Insomniac.

This is what the dictionary definition of 'insomniac' is. It's 00:35 right now, early Monday morning in very chilly November, and I've found myself in the same old predicament. I'm wide awake. I'm a self-confessed, rather than medically-diagnosed insomniac, like most. Usually, I'm okay. But every now and then, my sleeping pattern seems to totally obliterate itself and my mind begins to wander like Alice in Wonderland on fast-forward. My eyes are darting from one corner of the room to the other. My sighs are broken up by the constant ticking of a watch somewhere in the deep depths of my darkened room. Every half an hour or so, there's something else. Another noise, sign of life, reminding me that I'm perhaps not the only one up, struggling to sleep, with dialated pupils and heavy bags under my eyes.

Theoretically, I should be fine. There's nothing weighing heavily on my mind, no immediate anxieties or stresses to keep me up, no worries or excitements to prevent me from getting any sleep. That, however, is perhaps the most frustrating part of it, there being no fallible reason at all as to why I'm awake. You should know this, I get very stroppy when it comes to lack of sleep. I'm terrible to experience when I'm hungover or just plain exhausted because I just can't handle feeling tired. The kind of tired that makes your muscles ache and your whole body feel like it's a dead weight and it takes every ounce of strength you have to stifle yawns and keep your eyelids open in unison. See, this also isn't helping. I have a few things I do when I can't sleep. One, mainly, as you can probably tell, is write. I don't always blog, although it's becoming more of a midnight ritual than it used to be. I keep a tatty notebook by my bed so that if I can't sleep, or if I wake up during the nigt and think of something creative, I can immediately document it, before drifting back off to sleep. Apart from writing, I tweet. Maybe that's kind of the same thing, although my tweets aren't anywhere near as well-mannered or eloquent as my blogging is (and even that isn't saying a great deal.) It's no secret, I'm a bit of a twitter-whore. The app on my iPhone basically is never shut. I've tweeted, moaned, shouted, whispered, projected all kinds of 140-character nonsense into the twittersphere over the years, and as the insomnia hits hard, my tweet count seems to rise infinitely. Then there's the more usual stuff; relaxing with a hot drink and a film or, of course, my Friends boxset, my iPod or the latest book I'm reading, any distraction is welcomed with open arms and grabby hand gestures at stupid times in the morning.

Right now, I'm feeling pretty worn out. I'm pretty sure I'm coming down with a cold, and my head seems to be pounding every time I blink and yet, I can't sleep. Everything seems to suffocate me or I end up shivering and even more uncomfortable. My insomnia is putting me in a bad mood on what is always an unwelcome day anyway: Monday. I truly believe in the stigma attached to Mondays, especially the dreaded Monday mornings, full of stress and time limits, letting go (more like watching it get snatched away) of the weekend, and having to once again, abide by normal social constraints. It is no longer acceptable to sit and eat until your heart is content in your onesie while watching reruns of Come Dine With Me. You are now unable to get away with looking slightly bedraggled, and/or drinking your way through the afternoon and well on into the night. So you can see my problem. Approaching 1am and I'm yet to sleep, and I have to face the dreaded Monday schedule with a grimace rather than a smile, dark circles under my eyes, not happy lines, yawns not laughs, and mostly, negativity, not positivity. I shall, of course, try my hardest to break this cycle. Mondays are, obviously best dealt with with lashings of optimism and a big grin, so why not.ets just hope I can sleep before then, because I'm not sure how far my pokerface stretches. 

Wasted weekends.

Opening your eyes even just a fraction, and immediately you wince. The light wounds you, it's too bright. No one prepared you for this. Daylight. Morning (is it?) Sobriety. 

Lifting your head off the pillow, everything stars to spin. Your vision is well and truly compromised. Wince again. You're in a lot of pain. It's self-inflicted. You hate yourself for it. That 'it was a good idea at the time' lark. Mindless self-indulgence. Dry throat, severely dehydrated, hot and shivering at the same time. Alcohol is seeping through every pore in your body. You can smell the night before very vividly. Stale perfume, a stranger's aftershave, day-old beer, vodka remnants, chinese or pizza or some kind of takeaway box is strewn across the bedroom floor, half-eaten, grease glistening. Your stomach flips. A distinct stench of vomit and the feeling that you've forgotten something important. You look in the mirror, gawp at your reflection. 

Your face is blotchy, exhausted, worn. You've had the same make up on for about thirty six hours now, and it's showing. One earring in. You're still wearing last night's dress, but it now has a very obvious rip down the left-hand side. You don't know how you got home, or where your phone is or how much money you threw angrily at the barman demanding 'teeeequilarrr!'  Last night was, probably disastrous. Spilled drinks, smashed glasses, arguments and probably very drunk interactions with the entirely wrong sort of people. Waking up feeling like you've drank the bar. Having bad skin days, bad hair days and generally just had days. You feel run down, and tired and just rotten. Bloated, boring, dull, exhausted. Coffee, painkillers and the comfort of your bed is all you need. 

The day seems to last forever, as you struggle to piece together the night before, with the help of texts from friends. The ones you dread 'Can't believe you last night!' 'How drunk were you?' and the worst are texts from unrecognised numbers. You swear under your breath, realising you must've been giving out your number to anyone who'd take it. As for your sent texts, you can't even bare to read them, as the recipients' names are enough to make you want to bury your head under your duvet for evermore. Although you're well aware that hangover cures don't fully exist, you spend the day trying anything humanly possible to rid yourself of The Hangover from Hell, with no luck. Your aversion to anything remotely alcoholic heightens, ironically. Everything is too loud, too fast, too bright. Your senses spend the day attacking your immune system, until you're well and truly overcome by last night's antics. Retreating to bed, earlier than ever before and as willing as a child on Christmas Eve, only without a Santa-like figure. However, we've all got one little consolation, even if we don't remember the little details, and that's the sheer, undeniable hope that it was worth your while. That last night, no matter how many hours you spent throwing up, how bad your headache was, how much money you threw away and how much of an idiot you made of yourself, that for even a short time, it was worth it.

Who are we kidding? We'll do it all again given half a chance.