The Never-Ending Tomorrow is an insomniac’s nightmare. Tomorrow cannot begin until today ends when you finally fall asleep. Until then, it’s just one very long today, where you hope you’re not just wasting your time. Juggling projects, running from one event to the next, navigating through the challenges of life and inevitable bullshit. And it doesn’t take too long to figure out that a to-do checklist is arbitrary because no matter what’s on the list, there’s always more to be done. You’re only finished with checklists when you stop using them. Even with something that kind of makes sense such as a grocery list. I keep that one on my phone since I can temporarily delete everything once I go grocery shopping, only to add more items when I return home. At least that doesn’t drive me nuts because I have an expectation of using consumables.

Outside of grocery shopping, all other lists just get unwieldy, such as all the books on my ever-growing reading list or the infamous Netflix queue that never seems to dip below 50 things to watch.

Even the millions of things I don’t bother to list on a list are never-ending. Yes, I like getting shit done. As bad as this sounds, I’d love to gather a few people who say they have nothing to live for and give them some of my things I don’t have time to do. I know, they don’t feel that way for the LACK of things to do, I just wish I could donate some of my tasks that give me a sense of purpose to others, so we could all be engaged in meaningful activity.

I’m one of those who wishes she could multitask in her sleep. But let me tell you the truth about multitasking. It’s mostly an illusion. What most people consider multitasking is switching off activities, where you stop doing one thing to do another then return to the first thing, but not truly doing more than one thing at a time except in rare instances. For example, if you’re sitting on the toilet, shitting out diarrhea while simultaneously holding the trashcan on your lap to catch the intermittent streams of vomit, then you’re multitasking.  If you’re cleaning your apartment while the washing machine is working on a load of laundry, you’re somewhat multitasking although you’re not doing anything luxurious with the time you’re supposed to be saving since time-saving devices don’t really save you time.  You just raise the bar on how much you can get done in a given space of time.

Speaking of time, for far too long I’ve felt like the cliché of having too much month at the end of my money.  For years, I’ve pinched a penny so hard, Lincoln has protested for emancipation, but he’s not going to be free until I am.  Financially free, that is. Money-worries fuel insomnia, which means tomorrow’s arrival is even more delayed while battling the never-ending tasks along with the never-enough money.

Is it true, more money, more problems? I couldn’t tell you since I’ve never been in that situation. What I suspect is that people who are prone to bad ideas to begin with can fund those bad ideas more if they’re flush with cash. With more money, there’s more room for error, which can be a good thing, especially when trying out innovative ideas.

Ahhh yes, the dreaming and scheming insomnia! So many roads lead to insomnia—if only I could monetize it. But I don’t want to dwell on that too long since it’ll become even more grist for the sleep-deprived mill.

Another good way to throw a monkey wrench into my sleeping routine and burn some mad hours, upgrading just one thing in my technological spider web. With just one thing, I will quickly discover how antiquated all my other technological shit is. But I need not worry, there’s always an inexpensive solution, which I won’t already have at home; so, I’ll have to pick that up the next time I go out. (Possibly putting it on a list!)

I do my technological upgrades in the mornings. Preferably right after breakfast.  That way, I can take full advantage of all the daylight hours troubleshooting and perhaps have the matter settled by bedtime. If not, I’ll enter one of the many disturbing nightmarish dreamscapes with my favorite re-occurring scenario where I wonder around, looking for that one item and no matter how close I get to finding it, I never do. At one point, I acknowledge, while dreaming, that I’m in another version of an anxiety dream or I wake up. Either way, I’ve not quite rested for the night.

It’s like being on the same day 2.0, which is why I’m a little surprised it’s already June. According to my sleep/wake cycle, I’m still in April. I’ve started doing stretches before bed to help my body at least prepare for sleep although the real source of a sleepless night is my brain not turning off. I’ve resisted taking sleeping pills because I don’t want to become dependent on chemicals. Besides someone has suggested that Ambien causes racism. Whatever the case, when my life is settled for the moment, my mind will be. Just like the song says about having a satisfied mind. A more accurate song for me would be “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.”

It’s all about the hustle and the bottom line, which brings me back to strategizing and making lists. I’ve never completely abandoned the idea that I can maximize my time and activities to be more efficient. I just wish at the end of the day, Mr. Sandman, or any of the Sandman family for that matter, would enter my anxiety-riddled mind like one of these Hollywood action-movie heroes and do battle with insomnia.

Since I’m prone to vivid dreams, which I can often control, I’m going to will myself to sleep while trying to evoke some Sandman action-hero thoughts. If I’m not going to rest, I might as well multitask by creating something I can write about when I wake up.

I heard the telltale signs while sitting upon my red sofa, typing away at some piece of writing or other. A part of me wanted to dismiss the flapping wing sounds since I hadn’t actually seen it.  Seeing is believing, right? Reality check came soon enough when that little bastard flew straight toward me and landed on my knee.

I. Hate. Cockroaches.

Nearly two and a half years of living in Tanzania as a Peace Corps Volunteer had cured me of being afraid of them. They were in my closet nibbling on my clothes, feasting in my kitchen, even living in the hollowed out wooden bathroom door where they bred. I witnessed the whole cockroach lifecycle while taking bucket baths. I even discovered there was such a thing as albino cockroaches.

After all that, cockroaches still didn’t endear themselves to me. I popped its little ass with my bare hand before I reached for my house shoe. Then, I swept it up with a broom into a dust pan and tossed it outside, figuring that was that.

A few days later, as I’d just sat upon my throne, yet another cockroach startled me just hanging out on the ceiling. I preempted doing my business to get the lavender-scented insecticide, which I kept in the bathroom cabinet. After dealing with it, I used the bathroom and tossed it out with my preferred broom/dust pan method.

Afterward, I sat on the sofa, writing on my laptop, when yet another one scampered across the floor from the direction of my patio door. I jumped up, ran to the bathroom to grab the spray. Last I saw, it was headed under the sofa.  With the spray in one hand and a flashlight in another, I got down on my knees to shine a light under the sofa in hopes that I’d flush it out from underneath.  That son of a bitch came from behind, ran across my arm and kept going as if to say, “Catch me if you can!” Which I did and added it with the others outside.

I marveled about all of these 6-legged invaders. Even with the recent rains and warmer temperatures, I’ve lived in the same apartment since the summer of 2010 and I’ve NEVER had this many cockroaches in my apartment. I couldn’t even think through which recent changes in the environment must have caused the sudden rise of cockroaches when a third one shimmied down my patio vertical blinds. With the spray now beside me, I pounced on it, disposed of it only to turn around to see another peep from between the blinds and enter my apartment.

Once I dealt with the fourth one of the night, I closed the glass patio door.  I no longer had confidence that the patio screen door was enough, but, truth be told, there were enough gaps with both patio doors closed that a determined insect could still get through. Or it could just walk under the half centimeter gap under my front door.

A part of me wanted to spray the outside of the patio entrance, but I’ve seen too many horror movies where the foolish person attempted to handle something late at night rather than wait for the light of day. In the meantime, I put in a maintenance request.  I had no idea whether anything on their end could be done, but since I’d never had such a problem before, I believed that something had kept the insect population out of my place previously. I’ve always enjoyed patio breezes before–even after a nice rain.

Apparently, the pest control person always comes by the apartment complex on Wednesdays; so this time around, the person actually entered my apartment while I was at yoga to spray (so I imagine) around the inside of my place.

So far, so good. One of the small pleasures I take in my humble existence is patio breezes while writing and otherwise working on creative projects in my living room. I can’t surrender that to beings that survive a nuclear blast.