugging a bottle of wine, which may do the trick but certainly doesn’t help my mood in the morning.

“So what is funny about all this?” you may ask. Well, not much, though I do my best to find humor in the situation. But what is continually amusing is the reaction of various New Yorkers when I share my sleep habits (or lack thereof). I’ve lost count of how many people have told me something to the effect of, “You’re so lucky, you don’t have to sleep, you must get so much done!” To which I respond by passing out face first on the floor from total exhaustion. Only in this Northeast hive of buzzing overachievers would we celebrate a diagnosed psychological disorder as a blessing for increased productivity. I’m not exactly sure what it is these hypermotivated caffeine junkies think I’m accomplishing between the hours of 2:30 and 6 A.M., usually my brain is so fatigued that I can barely blog, let alone perform some act requiring actual coherent thought. But to them, insomnia seems like some miracle solution to the body’s irritating and schedule-restricting need for 8-hour regeneration.

Not that everyone reacts as if I’m revealing some character flaw; plenty of well-meaning friends give me tips and suggestions for falling asleep, some of which I am gullible enough to try. One relative suggested that I use a blindfold at night to block out any excess light. I experimented by tying a zebra-stripe scarf from the back of my closet around my head, it didn’t help but now I look like a Def Leppard groupie as I wander my apartment at 4 in the morning, with the huge mussed hair and the 80s headband. So now you have a pretty accurate sense of how and when these posts get written, just in case you were wondering.