Came home dead tired. Laid down.
Nothing.
I hate this.
And yes, mom, I am exercising. I rode the damned bike for 35 minutes while watching television.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.
The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.
We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.
JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?
We are aware of all internet traditions.
It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.
The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.
If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!
You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.
… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop
There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.
Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.
At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.
They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.
Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.
An almost top 10,000 blog!
My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.
The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.
Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.
It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.
So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.
With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.
The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.
Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!
Battlepanda
I feel for you, man. I’m a chronic insomniac. It’s not unusual for me to be up until five in the morning, sleepless, like I was last night. I usually get up and do something if I feel like it’s going to be one of these nights, but believe me. I’ve laid in bed with my eyes closed counting back from 700 in sevens or coming up of weirdly colored animals (“Pink rhinoceros, green zebras, purple cows…) to know that it’s better to get up and do something than to waste hours in bed.
lard lad
Yeah, I know the scenario: your body is so tired it aches, but your mind is cooking on all burners and won’t let go of the here and now.
What usually works for me is to read a verbally dense book… something of good literary quality, so as to be worth the reading, but requiring serious concentration. Books with lengthy, tangent-filled sentences are what you want. Once you find yourself having to return to the beginning of a paragraph more than three times, it’s time to turn out the light and sink into the caressing hands of Morpheus.
The novels of William Faulkner, Samuel Beckett and Thomas Pynchon are ideal for this purpose… and they are great reading to boot.
(My apologies, John, if you are fed up to the tits with advice on this topic.)
Far North
John, we rode our touring bikes down the Oregon Coast last week – 420 miles total. It’s much more enjoyable than a stationary in front of the TV. Of course the downside is that you need a week and there’s a good chance that you’ll be riding in the rain at some point. The upside is that everything tastes good and you can eat about 3500 calories a day and still loose weight. The downside is that I kept eating 3500 calories for several days after the trip. The upside that I still feel great. The downside is that, after pedaling 420 miles, Bush was still president.
A M
420 … huhhh huhh huh… I’m there dude.
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
Tylenol PM, baby.
If the Lord hadn’t intended for us to take drugs, He wouldn’t have wedded pharmaceutical companies to the same political party as the Christian coalition.
salvage
Marijuana works well.
I uhhhh hear…
ThymeZone
Start with this list.
The one I prefer is warm milk. Warm as in almost warm enough for hot chocolate. Or for that matter, make it into hot chocolate, it works the same.
Drink, wait ten minutes, go to bed.
ThymeZone
I’d prefer his sister.
Krista
If it’s a case of Whirring Brain, sometimes it helps to actually write down all the shit that’s zipping through there…thoughts, to-do lists, snappy retorts that you wish you’d thought of 6 hours earlier.
Paddy O'Shea
I haven’t slept much for years. I was out late last night at the Knitting Factory here in LA seeing a hip hop band called Gym Class Heroes, and now I’m sitting here at my computer at 5:30am leaving messages on blogs. And in 2 hours I’ll be off to work. I just don’t fight it any more. Once you get the hang of the 4 hour a night sleep routine you find that it opens up a whole lot of opportunities. I also read alot.
Inneresting poll information:
Bloomberg: Most in CNN Poll Say Bush Misled Public About Iraq
“In the Sept. 29-Oct. 2 poll, 58 percent said the administration misled the public about how the war is going. In addition, 57 percent said the conflict has made the U.S. less safe from terrorism, indicating that Bush’s central argument in defense of his policy isn’t gaining traction with the voters.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aFRWtis3fHNg&refer=us
And this is supposed to be his big issue?
Jill
Is it that last vote for GWB that’s keeping you up, John?
Kirk Spencer
Most of the things I see above work for me. Unfortunately for John, I’m one of those people for whom insomnia is an unusual event — I can go to sleep almost any time, any place. John’s spoken enough on this that I suspect his problem approaches “chronic”. So, I’m going to recommend a counterintuitive idea.
Don’t sleep. (grin). Or at least, not as most people think of it — don’t try to get eight to nine hours in one solid lump. Instead, schedule a two to four hour block in the middle of the day in which you get a long nap, and use the night to get the balance. Timing is ‘on the 12’. That is, if your nap schedule is 2-4, your planned sleep schedule is 12-6 because the center point of each (3) is 12 hours apart. Ideally, you end up with two four-hour blocks. I’ve been told by other insomniacs that this system seems to work for them, not least because they don’t have the “gotta sleep now or it’ll be another DAY before I can sleep again” mental pressure.
