In a few hours, in the sickening hour before dawn, we're heading out on a little road trip, and will return Monday. The others are sleeping, which is what I should be doing, but of course I'm not because of my inability to fall asleep just because I want to. I could have spent the last couple of weeks gradually adjusting my schedule in anticipation of this early departure, a little nudge each day, but there's no guarantee that would've worked anyway. It rarely has in the past. Not only am I a lifelong insomniac, but I think many years of reacting to the daily fluctuations of the schedules imposed on me have helped to permanently wreck my ability to make my sleeping patterns fit normal life. Maybe I'm one of those people whose natural cycle is ill-matched to the rigid imposition of a twenty-four hour structure. Wait, doesn't everyone's body favor a twenty-five hour clock? I read that somewhere. All I know is, morning light makes me a little ill, a bit queasy, usually because I've been up all night. I associate the break of day with stale fantasies and a sense of exhaustion, the insistent pressure of a tedious kind of futility. Dawn is when you feel cottonmouthed. This is not how it's supposed to be unless you're Steve Rubell.

I get about six and a half hours of sleep a night, on average. And so fitful! Research suggests that a lack of proper sleep is associated with a host of chronic health issues, both physical and mental. My accumulated sleep deficit has by now stretched into years. Years! And what have I done with those extra years of wakefulness? Don't ask. I said don't.

I'm going to have to sleep in the car. I can't sleep sitting up, so I'm going to need to unbuckle my seatbelt and stretch out in back. This way if there's a head-on collision or a roll down a hill my final moments will be restful ones, just before the car bursts into flames. It's my last wish to be featured in a 1970's-style drivers education film, perhaps entitled Embankment! or Skid Marks of Destiny.