Sleeping The Sleep Of The Innocents

I’ve got to figure out an effective way to get to sleep. Lying awake from 2 am to 5 am night after night really isn’t doing me much good. The whisky method, while certainly capable of inducing “sleep,” has certain ramifications the next day, not the least of which are what I refer to as “appearance issues.” (“Appearance,” in this context, includes not simply a certain level of dishevelment in the visual sense, but also a certain … aura, if you will … of an olfactory nature. Reeking of Talisker at 7:30 am when the Big Boss strolls into your office is frowned upon, apparently.)

I’m not a big fan of ingesting non-recreational prescription drugs in general, but Ambien in particular seems to me to be something of a “chick drug.” Sort of the pharmaceutical equivalent of a new-style convertible Volkswagen Beetle, I guess … an over-the-counter alternative is Benadryl, which hospitals purportedly use to calm infants and children. I would estimate that I get called a “baby” about as often as I get called a “girl” (both occur with remarkable regularity), so what the hell, maybe either of those would suffice.

I’ve heard hypnosis works, but there’s some paranoid part of me that is positive the hypnotist will be some sort of prankster, and that one night at The Cactus, someone will say “rhododendron,” and I’ll climb up on the bar and start squawking like a goddamned rooster (not that I haven’t done that before; it just wasn’t due to hypnotism in the past … also, if someone could let me know if they’ve taken my picture down from the DNS board behind the bar, I’d appreciate it).

So I don’t know. Maybe just biting the bullet and getting up earlier would be exhausting enough to get me through the night. That seems less new-agey than special herbs or a bubbling-brook sound machine, and safer than autoerotic asphyxiation, I suppose. Still, it’s good to know I’m not quite yet out of options.