You may fear the thoughts that come in the night.
A wise man once advised us
not to fear the thoughts that come in the night.
It may even be easy to defeat the thoughts that come in the night, to kill them, if not with roofies and violence then maybe with a little cabernet franc and some DVDs of Arrested Development. I haven't found it so easy to kill the thoughts that come in the night if I can't afford to wake up drunk. If I can, then yes, it's easy.
The vomit that comes in the night, though. This is not so easily defeated. The vomit that comes in the night, that spews in a strangely horizontal way from the mouth of your beloved child well, there's not so much you can do with said vomit. There's no lounging and drinking or drug use that really meets the vomit that comes in the night head on.
A few days later, even though you regretted eating so much Mongolian Beef and General Gau's chicken (damn it was good, it was the hot kind that makes you sweat a little) you still do not welcome the vomit that comes in the night. You do not welcome it even if you weigh less than you did before the Chinese food, a fair amount less.
Still, believe it or not I actually prefer the vomit that comes in the night to the thoughts that come in the night.
Sometimes people ask me, when they find out that I sometimes stay up until 6 a.m. And that I woke up at 8 a.m. And that I do this often. Why? Why do you do this? One reason is I have a lot of work. And another reason is that I fear the thoughts that come in the night even more than the vomit that comes in the night. Actually, it's not as bad now as it's been but years of fearing the thoughts that come in the night basically made me work or goof off until the rosy fingered dawn came unbidden (and totally fucking unwelcome) into my abode to let me know that 'you are going to be saying 'um' a lot today or tomorrow or Jesus Christ why don't I ever SLEEP like a normal person. Why can't I just fucking sleep?'
If you've ever met a person who answers a question like 'what time is it?' with 'Uuuuummmm. What did you say? Um?' remember that person may not be mentally deficient or on drugs. While you were dozing, insensibly, accomplishing absolutely nothing at 3 a.m., geting ABSOLUTELY NOTHING DONE in the middle of the night some of us might have been doing something creative, and productive with that time when the world slumbers, like making a found art poem out of credit card solicitations and religious tracts handed to us on the sidewalk. Sometimes we say 'uuuuummmmm' for a reason.
It might have simply been the fact that his or her radiator makes a kind of unholy sound at 4 a.m., a sound far too much like the ones found in movies about supernatural phenomenon when the evil comes to visit, to join you, to stay for supper.
Sometimes it was good. Sometimes I'd just decided to read something good like Crime and Punishment or similarly edifyin' and I at least tell myself that it was sort of worth it. Because when are you going to get the chance to read all your favorite novels? On the weekend? Pffft! Who does that? Doesn't everyone sleep all day during the weekend?
Don't ask about the post internet remorse. 11 p.m. or worse 8 p.m. to 6 a.m.? What the fuck? Don't even ask.
* With apologies to Girls Are Pretty!
**This is my favorite post of any post in all of internetlandia. You'll laugh, you'll cry, etc. It changed my life. No, seriously! It did.
As for the thoughts that come in the night, Patrick Hughes advises us to fear them not because sometimes they have boobies. My baby's thoughts, when they come in the night, are invariably about boobies so I think he is totally on to something.
This explains your comment on my site at 2:23 AM.
But oh, how I've been there! Either reading (or sometimes even re-reading, which is especially hard to justify) or working, or, well, just about anything but sleeping.
I've noticed the thoughts that come in the night are particularly evil at four in the morning-- I call it my Witching Hour.
Posted by: roo | February 22, 2006 at 05:54 AM