a passionate repentance

I can't sleep. And so I figured--why suffer alone? Particularly when I can *share* my misery? I have a particular pattern for insomnia, and so far it's worked really well. First, when you realize that you can't sleep, pout and stay in bed. The sleepiness will eventually get tired of hiding and come back to see what you are doing. Secondly if that's not working, then get up, and get a book. Read the book, but do it in such a position that you're really uncomfortable so that you're not *rewarding* yourself for staying up late in any way. Your weariness will see that you appreciate the dynamics of your situation and come along to comfort you. Or you'll be so uncomfortable that you'll go to bed anyway, just to lie down.
Thirdly, is do some housework. This will almost always work. Your brain will shut down, your body will tremble and you will wish, wretchedly for drugs or drink or anything else but this, but you must persevere. If you do manage to do so, you'll sleep like the dead *and* you'll have a cleaner house, but you'll be so smug in the morning that no one can stand you.

I've noticed though, that I seem to follow a pattern in my insomnia, too. Either I follow the remedies or I say 'screw it' and jump online to go enjoy myself. Spend a few minutes writing---bored now. Go play a game. Bored bored. Get a little sleepy but instead of going to bed I say "I'm up *now*" in a half-reproachful way so that the errant sleepiness will feel guilty and not stray next time. I start to think about all the wonderful things I *could* write, convinced that I truly am a great artiste, a tortured soul, if only I could find the proper forum to express it in. I run over dialogue in my head until I sound like a French director. Or Jeanne Moreau. I start thinking about Obscure Films I Have Known And Loved.

I have imperceptibly moved on by now from art to life, and I start to brood about the injustices of life. How it is that there are no passenger pigeons. Not even one. No Tasmanian Tigers. No dusky swallows. This makes me immensely melancholy, and fuelled by sleeplessness and angst, I dash off something long and incomprehensible (not unlike this) in one of my newsgroups and retire with a heartfelt sigh, to dream of better days, La Dame aux Camellias had nothing on me.
Of course in the morning I wake, and wonder what drove me to write such incredible crap, and I write a swift apology or six, since there's no way in hell to erase it now.

Hmm.

I wonder if Margaret Mitchell felt this way?

It could be worth remembering later.