20-20-20-Four Hours to Go . . .

Ah, the Ramones. I heard "I Wanna Be Sedated" on the radio yesterday and it got me thinking. I admit that I too often want to be sedated. But not like in the song or when I was a bored teenager and/or twenty-something. Now I just want to be able to fall asleep.

I was telling Pats about my chronic sleeping problem. I sure as shit can't get up in the morning and I sleep like the dead once I do fall asleep. I even have some interesting dreams (notably the recurring plane crash series, which used to cause me to wake up in a panic, but now increasingly involve a gorgeous soothing white light and absolutely no pain or terror as the ground comes closer and closer and closer but the impact just never seems to happen.)

The problem is actually falling asleep, or waking up in the middle of the night and then being unable to fall back to sleep. See, I lay down, cozy in, close my eyes --- but my mind WILL NOT STOP RUNNING. It's like a webpage that won't load and won't crash and just won't stop. And it's the stupidest shit too, song lyrics, quotes, snippets of conversations, shit I have to do the next day. Of course, the longer this goes on, the more upset I get because I just want to sleep and the damned stream of consciousness just won't stop streaming.

Turns out, Pats has the same problem. Even my 8-year old cousin recently told his mom that he has a hard time sleeping because he can't stop thinking. His mom (my aunt) and my mother both have the same issue.

So is this a symptom life in the modern era, in which information is just beaming at us so incessantly that our brains remain forever engaged? Or might it be a sign of advanced intelligence? (I'd like to think that). I worry however that we're all just totally neurotic and THAT'S the actual problem, in point of fact.

Worse still, I can hardly sleep anymore without "Simply Sleep" the active ingredient in Tylenol PM --- basically the PM without the Tylenol. I like to think it's better for my liver than Nyquil, though it's not nearly as effective at inducing a semi-coma.

Ironically, as I write this, I'm watching the South Park episode when all the kids get put on Ritalin. As Cartman says, "It makes you feel goooood."

Kenny: "Gooooooood."

The best part of the episode is when Chef proposes that the parents just smack their kids when they act up, but the parents have all pilfered the kids' Ritalin and are as sedated as their children and therefore don't really care to do anything.

Mmm, Welcome to Generation Rx, baby.