A point of specificity on your case last night. If you’re “too tired” it’s actually difficult to go to sleep for many people. The exhaustion is almost painful – and keeps you awake just like any other dull ache. The suggestions I’ve been given in those cases (besides the very good ones above) have also included a ‘half dose’ of a pain killer. That is, half of what you’d normally take for a headache or other ache. Then half an hour or so of sitting – not trying to sleep, just sitting somewhere comfortable – so your body can phase from “go” to “bedtime” while the painkiller does its thing.
All that said – my sympathies. From the few times I’ve experienced it, well, it sucks when sleep is something other people do.
cd6
Mark Foley recommends jacking one off before bed, it helps you sleep.
No, I am not making this up.
Paddy O'Shea
cd6: Kind of makes those pictures of Mark Foley shaking Georgie Bush’s hand all the more enjoyable.
Bob In Pacifica
Since I retired, I’ve been taking hikes through the hills. I have been doing a five-mile trail lately wearing one of those forty-pound weight vests. You do that every day sleep will come.
I have also found that I’ve given up hope for the world. Famines in Africa? Destruction of our democracy? Earthquaks, volcanoes, assholes in Washington, whathaveyou. Life goes on. Then you die. Then more shit happens, but you’re not around to notice.
ats
For some reason, when not invading nascent Islamic democracies and imprisoning their leaders, the Israelis find time to do a lot of cutting-edge sleep research.
The latest wisdoms are:
1) Valerian root works. Pills at any health food store.
2) Wearing sunglasses an hour before bed helps a lot. NO bright lights near bedtime. Watch TV WITH sunglasses in the late evening.
Never read or watch TV in bed.
It worked for me.
Faux News
John:
No doubt you are being deluged with everyone’s home remedies for sleep. So one more won’t hurt. Ambien is my best friend. Non addicting and doesn’t make you feel groggy in the morning. Good luck.
CaseyL
What position do you wake up in? Try getting into that position when you go to bed; it might be the one your body is most relaxed in.
No coffee after 2:00; no tea or caffeinated soda after 6:00.
Use a white-noise generator. It doesn’t have to be a fancy expensive gadget: a room fan works just fine.
And Foley isn’t the ony person to suggest masturbating; so do some sleep experts.
CaseyL
PS: Hope you’re not getting in those 35 minutes on the bike right before you try to go to sleep.
Exercise energizes.
It usually takes me 1-2 hours after a workout to calm down enough for sleeping.
Andrew
Consume more zinc.
Punchy
Guys….guys….Mr. Cole is “conversing” with his MOM via this blog, and you guys are advocating the P.M. Rub Out?
I picture Mr. Cole frantically dialing home this very minute. Of course, if she’s even slightly familiar with this site, perhaps she’s really not so shocked.
Rusty Shackleford
Wake up and go to bed at the same time everyday, even on weekends.
mrmobi
John, with all deference to your mother, rubbing one out produces hormones which should put you right to sleep. Absent that, Valerian does work, according to my wife, as does Ambien (even better). Warm milk would not do the trick if you have reflux, as I do, because you’ll wake up with bad heartburn.
Have a nice nappy.
Tim F.
Stomach acid used to keep me up, even when I didn’t know that was what it was. It came on all at once when I had ten thousand things hit me at once during college. Antacids work great, some better than others. The recently deregulated stuff works the best, obviously, although I would keep away from those purple pills, whatever they are called. Didn’t help much and they made it worse if I stopped using them.
Yoga also worked like a charm, by basically doing the same thing as an antacid pill. I cannot recomend that approach enough, although I have had a very hard time finding a yoga teacher who doesn’t spend more time with incense and new age nonsense than actually teaching yoga. You’ll know a real teacher when you find one.
Alternatively, try Kant. Turn the thermostat up, put on some easy listening and crack open A Critique of Pure Reason. You won’t remember what hit you.
Dug Jay
Lay down in a darkened room and start visualizing Barney Frank and Jerome Nadler, a Congressman from NYC, in bed together. You will NEVER sleep again….but think of how much more time you will have to create new and exciting blog posts for your deprived and dedicated readers.
ThymeZone
Good idea. I’ve had good luck also with Jaynes’ “The Origin of Consciousness In the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.”
