The battle rages on

Well, fuck. It was bound to rear it's ugly head again, and I guess this is the time. What the hell am I talking about, you ask?

I am talking about my recurring, on-again, off-again battle with insomnia. God, do I hate it.



So here it is, 1:30AM and I am WIDE awake. I gave it my best to try to get back to sleep, but have been tossing around for the last 45 minutes. Those of you who've had it before know - when you wake up, sometimes you just know you're not getting back to sleep. This was one of those times.

Sleep has historically been an elusive thing for me. I tend to fall asleep late, and wake up early. I require near-absolute silence to fall asleep. That, at least, has gotten better (thanks to my four years living on a main drag in Philadelphia). It used to be that if a car door slammed a block away, I'd wake up. And that is not hyperbole.

And to be fair, my insomnia used to be much worse. When I was a kid, I'd wake up in the middle of the night, get dressed and wander my neighborhood for an hour or two. Thankfully, much of my childhood was spent in a very safe Boston suburb. Through high school, sleep was difficult. College, honestly? It wasn't as much of a problem, and I suspect it's because I rarely went to bed sober.

In my early 20's it was pretty rough, but lately it's been ok. Oddly, I began sleeping much better once I moved in with Mrs. TK, which was about seven years ago. Usually once or twice every couple of weeks, but rarely lasted for more than an hour and change. Tonight, I can already tell, will be one of the bad nights. Most likely I won't get back to sleep until 5AM or so.

Of course, I have no idea why. I'm not particularly stressed - work has been crazy, but work is always crazy. In fact, it sure as hell has been crazier. I'm planning on getting a new tattoo tomorrow, so I'm a little anxious about it. But it's not like it's my first one, so why should that matter? And I had a great evening last night - Mrs. TK and I went to an amazing Greek restaurant, and in general had a great night. But that's the damnable thing about it. I don't think there needs to be a reason.

Worse, my wife has no such problems. She sleeps like a goddamn rock. I could crash my car into the side of the house and she wouldn't stir. She falls asleep at the drop of a dime, and will sleep forever unless woken up. I'd guess that it's due in part to her schedule, which is erratic at best, so she sleeps as much as she can, when she can. But she's always been this way. She's an excellent sleeper.

I suck at it.

Anyway, this will probably win the award for most boring post. But then, this is one of those that's more for me than for you. I really just needed something to do.

Sleep tight.

You bastards.

Caution: This post sucks

Hello readers. Have you missed me? I've missed you too. What's that? You haven't missed me?

Well then, I guess I hope you fuckin' die.

Seriously. I apologize to my reader for not posting recently... I don't have a great excuse. I've been slightly busier than usual, but not burdensomely so. What can I say. Here's what happened recently:

1. I got absolutely raped by the IRS this year. We owe. Oh, Lordy do we fuckin' owe. Not happy about it. So donations are now being accepted here at the ole' Meat factory.

The IRS is the rabbit, in case that wasn't clear.

2. Season 3 of the Wire is going incredibly well. I also started watching 24. I gotta say - it's like a Robert B. Parker novel - not great, but I'll be damned if I can stop watching the fucker. I ripped through Season One in about a week. I'm going to try something dangerous for Season 2. I'm stocking up on booze, snacks and recreational drugs, and I'm going to see if I can watch 24 episodes in 24 hours. What can I say, the wife is out of town, so I'm gonna live like a scumbag. And as my friend Jai once said, "there's only so much time you can waste taking baths and masturbating". And yes, that is a direct quote.

3. Saturday was... interesting. My friend Pax enlisted me to help him move his motorcycle from his old apartment to the new one. The bike doesn't run right now, hence the need for assistance. This entailed driving to his house in East Boston, picking him up, driving to the truck rental place in Cambridge, dropping off my car, driving the truck to his old apartment in Somerville, picking up the bike, driving it to Eastie, dropping it off, driving the truck BACK to Cambridge, dropping it off, picking up my car again, and then taking Pax back to Eastie.

This was exactly as big a pain in the ass as it sounds like. But hey, he's a friend, and there is almost nothing I won't do as a favor to a friend. So we did it. But here's the rub: This works better if you know my friend Pax, but it's still goofy. We get the truck, we're on route to the old apartment, and Pax says:

Oh, I probably should have mentioned this, but the bike is chained to a post. I brought a bunch of keys with me, but I'm not sure which one opens the lock.

Right. Awesome. Did I mention that it's 20 degrees outside and the world is covered with ice? Anyway, we park the truck, Pax pulls out a giant handful of keys and is fucking with them as we head to the back of the building. We get there and... and...

wait for it...

wait for it...

IT'S A COMBINATION LOCK. And NO, he does not know the fucking combo.

So we drive to a hardware store, buy a hacksaw, and cut the chain off. Goddamn. It wasn't so funny then, but it is now.

Anyway, after feeding me, Pax got sleepy so I went off to a different friend's house. It was around 4:00. And then he and I proceeded to get completely and utterly annihilated. I mean, RAGING drunk. I don't know where it came from. Surprised the shit out of me. Next thing I knew it was 4 in the morning and we were alternating between playing darts and firing a pellet gun in his basement. Yeah. I didn't drive home.

Sunday we had breakfast, then both Tim and I went to my place so he could hijack my music onto his new iPod. We then skated around on my back yard/ice rink. Much slipping and pain ensued.

So yeah. Nothing terribly exciting. But I felt obligated to post something, so there. More of substance (right) will come later.