Memoirs Of An Insomniac...

Thursday night. My home. 26 Hours and still counting....

11:15 PM: 26 hours. That's how long it's been since I had my last nap. I haven't had anything close to sleep for much longer than that....four and a half days to be exact. Since then all I've had can only be termed as naps. The last I slept soundly was on saturday night. That was probably because I drank like a fish that night.Drank like a fish....I wonder who came up with that?? Just because fishes live in water doesn't necessarily mean they drink it all day, does it? What happens if they have to take a leak? Do they go in the water they live in or do they mark out any areas or anything?? Maybe there's something on the net about that. That's the trouble when you don't get enough sleep....you lose all clarity in thoughts. Or you dish out some real pearls of wisdom, like Al Pacino or Christian Bale did in their representations of insomniacs on the celluloid. But they both also did die in the end...i'd rather spout nonsense than die. Chad Kroeger's crooning to Santana's guitar. Love the song. "Into the night"..that's my latest ringtone. And that's my mum calling. And she asks me to go to sleep early. Parent's can be eerily psychic at a lot of times. I tell her I will....I tell myself i'm lying. I go back to the movie i'm watching. It's "Knocked Up"...I can't believe it made it to all time top 250 on IMDB. It's about a guy who's scared of commitment and having responsibilty of a kid. What's new in that? Hey! That dude with the long beard reminds of someone....
12:30 AM: It's a new day. The movie credits are rolling and no sign of drowsiness. I think of calling up Nipun. He'll be up all night too, just like me. For the records he's not into insomnia...it's his job timings that've turned him nocturnal. Otherwise I think he could sleep anytime you'd ask him to. I think i'll call him later, save it until i'm really bored. I take the Blogthings quizzes instead. They're amusing for a while, and I find out that if I was one of the X-men i'd be Mystique, which is cool except it's a girl...I was hoping more like Wolverine or something. And that i have lived 32% of my life, am marriage material, have medium commitment issues and other nonsense like that. I leave when the quiz titled "What fruit would you be?? " pops up...
1:45 AM: Nipun calls up. He's just as doggoned bored as I am, as we've been the last few months. Our conversations probably sum it up. Here's a sample...
"Nipun: Hey..what's happening??
Me: Nothing much. Just sitting around, doing nothing..."
This is followed by idle talk about what's on tv or some movie or songs., followed by thirty seconds of silence. And then,
"Me: So..what's happening?
Nipun: Nothing much. Just sitting around, doing nothing.."
Two bored souls trying to kill time..and failing miserably. Nipun took the X-men quiz too. Turns out he'd be Shadow-Cat. So we both'd be girls...neither one of us is happy. There's something wrong with the site....
2:30 AM: I switch on the TV to see what's on. Tele-marketing infomercials, re-runs of evening shows and B-grade Hollywood movies. So much for late night viewership. Seems like only people who watch television this late are either going bald or are overweight or need to learn english from a guy who reminds me of Santa Claus. HBO's showing Friday the 13th Part 9. It would've scared the crap out of me if I was 8, after that i'd find it funny..now I just feel sorry. I really feel sorry for Jason. Its not enough that he died in High School and has to wear a goalie mask for a face..Wes Craven had to inflict more pain on him and on us by making him re-appear in 8 sequels...
3:15 AM: I'm craving for a smoke right now. But it's been a month since my last ciggie and i'm not going back now. So I settle for a coffee instead. Caffeine for nicotine...a bad choice considering my situation, but i've always been a sucker for rhymes. And if any kids are reading this, Don't do drugs and don't smoke...that'll be my social service for the day. It's funny, but a mug of coffee seems to be a symbol of a man about to get into action, it gets you in that groove. It's like a guy walking with a full mug of hot coffee is saying "Yes!! I'm getting on with a lot of work...and this magical connoction will guide me through it." Batman probably has a coffee thermos tucked in somewhere in his utility belt. The bad guys would take Superman even more seriously if he took a large swig from a cup of black coffee before going "UP,UP AND AWAY"...cause then they'd know he's really serious about kicking their ass, he just had a cup of coffee loaded with caffeine. I need to get some sleep...
4:10 AM: The caffeine's kicked in. And i'm still bored. Bored and wide awake. I try listening to some songs which helps for a while until the fourth track starts. Strange how a song can stifle your breath and stab you through the heart. Ok, maybe i'm exaggerating...what I mean is bring back memories. Songs do that. Arch says i'm too nice a person, I wonder how good a thing that is. Am I really nice?? Am I too nice? Su' says that I try too hard to show i'm tough but inside i'm a softie. That's another way of saying I put up a tough exterior because i'm an emotional wreck inside. Maybe that's why I don't sleep...
5:30 AM: I've just spent the last hour and a half staring at the ceiling...thinking about stuff ranging from god, religion, girls, love, music and scrambled eggs ( that's what I plan on having for breakfast and the hunger pains are kind of setting in!!). The sunlight's started to creep in. Another night gone...
8:00 AM: I've been really early to work all week long for obvious reasons. Insomnia brings a hallucinatory quality to your days. Everything happens in slow motion, like in a dream...and the line between reality and dreams gets thinner than ever. Still an hour before work starts. I could catch up on the blog. It's been a while now. I've got my mug of coffee, I'm a man ready for action....

Friday morning. My cubicle. 35 Hours and counting....

Deep In Thought/Crazy Ramblings.

