Early alert

It's 5 a.m. Do you know where your blogger is?

This blogger is wide awake in front of the computer. Why? I didn't even set an alarm last night because I don't need to be anywhere before my 11:00 meeting, but I've been awake since 3. Why why why? I tried to go back to sleep, but after an hour, I gave it up. So here I sit with nothing to say.

What woke me up at 3? No idea. Could have been the cat. She snores. For years she was not allowed in our bedroom at night because her snoring would get into my dreams, but right now we need to keep our door open or it gets too hot in there, so there's no keeping the cat out. She likes heat, especially when she's sleeping, which is, frankly, pretty much all she ever does these days. But she sleeps loudly and I sleep lightly so we really shouldn't be sharing a room.

Why didn't I just roll over and go back to sleep? No idea--or too many ideas. I just kept thinking: about all those papers I need to grade, how to organize a new class next fall, what lies behind a particular campus situation, what I'll do if the sudden cold snap devastates my herb and butterfly gardens. What can I do at 3 a.m.? My grading is at the office and it won't do me any good to go out to the garden in the cold damp darkness, and the one colleague who could possibly enlighten me about the troubling campus situation is unlikely to appreciate a phone call at 3 a.m.

I tried to stop thinking, but the brain was in overdrive. So eventually I gave it up and got up. Read my e-mail...nothing too exciting. Read some other stuff. Ate a banana. Aren't bananas full of some chemical that promotes somnolence? Maybe it was a defective banana, because I'm still awake.

Hey, I could take a pill...I still have some Ativan leftover from when I was on chemo, and it works better than bananas. On the other hand, it's after 5 now and I need to be in a meeting at 11. If I get drugged up now, there's no telling when I'll be alert again.

So I'm awake. How about you? Wide awake? I could call you and find out. Don't you love it when the phone rings at 5 a.m.? Or 5:15, as the case may be? We could have a nice chat and compare notes about what we've been doing lately: "Oh, nothing really, just not sleeping. How about you?"