I haven’t been sleeping very well thee past 2 weeks or so.. My work is creeping into my dreams.  Not in the good way, I might add. I love it when a technical problem works its way into my sleep.. I’ve actually done some pretty creative problem solving in my sleep (eg. the solar tracker on The Colony).. This is the hard kind of dream..   the kind when you just loop over the same ideas.. or same concern.. and nothing is worked out. a part of you knows it isn’t a real problem.. but.. you can’t seem to get off of it . A meeting I was supposed to call.. a report unfinished.. a todo left undone. I find myself staring at the ceiling now at 2 am, 3am.. 4am.. wondering why I’m awake. usually I fall back asleep.. but wake up in that same  state of something left half finished..

Actually.. I know I can get blogger for demerits for doing this..(including two poems from the same guy in the same week).. but there’s a great Billy Collins poem for this problem.. Actually.. there’s a great Billy Collins poem for every problem

Insomnia
Billy Collins

Even though the house is deeply silent
and the room, with no moon,
is perfectly dark,
even though the body is a sack of exhaustion
inert on the bed,

someone inside me will not
get off his tricycle,
will not stop tracing the same tight circle
on the same green threadbare carpet.

It makes no difference whether I lie staring at the ceiling
or pace the living-room floor,
he keeps on making his furious rounds,
little pedaler in his frenzy,
my own worst enemy, my oldest friend.

What is there to do but close my eyes
and watch him circling the night,
schoolboy in an ill-fitting jacket,
leaning forward, his cap on backwards,
wringing the handlebars,
maintaining a certain speed?

Does anything exist at this hour
in this nest of dark rooms
but the spectacle of him
and the hope that before dawn
I can lift out some curious detail
that will carry me off to sleep –
the watch that encircles his pale wrist,
the expandable band,
the tiny hands that keep pointing this way and that.

hope I sleep tonight

nite folks, note sam

-me