I'm still sick but wine and metal (music) will fix me, right?
As I mentioned yesterday, I am sick. Turns out one day may not be enough to get back to normal. I thought it was, but here we are. I still feel like shit but wine helps; at least, it helps me not care so much. Also, as I mentioned yesterday, insomnia is a bitch. Not sure if any of you have ever experienced insomnia but it's not fun. Yes, as shown in "Fight Club," I do watch infomercials and memorize them (hard to beat the Ronco, but the drunk Irishmen/Magic Bullet is fun, as is the insane, possibly murderous, making no claims but just saying, Copper Flipwich bitch; who, if you told me murdered everyone on the set after those commercials, I would say "Yep, OK") and even come to like them. I do own a power pressure cooker. Except that thing is fucking awesome and makes the best chicken or pork taco meat you can imagine. The meat comes out, after only 15-20 minutes, like it was cooked in a crock-pot all day, fucking tender and juicy and full of whatever seasoning or flavor you added to it (usually tomatillo and cayenne or some variation, in my case). It shreds easily and is oh-so-fucking delicious. In 20 minutes you can make a meal and leftovers for the next couple days. It's brilliant. Wait, tacos? That's not why we're here. Shit, why are we here?
Oh, yeah, Asperger's and sleep, or more accurately, lack of sleep. It's an issue I've dealt with since High School, and probably before though I didn't know it. I used to play sports year-round, which helped. Every day there were hours and hours devoted to making myself tired, physically and mentally. After I broke my achilles, that changed. A lot of things changed, but I do remember specifically my late nights starting. Whether that be through video games (I used to be a fairly avid gamer, Dreamcast muthafuckers! Oh, and way too much Counter Strike), reading, playing guitar, etc., I had a hard time sleeping. Then I found the joys of music. I'd always been a lover of music but then I found a new reason to love it: sleep. I, like many, found that listening to music that I knew and loved, not music that I hadn't heard or would force me to stay awake and listen, would help me fall asleep. CD players had sleep timers or the CD would just fucking end. Though, I was a fucking badass and had my Aiwa 3-CD stereo so I had to set a sleep timer and be careful was what in the next spot after my desired listen. No Soulfly in slot 2 if you catch my drift. THIS DOESN'T REALLY HELP YOU SLEEP. Fred Durst was a thing? Remember? Please don't... COAL CHAMBER WAS ONE THAT ACTUALLY HELPED ME SLEEP FOR SOME REASON... Wait, are these the same songs? They sound the same. Wait, all that nu-metal, scream-alot (not "o"), kinda sounded the same... Except Godsmack, right? WAIT, THIS IS THE SAME TOO. Just kidding, that was definitely more on the Metallica spectrum. Even to the "meeeeeuuhhh, yeah" accents. It's borderline shameful how many times I had sex to that eponymous Godsmack record... Borderline, I said. It was also borderline admirable. Turns out I had a different type of girl I was attracted to back in the day. I'll never forget the early arguments with one girlfriend about the music we would play while we fucked so as not to make it too fucking obvious to her roommate that we were boning. She always knew so I don't know exactly why we thought that helped that much, but we were young. In fact, she used to fuck with us about it. We were so dumb. But, back to the point, it is so goddamn ridiculous to think back on what music we would play during sex. She'd put in Godsmack, Korn, Disturbed, and I'd put in Nick Drake, Neil Young, Tupac, Modest Mouse, Radiohead, Jay-Z, Ryan Adams but we could both agree on System of a Down, Portishead, Iron & Wine or Led Zeppelin.
(Editors note: Springsteen and Dylan are FAR too distracting to fuck to. Just a note for the young ones out there. It's too easy to start listening to the records and forget about "doing" what you're supposed to be "doing." Maybe it's just me, but just saying. I guess if you're trying to find ways to go longer they might be appropriate, but for me it changed the mood)
I know, a bit of weird "agreed upon" list but that's what it was. Wait, I was talking about insomnia not sex...
It's difficult because everyone just says "why don't you just go to bed?" Laying around not sleeping and just dwelling on all the things that make you stressed, sad, depressed, things that you need to do, things you should've done but haven't, why your life is a waste and everything you've failed at doesn't exactly help you drift off into slumberland, trust me. Reading only makes me less tired. I suppose I could read more boring books which would help me desire sleep, but who wants to do that? Television helps but sleeping on the couch (which I did for three years due to some other issues) isn't ideal either. No, music is the best thing for me. Unfortunately, my girlfriend cannot abide me listening to music in bed. It keeps her up. So, I stay up instead. Some nights drinking and watching "IT Crowd" reruns (well, I guess they're not reruns anymore. Fuck, what do you call old shows you've seen before on Netflix? Rewatches?) on Netflix until I pass out is enough to make me tired when I get to bed. Some nights it isn't. Some nights listening to records, and drinking, until my head hits my desk is enough. Some nights it isn't. Some nights writing blogs, and drinking, until I can't form coherent sentences is enough. But a good chunk of the nights, nothing helps and I get to stay up until, well I may not sleep more than a half hour here or there. It's not fun and it always comes in waves. It's never one night, which you could get past with a nap the next day. It's always weeks or months at a time.
The thing that sucks about Asperger's is that routines are everything, both positive or negative, and sleep is no exception. Once you can't sleep, you can't sleep, and there is nothing you can do about it. It's awful. That's where I am now. The beds at the Hampton Inn in Medford, OR aren't terrible by any means but I'm sure I'll barely enjoy them. I'll probably just lay awake and LISTEN TO THIS OVER AND OVER THINKING OF A DIFFERENT TIME... A time when getting an hour or two of sleep didn't matter. Being 18 was good for something, I suppose...
I wish I had an answer. I really wish I do. Maybe if someday I could build a pattern and routine of sleeping like a normal person, then things could get better. For now, I'll listen to MARILYN MANSON'S VERSION OF WILLY WONKA CRAZY ASS FUCKING SONG... Obviously, I'm feeling like I'm 13-18 again tonight but apparently only the metal, shitty 90's side of me. Saw a Marilyn Manson tribute band before the greatest AC/DC tribute band on the planet (Helles Belles) and I have to admit I knew most of the tunes. Took me back to a younger time in my life when (speaking of Willy Wonka and Marilyn Manson) "THEY FAIL TO SEE THE ANGUISH IN MY EYES" was a line that just fucking hit me. Shit, I guess that's still a great fucking line. Marilyn Manson was always better than people gave him credit for. And growing up in Wisconsin I heard a lot of "he's such a faggot" type comments, which forced me to explain things to people that they never would even entertain to hear. I learned a lot back then. I'm not surprised Wisconsin went Trump in the last election. I remember sitting in the Mazatlan Mexican Restaurant in Everett, WA in November 2016 on election day thinking that if this comes down to Wisconsin, we're fucked. Sure enough it was one of the deciding states. My bartender and waitress, both Mexican, were nearly in tears. I was aghast but I didn't know what to say to them. They spoke of their families and their fear for them here in America. It was so sad to hear. I thought of where I grew up and was angry and confused and wanted to do something, but I couldn't. It was done and I knew why. I knew it would happen. Now, I'm just rambling. Probably a side-effect of the wine and habitual lack of sleep. So, I'm signing off again. Not sure this helped anyone but myself but I hope someone feels less strange when reading this at 2:45 IN THE MORNING. I can't help you but you're not alone...
(written drowsily but not read or edited. Sorry, it's fucking late and I have to not sleep. I know, I won't be sleeping so I should be doing something worthwhile but that's not how it works, assholes)