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.