Issue #29/110, Feb 22 - March 6

By Kevin McElwee
    
I was in love once. But that was a long time ago....
     It lasted roughly five years-comfortably within the two-to-six-year range commonly cited as the mean expected duration of any given episode of love. Whether it was the real thing or just an unexpected side effect of youthful ignorance I can't rightly say. In fact, I find it difficult to get my head around the concept at all anymore. Near as I can remember though, I was happy more often than not. OK, so that "happy" there is literally screaming out for further qualification, an adverb at least, but I'm willing to ignore it if you are.
     What's even more implausible from my current perspective, I clearly recall having a semi-regular sleep schedule-say, 60 percent of the nights over those five years. If it has been awhile since you've been up all night reluctantly awaiting the arrival of a sober weekday morning, then three out of five years of healthy rest on a daily basis probably doesn't sound like all that much to you. But several years of experimenting with the various sleep-regulating lifestyle alternatives have taught me a greater appreciation of the sleep I once enjoyed with such relative ease.
     How about a few statistical conclusions to illustrate (the following estimates are, at best, highly personal and have been collected and/or calculated in as unscientific manner as you could hope to achieve in practice; your individual results can and should be expected to vary wildly from those stated here):

Rest Regulator	Estimated Yield
Alcohol; 3-5 days per week (frequent same-day mixing of 2 of the conventional beer, wine, and spirit categories, but rarely all 3)	3 months of regular sleep*; gradual drop-off of effects marked by return to Initial State** at roughly 6 months.
Alcohol; 5-7 days per week (frequent and heedless same-day mixing of the 3 conventional beer, wine, and spirit categories)	5-7 days of regular sleep followed by immediate return to Initial State
Exercise; 2-3 days per week	1-3 nights of sleep; however, results unpredictable and discipline difficult to maintain
Heroin; 2 (3 if you go by the hockey scoring system wherein a tie is worth a point) well-developed addictions with subsequent withdrawals	9 months of Regular Sleep (theraupeutic effects disappear entirely during 3-4 week withdrawal cycles, so really more like 7 months); recurrence of Initial State immediately upon onset of "final" withdrawal
Marijuana	Sometimes (but not always good for one night of sleep; no mid- to long-term theraupeutic effects observed
Prescription Sleep Aid	Regular sleep of 3-9 months, followed by rapid return to Initial State over 1-2 week period
Travel (traversing at least 2 time zones, with daily tourist-level walking and moderate alcohol intake)	Regular sleep for most of trip, with return to Initial State 3 days to a week prior to the conclusion thereof
Notes: * "Regular Sleep" is defined as 5 or more hours of continous sleep on 3 or 4 consecutive days. ** "Initial State" is defined as sleeplessness, i.e. 3 hours or less of total sleep pn 2 of 3 consecutive days.

     Combinations of one or more regulators produce varying effects, generally about one-half of the lesser of the respective estimated yields. Of course, each regulator involves its own batch of side effects, but the only one that really matters is the dreaded return to the Initial State.
     You may have noticed the absence of speed from the table. This is not an omission. Rather, speed's therapeutic effects-extended periods of sleeplessness (2-4 days) followed by corresponding extended crashes-do not generally fit in with the defined terms of the table. True, the crashes usually include some amount of sleep, but not typically enough to be physically or psychologically beneficial. Plenty of nasty side effects, too-especially in the long term. So let's just say it's not without its attractive qualities and leave it at that.
     Are you with me? If so, then chances are good that (i) you know how that town drunk feels when he has been without booze for twelve hours or so; (ii) travel no longer has the slightest bit of romantic appeal for you; (iii) you've found yourself nervously rereading that fine print on the sleeping pill instructions ("treatment term not to exceed 2-3 weeks without consultation with medical expert"); (iv) there are some fundamental issues you'd like to bring up with the makers of Trainspotting; and (v) your teeth keep mysteriously chipping and are probably growing looser by the day.
     So what now then? Fuck if I know.
     A few words about underlying symptoms here. I've personally found that my inability to sleep is, more often than not, accompanied by acute depression-the downwardly spiraling variety that grabs the sharpest knife from the kitchen, then attempts to expose your digestive tract to the open air. Not with any success, it must be said. That abdominal skin is surprisingly elastic and resistant to slicing, like a tomato. The serrated blade would do the trick, but then how would you slice your bread?
     Is it the depression that causes the insomnia? Or vice versa? Or maybe the coincidence is just that-coincidental. A combination of all three, more than likely.... Not that it really matters. Neither manifestation seems to be going anywhere.
     Neither is suicide the answer, not a practicable one anyway. It's quite an easy thing to want to die. (Hell, I probably want to die more times before 9 a.m. than most people do all day.) Getting to the point where you have no choice in the matter is the hard part. As much as the depressive downward spiral gathers speed, it never manages to close that gap separating want from need. It seems slight enough when viewed up close like that, but then you can never know exactly how big it is until you've passed it. Not really. Perhaps having a shotgun handy would make things easier (more on that directly).
     But as long as that little gap is going to sit there taunting, you might as well try to have some fun with it. Well, maybe not fun exactly, but a nicely elaborated suicide fantasy can be an effective way of riding out the rough parts. One hint: constantly altering the details helps to keep things fresh. By way of example, I'll give you my current favorite.
     Sitting on a kitchen chair out on the balcony with the doors wide open, back to the courtyard. Shotgun in mouth, pull the trigger. Skull and contents thereof explode out into the courtyard, fed upon by stray dogs and those noisy crows, grateful for the free meal. The chair, if it has any kind of aesthetic sense at all, will see fit to have one or more of its legs broken by the force of the gun blast. That way the body drops tastefully to the ground. A headless corpse calmly sitting there in the chair would be way too corny.
     There's one aspect in particular that makes this fantasy a superior one, in my opinion: its elegant solution of the shotgun-mess problem. Unless you're planning to attempt something really elaborate (the rope and piano wire bridge jump, for example), a shotgun blast to the head is clearly the preferred method. But I've always disliked the thought of someone else having to clean up my brain and skull bits. You could lay down a tarp first, but there's the matter of disposal. The balcony setting takes care of the resulting mess nicely. Maybe some stains left on car roofs, but fuck 'em. Way too many people own cars in this city nowadays.
     It's usually springtime in the fantasy, with strong winds but no rain (imagine Rite of Spring blasting in the background if you must, but I prefer no soundtrack at all). For this reason, I'm a bit taken aback when there's no high-pitched thud report from the half-empty container of smetana I've just tossed over the balcony ledge. The snow cover has muffled the sound. Sorry birds, no warm fleshy bits today. Cold, rotting dairy product will have to do.
     This is all well and good for the birds, but we find ourselves returning to that question: What now? I still have no fucking clue, but at least I've succeeded in killing some time.
     Actually there is one idea I've been toying with lately, although I'm pretty sure you're not going to like it. I'm talking about getting married. Not necessarily to share the misery with another person, and not even with a realistic hope that it would solve this sleeping problem (let alone yield something my mind would be willing to recognize as love). Just for something to do, something different. "Anything different is good." Groundhog Day could have ended right after Bill Murray said those words, but they had to throw in that prancing in the streets of Punxsatawney, "let's live here" shit just to fuck with our heads. Marriage, you see. Just goes to show I'm not completely off base.
     I'm still working out the details, but my current reasoning goes roughly as follows. If the insomnia/depression problem is like an unsolvable equation involving the arcane manipulation of two imaginary quantities, maybe the solution is itself an unsolvable, imaginary quantity. Such as marriage. It's counterintuitive, but it just might work.
     If not, there's always kids.