The Wisdom of the Selectively Nocturnal

I don’t know why it should be, I am sure; but the sight of another man asleep in bed when I am up, maddens me ~ Jerome K. Jerome

They say that knowledge is knowing the tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. Sister Madly says that knowledge is knowing that you have a panic button on your key chain; wisdom is not setting it off at 3 AM.

Well, she had a good reason: she wanted to know what it sounded like, and Sister Madly never claimed to be wise.

For the past week or so, Sister Madly has been waking up at precisely 2:20 every morning, and staying awake until after 7 (except on Sunday, when she stayed up until 4 AM- while she may not be wise, she’s been known to outsmart herself on occasion.) A Sister Madly of very little sleep often results in a serious of misfortunes, some of them major, which can be difficult to remedy as naps on comfy department store display beds are generally frowned upon.

On the bright side, it is an improvement over her recent nighttime adventures in sleep paralysis. These always begin with the sound- or rather, the impression of a sound- of something running through the apartment, which would then rudely land on the bed down at her feet. The moment she remembers that she has neither a pet nor a roommate is the moment things start to go down hill. Fast.

Yes, everything is nice and paranormal here.

So it was after several encounters with the Rambunctious Shadow Kitty that Sister Madly decided, albeit unconsciously, that the best way to combat these episodes was to become nocturnal. Rambunctious Shadow Kitty never seems to show up during the day.

Well, you got your wish, Sister Madly. Now what? Late nights were all the rage in your teens, but now that you‘re at the tender age of Over 25- not so much. It was fun to stay up until sunrise in those days, or to sneak in past curfew; but now the most depressing sound in the world is the sound of those birds who start singing outside your window at the crack of dawn. So consider this: is it better to risk sleeping in the dark, or to be awake and wonder what’s inside of it? We all know the the logic that runs through your head at 3 AM.

While a Benadryl/Liquor cocktail has proven to be most effective in the past, Sister Madly all too often wakes up to bizarre scenarios and post-it notes scattered about the apartment, leaving her with many questions about the night before. Once, she had turned all her pictures upside down in their frames and hung them back on the wall (at least, she assumes that was her doing.) How different things are from the midnight adventures of her youth, such as the time Sister Madly & Company terrorized the hotel with a video camera and a lampshade.

Upon finding internal lectures on the evils of nocturnalness to be counterproductive, Sister Madly decided to take herself for a walk. She had somehow convinced herself that she would see the Northern Lights, or hear a late summer cicada, but Mother Nature had other plans- even Praline, the neighborhood cat who always approaches her for tummy rubs had called it a night. It was so unfair.

And there it was: her car, like the rest of the world, asleep and ridiculously happy in the moonlight. She didn’t want her car to be happy; its blissful dreams of winding mountain roads were mocking her, she could feel it- everyone was mocking her with their blatant sleeping. Why can’t Rambunctious Shadow Kitty visit them on occasion?

That’s when it occurred to Sister Madly that she had never in her life hit the panic button on her key chain. She didn’t know what it sounded like, and who knows? She may never get a legitimate reason to find out.* Besides, if Sister Madly’s going to be awake at 3 AM, she’s going to make sure the rest of the world is as well.

(*Again, Sister Madly never claimed to be wise. Also, it was 3 AM, the time when the Rationale sets in.)

And no, it’s not insomnia; Sister Madly is just selectively nocturnal.

POST’S THEME SONG: Curse the Night, the Raveonettes