Sleep deprivation and the thoughts of the early hours

A month today and my boyfriend flies to New Zealand and we will be apart for the majority of 2006 and a good chunk of 2007.

I have had a variety of unstable, unrealistic and unfeasible thoughts about what I should be doing in the time he is away. My ideal scenario is that I will become rich, popular, attractive and generally extremely successful so on his return he is overwhelmed by my wonderfulness and we will be happy ever after (and, of course, extremely wealthy).

I'd settle for just one of the above (after discussions with my sister on this very topic this morning we came to the bitter conclusion that to have all of these would probably leave us with no friends as they'd all be painfully jealous, so agreed that at least one would have to be swapped for a sizeable failure or flaw. She said she'd like them all but settle for leprosy as hers but I pointed out I wasn't sure that it was an option).

However, the plan of action I have settled on in recent weeks will not really fulfill any of the bullet points on my wishlist. If I'm honest, it isn't even going to come close, not even vaguely.

I'd like to say that I'm throwing down the gauntlet of web design and taking up taxidermy or becoming a celebrity chef but I wouldn't exactly be telling the truth - but I've faked enthusiasm for long enough that I can lie back and think of England a few more times to help fund my endeavors as there's not much money where I'm heading.

Right, deep breath, this is not a commitment just yet, its just a plan...:

I'm going to move back in with my parents and become a penniless freelance writer.

I won't dwell too much on the whys but as this has involved me leaving the one thing I utterly love - playing in my band - this isn't something that I'm treating lightly.

As a result of these two significant events, I am not sleeping well. At all.

Over the past few weeks my sleeplessness has resulted in nearly blinding my boyfriend by poking him in the eye (making me realise that I would make less than a competent optometrist), having a full on sit-up-in-bed-in-a-hot-sweat-yelling nightmare and doing rather a lot of staring. At the ceiling, at the insides of my eyelids, at the underside of my duvet cover (when its been cold, but then I get all hot and confused and panicky so that just adds to my sleeplessness).

I have tried getting drunk, going to bed really early, exercising to an obscene level, eating early, reading, detoxing and...no.

My thoughts, playing pleasantly and happily in the realm of my consciousness during the day, evolve into stubborn, moody, acne covered, frustrated teenagers come nighttime. They are determined to be unclear, unfocused, contradictory and completely irrational yet extremely demanding of every ounce of my attention and refuse to be denied of airspace to voice their opinions.

This has resulted in several things:
- I am now unable to drink less than 7 cups of tea while I am at work lest I fall asleep;
- I have no idea what it feels like to function at work without the shakes;
- I have developed the ability to do nothing well (I even made unsatisfactory beans on toast yesterday);
- I have become an even more terrible correspondant/friend than usual;
- I am extremely grumpy for a large amount of the day.

I ran out of soya milk the other day. I have herbal tea in the cupboard which would normally have sufficed and kept my temperament at bay by tricking my simple brain into believing that I was actually consuming caffeine. But I couldn't do it. I tried tea with milk then resorted to drinking black tea for the rest of the day in order to function within the realms of normality. This worries me.

I am guessing the situation will resolve itself once my boyfriend has flown off to NZ and I am back in the country.

However, seeing as I have one month left, and I would really like to not terrify my boyfriend by hitting him in my sleep and generally being severely moody and irrational (more so than normal) so that he goes away remembering that his girlfriend is not totally unstable and can count at least one reason why he's chosen to commit himself to me for the duration of his trip and not taken the opportunity to do a runner.

I have no solution to this other than to somehow stuff the overly vocal mouths of my thoughts with a variety of metaphorical blankets, or to actually resolve the issues.

However, during the day, when they're playing nicely, bathing in the sunshine, allowing their owner to drag herself through the office hours with various lines of incomprehensible JavaScript and misbehaving CSS taking up the real estate in the forefront of her mind, they seem....silly.

Oh, I don't think I mentioned what I was going to write about.

Well, they always say write from your experience, write about what you're good at, what you know about, what you understand.

I wish I was competent at something other than web design. Unless anyone would accept an article on how to make good beans on toast and a cup of tea?