It’s a great book, but not one you can read when tired.
Punchy
Mr. Cole:
James Taylor’s Greatest Hits. I’m pretty sure James actually had this scientifically studied to see exactly how effective it is. Banned in 43 states from being played while driving (OWLtoJT….class C felony). Encouraged in 25 state-run and myriad private sleep clinics. James himself is required to avoid 4 of the album’s songs in concert, for fear of ZZZ’ing off his fans. Used extensively by meth addicts in dire need of some shut-eye post-bolus.
If this doesn’t work, you may well be screwed. Good luck.
ThymeZone
Well, Punch, if you want to go the audio route, you should try the meditation stuff recorded by Dr. Andrew Weil.
Either the meditation, or boredom, will put you into a PVS state in no time.
Just Google “The Andrew Weil Audio Collection: Breathing: The Masterkey to Self Healing/Meditation for Optimum Health (Self Healing) (Audio CD) ”
The man’s voice alone makes my brain flatline in minutes.
The Other Steve
I bought a sleep mask… and that helps a lot. I realized my problem with insomnia was the light. I live across the street from a shopping mall, so there is a lot of light pollution.
Dark curtains would probably help too, but they cost more than the sleep mask. :-)
capelza
Trazedone…cheap and non addictive. I did the warm milk (it’s the calcium that helps you sleep…maybe a couple calcium tablets). Valerian. All the natural remedies. I really hesitated to go with pharmecuticals, but after a couple years of almost no sleep I went to my doctor and told him to knock me out.
It worked.
Punchy
wow…so many insomniacs on one blog. Maybe Tim and Mr. Cole need to post more often at 2am. Seems like half the gang is still alive and kicking in the dead of night.
By the way, what happened to Tom in Tex? He disappeared like gerbils in Foley’s apartment…
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
Most people who’ve tried to tangle with Kant would rather punch themselves in the crotch 8 times and then bed down on top of a wasp nest. John was asking how to make himself sleep, not how to fittingly punish himself for all his mortal sins.
FWIW, I’d rather be gutshot and left alone in an alley for several hours than have to slog through Hegel again.
Llelldorin
If you’re caffeine-addicted enough, coffee can actually settle you down enough for sleep. It works well for me.
Of course, if you aren’t that frighteningly addicted, that just makes matters worse.
The Other Steve
Good news everyone!
Social Conservatives are undeterred by the Foley Scandal.
They Still Want to Ban Harry Potter
RSA
I was wondering whether someone would mention this. I have a very smart friend who swears this works for him: Can’t sleep? Make some coffee. It puts him to sleep, at least. For me, I think it would work either way. I’d fall asleep, maybe, or wake up enough to do something else.
ThymeZone
Richard Perle, the “Prince of Darkness” as quoted on DKos today.
That blurb should warm the cockles of your artificial heart … and wake up the dead.
The profound madness of these people never fails to take my breath away.
RSA
Yeah, that sometimes happens with a two year old that we babysit–finger paint all over the wall. It’s a complete pain in the ass to clean up.
fwiffo
My advice, from experience, is to get used to being tired and cranky and miserable. There is no permanent solution to insomnia. The best you can hope for is a temporary solution that works sometimes.
The real deal works better, dosing you with much larger quantities of sleep-related hormones.
One symptom that indicates you need reading glasses is that reading puts you to sleep. Unless Murphy’s around, you could probably turn that around by reading without reading glasses (or if you don’t use them), by holding the book further away than you normally would.
Pb
Heh. Perle would be funny if he weren’t so dangerous. Congratulations, you’ve identified the problem–obviously the world is too peaceful, not enough brown people are dying, and our own troops aren’t stretched thin enough or dying fast enough for you. Asshole.
ThymeZone
Milton Berle on being 80:
“Uncle Miltie, you’re 80 years old,” Goen remembers saying. “How do you feel?”
“I feel like a 20-year-old,” replied Berle. He paused.
“But there’s never one around when you need one.”
ThymeZone
Any bets on when Hastert steps down as speaker?
Also, Reynolds’ staff guy has resigned within the last hour.
CaseyL
About the “caffeine sedative”…
I had that happen to me quite a few years ago, when I was almost literally living on coffee. As in, drinking two or more pots of it per day. And, yes, drinking yet more of the stuff just before bed DID help me get to sleep.