That, beside being my Orkut nick for the month, has also been my state of mind for quite some time now. So i'll just be writing out random thoughts out next. Some of it may be taken as advice, some of it may be my view point, some of it may just be randomly obnoxious thoughts. But it's my blog, so I do get some priviliges....

- Never judge anybody's intelligence, and don't let anybody judge yours. Always take your own decisions, so that if you're seventy and not happy about how your life turned out, you know who to blame. Don't let alumni tags, corporate logos or hefty pay packages intimidate you. Never do anything just because you feel everybody else's doing it. Be comfortable with who you are and what you do, the world's a much better place that way.

- Love happens..
Love happens to the most unassuming people at the most unassuming of times..
With love around, a heartbreak's just around the corner...
You can never fall out of love, you just learn to live with it...
It's never to early to fall in love again.

- Life will always suck if you look at it in totality. That's why it's called the real world. Bad people will do bad things and get away with them. Good people will spend their lives paying taxes, raising children and chasing dreams....and there's no such thing as a Tooth Fairy. The trick here is to dissect a lifetime into little moments and making sure you get the most out of them.

- If you get really expressive physically or vocally while listening to music, then listening to music on your earphones in public places can lead to embarrasing moments, like some of us find out the hard way....and no, you don'talways look as cool as you think you do. If you do, you're in a minority of the few lucky ones...

- Try observing a girl travelling along by any means of public transportation ( The Metro in my case). It seems to me while they do that they only have two expressions..it's either one that looks like they're really pissed off or a total blank stoned look. I understand how they get the stoned look, even I get that when i'm really bored. It's the "pissed off" expresion that had me confused. Initially I wondered if they were just mad because they had to travel alone or was it some PMS thing? But after some thought I think i've figured it out..it's to keep unwanted guys at bay. It's like a warning thing....a signal for "I hate guys coming up to me and bothering me while I travel alone." Which I think is totally fair..guys can get really irritating at times, like I am being right now...I hope this didn't sound sexist or anything. For the record, I love girls!!

- India won the T20 World cup!! No i'm not making any newsflashes..just expressing my joy....and shock, and maybe a bit of amazement. But the final was an awesome game, and showed what exactly makes Cricket the wonderful sport that it's put up to be...and how emotional I still can get while watching it. I was probably ten degrees beyond crazy after the last ball...

- And I just have to stop reading these other blogs. They make my life seem so dull and boring, mostly because the blogs I read belong to people still in college..and that's when we really do have most fun. And if people read this blog please do write in comments sometime so I know you're here...

"Spirit"ual nights.

Never drink too much. Never get too high. If I could pass on one piece of advice that would be it. But then on saturday nights, after a certain point, there's no such thing as being too drunk or being too high. Once you lose track of how much you're drinking....You lose it all. Your senses, your memory,your judgement and in all probability the money in your pocket. If you ever intend on getting stoned drunk...make sure there's a sober person around or lock yourself up insisde your home and go to sleep. That's something I now wished we'd done.

Saturday night. THE night. Started out as fun, ended as a total mystery. That's the thing when you get too stone drunk. Next day you get all these tell tale signs that you've had a lot of fun, more fun than you'd ever have sober....but you can't recall anything of it. It's like knowing you've had a meal at the best joint in town, you've the bill to show for it...but you'll never recall what it tasted like. And that irks you for a long while. The main reason you get the calling to have a lot of fun when you're drunk is that you lose all your inhibitions...the child in you comes out, a bit unstable but it's there. You do all the things you want to do but didn't because you were scared of what the people would think. But then there's this down side to it all...which rears it's head a few hours later. Junkie limbo as they call it. You can't feel anything, you won't remember anything. And next morning you wake up with a massive headache and wonder what did you do last night. You just have these flashes and you try to arrange them in an order. I'm still trying to figure out how I got these bruises, why my phone number's scrawled all across my jeans, how I got home and where did all my money go...and I don't think i'll ever find out. What happens on saturday night stays in saturday night...

Not Ready To Make Nice..

"Honesty is the best policy."
:- Ancient saying, now an endangered school of thought...

It's not easy doing the right thing in this world today...and in these times we live in. You must be wondering what brought me about to pass that judgement so I should get to it. This was about ten days back. I'm on my way back home, I get off at the Metro Station and while on my way to the elevator I spot a wallet lying near the seating area. So putting up my most inconspicuous look, I pick it up and mosey through it. 175 bucks, an ID card of some college, Bus pass and a Metro card. Now just like in one of the cartoons, my good and bad side are whispering out in my ear. Finally I decide to return the wallet. Mainly because im a good guy....and the girl in the pic of the ID was kinda cute. No, wait...THAT was the main reason, i'm no good guy or anything. So I call up the number given and tell her that i'm depositing her wallet with the metro people. The Metro guys take it after interrogating me like i'd stolen the thing, not returning it and making me write out a statement that i'd taken nothing from the wallet...so much for trust!!

Later on in the evening I get a call...it's the "wallet" girl's dad. And he asks me if I took out a few hundred bucks out before I'd returned the thing. Apparently, someone had gone through the wallet before i'd got to it. That's where I lost it. He tried to salvage the situation by saying something about it was nice to have honest people around but the damage was done. The whole feeling of having done the right thing for once had totally disappeared. And hence the observation about how tough it is to do the right thing out here. The next time anything like this happens i'm taking the money and treating myself. Or maybe I won't. The whole thing about what goes around comes around might hold true...even though I seriously doubt it.