Controlling the Crazy

Last night, I did not sleep. I lay in bed…but I did not sleep.

It was not a sugar-high, although my three little blossoms did in fact acquire a stash that could maintain an ant colony for six hundred years. (Below is my gratuitous ‘how adorable is this?’ Halloween pictures. It is the best we could get. And we’re lucky to have gotten even this much. They were dancing as if their little shoes were made of molten lava and hassling us about when, precisely-exactly, we would be, you know, leaving for trick or treat.)



It was not the most common reason I will do this, which is that I still, after nearly four decades in this body, have not figured out where the ‘off’ switch is on my brain; not only is it a bit unruly and prone to deciding that the perfect time to solve the most complex questions is 2:15 in the morning, but it will also sometimes behave as though Captain Adventure had gotten hold of the remote. This! That! This! That! Click! Click! Click!!

It was not even a caffeine high, the second most common reason that I go to bed not to sleep but to conduct a detailed examination of my bedroom ceiling. In point of fact, I have been slurping down uncaffeinated, herbal organic no less tea as if I think it has some kind of magical warding technology in it that can keep the freight train that is about to mow me down away.

No. None of the usual suspects were keeping me awake.

It was the cold in my head.

And back.

And stomach.

And lungs.

And throat.

All night long, the complaints were filing in. In triplicate. With blue ink. Piling on top of the usual and customary joint whining until I wanted to yell at my whole entire body to shut up.

And, at 3:30 when I still hadn’t managed to doze off and was threatening to just get up and go to work, I realized that I’m going to end up taking a sick day before this week is out. Because this thing isn’t getting better, it’s getting worse.

Now I told you that, so I could tell you this: I am crazy enough that I am insisting that I will control the crazy.

Instead of taking the sensible route, the one I would tell any of my girlfriends to take were they in similar circumstance and asked me my opinion, and say, “OK. I’m sick. I feel like @*^&@. I’m going to go ahead and climb onto my nice, quiet sofa and watch brain candy on TV”, I’m making deals with the devil.

“Please, oh please,” I said to Satan. “Just let me get through today, and half of tomorrow. Or all of tomorrow. And a couple hours Friday morning. If I can just get through these first critical hours of the month-close process, I’ll be well-positioned to take a day…well, half a day…well, a few hours anyway…off to nurture my cold.”

This is not rational behavior.

It is also why, whenever I get the flu, it always happens like this: work-work-work-work-work-WHUMP!!

…ow…who put that wall there?!

Anyway. My SQL Server has just begun waving frantically for my attention. “Hello! Hello!” (it says) “I finished my thing over here! Click me! Click me, if you want to save your SOUL!!!!”

Hmm.

Maybe I should lighten up on the Advil Cold & Sinus a bit. Because I’m telling you…that little icon just sprouted a pair of horns and a pitchfork…