I usually have trouble falling asleep anyway, because my mind will start racing as soon as I hit the mattress. I don't blame my mind for all the bouncy thinking; it's my body's fault that I had to shutdown for the night. In an effort to control the process, I try to confine my slumberbrain to well-laid paths - like further development of my TaleSpin card game, or ideas about a story I'd like to write. The purpose there being to limit my brain to something I've already thought about, so eventually my body can drop off and let the mind shift over into dreams.

Deep sleep, for me, often brings additional issues. I see bugs a lot. For whatever reason, I'll open my eyes at 4am - I don't know if I get disturbed by a loud noise or a house creak or what - and I will see a spider.

Sitting here fully awake, I can blame the "spiders" on shadows and darkness and my blurry vision. But in the throes of it, I see fucking spiders walking across the wall, or scuttling behind the poles of the bed, or at the very worst, crawling across the sheets. Generally, the fog of it all means I just stare at the area where the spider was... because the little bastards always hide after a second or two. Then I start ordering my limbs into absolute idiocy: running my hand along the sheets or feeling along the bed frame to flush them out. Occasionally I will leave the bed entirely... still completely convinced I saw a large spider in it.

I had one of these episodes in a hotel room while I was sharing a room with a fellow conference attendee. I don't recall if bugs were involved, but my roommate Jose woke up in the middle of the night and saw me staring at him from my bed across the room. I was kinda propped up on one arm, just staring. Because he was also half-asleep, he starting talking in Spanish to me. Que, Joe? Que?

Lately, Rhonda has joined in the fun. A couple nights ago she reached over and pulled my hair. Like, hard. Then she screamed an apology, all without ever waking up. But her finest moment is when she recited a 911 call. She stated her name and address and then said "And I have every reason to believe someone has just been kidnapped." Actually, she did say somebody's name, not "someone." I was still half asleep, so I missed how she identified the vic. I laughed out loud and then watched her for a while waiting for any updates - maybe she got the license plate number or something - but she fell back into deep sleep. I'm just glad she wasn't holding the phone at the time.