AmericanLimey

This is How I Deal With Insomnia… Part II

americanlimey — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:14:53 +0000

This is a poem I wrote about not being able to sleep. It’s fairly inane, and not particularly interesting, however it has its charms. I think it might be interesting for anyone who deals with occasional or frequent bouts of insomnia. I took the liberty of creating a study guide to help students in the future (when my work is being taught in literature classes) analyze the poem. I think the study guide may have actually turned out better than the piece itself.

The formatting became a little goofy when I copied it into wordpress (there are supposed to be two lines in every stanza), but you get the idea.

Late In the Eve of 9/3/09, or Perhaps Early in the Morn of 9/4/09

Maybe this is my body’s way of punishing me
for eating a 1400-calorie dinner at 11:30pm.

Maybe it’s the full moon
and I’ve been particularly receptive to its voodoo tonight.

More than likely it’s that I woke up horny,
as I always do after imbibing even a small amount of alcohol in an evening,

and decided it prudent
to watch twenty-two-and-a-half minutes of oily Japanese lesbians.

Books help me sleep,
video keeps me up. I know that.

Whatever the case,
I’ve found myself in a most uncomfortable situation.

As the pale light of the moon
has been so gradually melted into and over by the pale light of the sun,

an imperceptible transition made far more subtle
by the constant shifting of the artificial light from the traffic signal outside my window,

I have been trying my very damndest
to do what one can’t do by trying.

Needless to say, I’ve failed miserably.
Sleep has eluded me for hours.

At least, I think it has.
It’s hard to say on nights like these.

At the very least I’ve been waking often
and the clock has slowed significantly,

as it does between the hours of 3:00am and 6:00am
when one is alone and not drunk.

As far as I can tell I have been lying for several hours with my eyes closed,
thinking without leaving,

occasionally being tricked by sharp, sudden noises outside my window
into thinking that I’ve just woken up, startled,

when in fact I would have reacted with exactly the same violent awareness
had I been equally bored in the middle of the day.

I rolled off my bed, onto the floor at around quarter-to-five
and read listlessly for a half-hour or so.

Video keeps me up,
books help me sleep. I know that.

Obviously books didn’t help this time.
If they had I never would have written a word of this.

Study Guide:

Did the author employ the use of metaphor in this poem? Ask your teacher to define and give examples of metaphor, then Google “metaphor” so you can actually learn what it is.
.
Minutes were not widely accepted as an acceptable unit for measuring oily Japanese lesbians until several decades after the publication of this poem. Can you think of any other ways to denigrate women?
.
When this poem was written, it was not yet socially acceptable on a wide scale to simply “go out and get a prostitute”. What other options did the author have to help himself fall asleep, aside from Internet porn and intravenous drugs?
.
Twice in the poem, the author mentions that books help him sleep. Did you know that books were actually the inspiration for eBooks? Discuss how stupid and boring reading is and stuff.
.

This is How I Deal With Insomnia… Part I

americanlimey — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:48:17 +0000

I couldn’t sleep the other night. So I just did this instead.

And So Begins Our Great Adventure…

americanlimey — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:31:28 +0000

This entry marks the date on which we embark upon a journey that will take us (you following me, of course) to a great many interesting places, where we will see things that will likely shock and terrify, but which will also occasionally warm our hearts and perhaps arouse us sexually as well. This is a journey into the very heart itself. For comedy–and that is what I will be referring to much of the forthcoming drivel as–is the food with which the soul nourishes itself and grows fat.

If my words make you laugh, and laughter is food for the soul, then you are all as comfort-eaters, and I am as your local convenience store owner, recommending new flavors of ice cream to you after every less-than-satisfactory interaction with the opposite sex. Some of you look more as though you think of laughter as intravenous drugs for the soul, which is acceptable as well. To each his own. In that case you are as the junkie, and I am as your pusher.

Fear not my words. Let them wash over you as though they were Proactive Solution Revitalizing Toner, and you are my unsightly acne. In case you were wondering, I am indeed currently attempting to collect monetary compensation from Proactive for having written that line. They seem somewhat disinclined to come to an agreement regarding such a payment, but I think they may change their melancholy tune once they see the basket of gifts I have sent them. On the record, I must state clearly that I know of no law prohibiting one from cutting slits in the partially decayed corpse of a rodent, stuffing it with unwound tape from a VHS of the first season of Felicity, and mailing it with an attached letter that reads, “you’re next.” In any event, the United States Postal Service allows citizens and corporations to freely post copies of 3OH!3′s self titled catastrophe, and I see little distinction between the two.

In the coming weeks, months, years you will laugh with me, you will surely cry with me, and if all goes according to the best of my plans, you will sleep with me. Well, not you, but a few of my better aesthetically endowed readers might. My standards do begin to drop after my third or fourth absinthe however, so I suppose it’s a possibility.

I would like to inform you that I will soon have text and photographic advertisements on this site, ripe for the clicking, and expect that you do so on a regular basis. Every time you visit the website of one of my partners you will be contributing to the continued support of my slothful lifestyle, as well as the ketamine habit I have always wanted but have never been able to afford.

My friends, I welcome you here with all the kindness and benevolence I have witheld from my friends and family for score and a year, and I sincerely hope you enjoy our great adventure together. I will see you soon.