Here’s what I think:
If you’re really, really addicted to coffee, that means your system is really, really saturated with caffeine.
And I think what happens is, you reach a point of saturation where the chemical has the opposite-from-normal metabolic effect.
Now, I also think that, in the long term, consuming so much of a metabolic altering substance that you actually reverse your metabolism’s normal response to that substance is a Bad Thing, just on general principle.
Llelldorin
Oh, no doubt. About once every 8-12 months, I go cold turkey for a month to return caffeine to its usual status as a stimulant.
Not right now, though–not until my month-old baby starts sleeping through the night herself!
Tsulagi
Since it’s cheap and easily found, try melatonin some time. At least 6mg. I tried it after someone mentioned kids with ADD who have a hard time going to sleep are often given melatonin in the over 6mg range to try before going to pharmaceuticals if that doesn’t work. I always try to take it before long flights because then I sleep better during the flights and tend to sync up quicker on the other end. Works for me.
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
Some say Rumsfeld is the Michaelangelo of our era, but I beg to differ. I think his work’s pretty derivative; the man steals shamelessly from Goya, George Grosz, Joe Coleman, and Picasso’s “Guernica.” He’s a hack, but then again, so are most of today’s artists. You can’t pin the blame for that one on Bush, or on his Cabinet.
(Okay, he’s no Michaelangelo. Who would we compare Rumsfeld too, then? Rembrandt? Munch? Certainly not any French artist, that’s for sure.)
SeesThroughIt
“Oh yeah? Well the jerk store called–they’re running out of you!” That episode wasn’t all that great to me, but for some reason, George’s fanatical pursuit of delivering the “perfect comeback” that actually was mediocre cracks me up.
Anyway, I too was an insomniac in my younger days. Most of the cures I used have been listed, but really, “cures” are spottily effective at best. What ahd worked like a charm one night would fail miserably the next. That was part of what made it so frustrating.
BARRASSO
Joe Coleman, I thought I was the only person who liked him!
RSA
It’s tempting to say Thomas Kincaid, the rot goes so deep. Goya was my first thought, as it was for TAFKaGOP4M, but I really like the Grosz suggestion for the link to dadaism. Rumsfeld’s a poet, after all.
tzs
I absolutely adored “Consciousness as the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” and stayed up until 3AM to finish it, so it might not work for you.
Suggest “Magic and Mystery in Tibet” by Alexandra David-Neel. Incredibly fascinating and incredibly tedious at the same time.
Or–here’s the sure-fire genuine put-you-to-sleep-completer, guaranteed to totally work completely absolutely 100% possibility (never fails for me, drat, and I’m studying for the damn thing):
Study for the patent bar. Read the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure. Or the Outline of the MPEP, as provided by BARBRI. Guaranteed snoozing within 30 minutes, even if you prop your eyelids up with toothpicks and poke yourself with forks.
Jess
Elaborate sexual fantasies with wild costumes always works for me. Even if I can sleep, at least I don’t care.
Jess
Shoud read: “even if I CAN’T sleep, at least I don’t care.”
Obviously I’ve been spending too much time composing “naughty emails” instead of sleeping…
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
So did I. How many of us are out there, anyway?
You’d really like Joe Coleman, I’m guessing. Check him out. It’s as informative as it is gory. They hang a bunch of his stuff at the Visionary Arts Museum in Baltimore, that’s where I know him from.
I didn’t know Rumsfeld is a poet. Is any of his work available on the Internet? I’d really like to take a look at that, I’m anticipating some incredibly horrible verse. Napoleon wrote poetry too, you know, and it was every bit as awful as you’d imagine it being.
ThymeZone
Yes, it’s a great book, and by that I mean, a book of great brilliance and importance. But I found it dense reading. I can only drink coffee and force my brain to work at 175% of its usual capacity for so long before coma sets in.
mark
I second the “Go to sleep and get up at the same time everyday” advice.
Do this for one month and see if it helps.
Seriously.
RSA
Thanks for the Coleman pointer, TAFKaGOP4M; I’ve never heard of him (or the museum in Baltimore, where I travel regularly). Looks like cool stuff.
My comments about Rumsfeld being a poet were to some extent tongue in cheek. The poems are comparable to found art, as in these examples:
RSA
Forgot to mention: as interesting as Julian Jaynes’s ideas are, they’re closer to science fiction than anything else.