What’s on your nightstand?

Up at two a.m. is early even by my standards.  I’m often awake and out of bed at five-ish, but this is a bit absurd.

I just seem to have a litany of things swirling around in my mind, and strange as it may seem, not the usual suspects of late.

I don’t worry about money like I used to.  Not that we have more of it now than earlier, certainly not.  It’s just not an issue.  In fact, even though it may be a couple of years off, we were seriously discussing living out our lives in a fifth wheel somewhere.  That may take a couple of bucks.  Nope, just not concerned right now about how to buy a retirement trailer, we’ll figure it out.

It is not at all unusual for me to wake up and lie there thinking about photo or writing projects.  Maybe that is partly to blame for me being in front of the computer at this unholy hour.  After all, I am writing.  And, I sat on the edge of the bed with one of my point-and-shoot cameras a few minutes ago photographing my nightstand all the medications that are close at hand (for lack of a better place to put them).  They used to reside next to my side of the dining room table.  Now, they’re right there when I open my eyes!

Looking at these photos in post-production reminded me of how badly in need we are of bedroom furniture.  Check out the exotic condition of the “wood”, if indeed that what it is, wood.  There are various plastic vials of blood pressure and heart-meds and a couple related to my current affair, as well as my medical appointment calendar one nice nurse saw fit to print up for me.  There is also one of those breathing exercisers where you suck in trying to make the ball go higher that I hardly ever use now (bad patient!).  Beyond that, I have a little portable bedside stand that holds my water, the t.v. remove, an almost spent roll of t.p. (no Kleenex box for this kid), and my wallet from time to time.  Watch and ring is on aforementioned nightstand as well.  Since I do have to take some of the medications in the morning and at night, I thought it best to keep them where they are.

Until last night, there was one of those Halloween-sized Kit-Kats on the nightstand, my chocolate drug of choice right now.  I looked at it for several days before deciding to make short work of it just before bed last night.

Oh, along side my bed on the floor resting against the night stand are about six or seven cook books from Bobby Flay’s Mesa Cookbook to a large American Foods coffee table thing to a richly photographed Thai cookbook.  By the way, I tend to not buy cookbooks that often now since I am a recipe-downloading-freek and have thousands of recipes in a relatively organized folder on my computer desktop as well as several hundred favorites residing in a large ringed notebook in the kitchen.  The later is not bedside but on top of the microwave in the kitchen.  All of those recipe are in separate plastic sleeves.  I will break down and buy a new cookbook on occasion if the photos are really cool.  Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I will bust open a couple cookbooks and make restaurant menu lists.  No, not fantacising any longer about owning a restaurant, just “consulting” with menus and recipes…mostly comfort and diner foods.  I wouldn’t survive a week owning a restaurant yet alone running one at this point in my life.  I would gain back the fifty pounds and have a massive coronary the first time my cook called in sick an hour before his or her shift.  Note to self:  write a blog about some of my recurring restaurant nightmares.

Well, at this point it may be time to try getting a bit more sack time.  I sufficiently managed to make pass an hour or so of time and put something to “pen”.  So, all in all getting up this early wasn’t a total waste of time.  I was thinking of flicking on the television but not wanting to see those incessant informercials.  When they come on I feel like Quasimodo.  Instead of bells, it’s, “The commercials…the commercials!  I can’t stand the commercials!”

Good night.

PS  Unfortunately, none of those pills are sleeping pills…yet!  (Note to self:  email my doc about this).