Circadian Divorce

The moon has been waxing its heart out this last week so I’m often awake by 4:30 am. I have been trying to shift my sleep schedule earlier, but this is a little ridiculous. I find I write better when I’m up at the crack... and I’ve read more than a few writers talk about their penchant for being up before the sun. But I’d never in a million years thought I would be that guy. 

My relationship with sleep has always been a battle. When I was a kid, I was often criticized for my insomnia. I also have crazy ADHD and do a thing called “rapid cycling” where I can be physically and mentally exhausted and hop into bed positively craving sleep, but when I try to relax into my blankets my brain blasts out of the starting blocks at a sprint. Mostly, I start worrying about things I can do nothing about. 

As I write this, I’m merely serving as a heater to my dog and cats who are flaunting their pro sleeping abilities all over me. They are sleep warriors. I don’t begrudge them but I am envious. Watching their soft ribs rise and fall and laying a hand on their warm backs relaxes me. They often smile when I pet them, then curl into yet another impossible shape -- they could fit back into the womb! 

This gets me to thinking about what it would take to become a mighty sleep warrior myself. I need to think up a really good sleep warrior visualization image. A character for Adventure Time, like if I was “Hibernation Princess”? What animals and plants would I go to for my look? Cats are too obvious and I couldn’t touch their mastery of the art in a million years, so that’s out. I couldn’t even get a foot in the door to apprentice with them! Haha! For some reason wooly bear caterpillars come to mind. They are baby Isabella tiger moths, which I never knew! I guess they are just most memorable in their intense juvenile mohair sweaters. If you do anything outside, you’ve seen them curled in a ball, sleeping (at least I think they are sleeping?). You find them in shoes, baseball gloves, garbage -- any snug dark spot, catching uninterrupted Zs. I’d convince them to form my sleep warrior blanket cape; thousands of sleeping wooly bear moths, linked together like little chain stitches. As for plants, I’ll have to go with cotton since my warrior outfit under my blanket is usually a long threadbare T-shirt with holes in it. Very unflattering but dead comfortable.

Ok, that part was easy, but what can I use as my “do not disturb” talisman? Who could silently stand (or sleep, or hover) and guard the sanctity of my sleep chamber? Naturally, I Googled what animals are more dangerous asleep than awake (that sounds like a riddle). The closest answer I found was this interesting toxicology article, but likely you already know these things from watching Planet Earth (not a dis!). The “biggest” and “most” or “deadliest” dominate our Western ways of considering here in North America so the more subtle questions are harder to research. So I tried to find animals who toxify while sleeping. So far, there are zero -- the animals in the articles I found  were already toxic, just asleep. I’m sure they're out there somewhere though, nature makes ALL the combinations. I’ll keep you posted if I find some.

In the end, I decided to go with making my sleep nest inside a ring of protective musk oxen who are simultaneously majestic, fucking dangerous, cute (it’s the nostrils), and bizarre (these guys are straight from the Ice Age and don’t put up with our Anthropocene bullshit!); and I’ll put some poison-fleshed Pontic ducks up on their backs to stand sentry. They can sleep out of one side of their face at a time. If only I could do that! 

Well, that’s my fantasy warrior sleep chamber scenario. I might have to draw a picture of it. I think I might need to add chrome stinger exhaust pipes for farts (also good for burning the shit out of those attempting to prematurely wake me), and then I’m 100 percent guaranteed a good night’s sleep.

P.S. My favorite book about ancient toxicology is The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy by Adrienne Mayor. It’s so fascinating, I read it twice! Game of Thrones stole some of their juiciest death scenes from the cabinet of Mithradates, including the molten gold crown.