Can't sleep.

In part because even now at midnight, it is still 75 degrees (in the upper 90s earlier today, for some foreboding reason, what a fucking summer we'll have here). Our air conditioner is broken, and it feels hotter inside than out. I would open a window, but my neighbors have been throwing parties every night this weekend and I don't want to listen to anymore beer pong or bad country karaoke and what I assume to be chatter about how the rest of the world is blowing all this pandemic shit out of proportion.
Because why else would you throw a party right now?

So I've got a fan pointed directly at my naked flesh as I lay over my blankets and sheets and am playing new agey youtube sleep music videos, but still no dice on the snoozing.

It might be because I had a redbull at around 8:30 this evening, my first bit of caffeine that I've had in over two weeks (no real point if you're just gonna watch netflix in your sweats all day). I drank it because
1. I needed to get out of the house for a second (I'm trying to be a good citizen, but jesus.)
2. I was being interviewed for a podcast at 9 this evening, and that is the time I usually start winding down for bed (at least that was the case in the beforetime. Since the quarantine hit, I've been staying up progressively later each night).

I shouldn't have had the caffeine. I'm an old man now I guess. But maybe I already gave that away when I said I go to bed at 9.

I also maybe can't sleep because I can never sleep when I know I have to get up early the next morning. It's an anxiety thing I'm sure.
And tomorrow morning, my roommate and I are braving a Walmart run as soon as they open the doors at 7 am.

It's not like I need to be agile or particularly alert for said quest, so it's no big deal that I am typing Zs instead of...what do they do with Zs in comics? I don't know, but they appear over the character's head to indicate that they're sleeping.
That all sounded clever in my mind, but it wasn't. I know it actually wasn't, was it?

Additionally to the caffeine, the shouldn't-be-but-is mental stress of needing to wake up in 6 hours and 14 minutes, and the fact that the sweat of my unwashed body is sticking uncomfortably to my sheets,
my head is also racing about the podcast interview (did you think I was just going to skip past it? I did. This is all just stream of consciousness, baby. Real. Wild. Yeah. Shouldn't have had the caffeine. Also, this is good weed. Also, I write also too much).

I met the host of this podcast back in October. He's making a full length film documentary about the "exvangelical" community (i.e. people like myself who were raised in real strict, fundamentalist Christian homes and now try to bring awareness to how yeah, sometimes, that can be a traumatic way to grow up and could have real lasting damage and etc).
Anyway, I write about that stuff and have had some success with it. I went on tour last year and have been interviewed in a few magazines and was briefly on 60 Minutes. Stuff like that.
Which is why this guy wanted me to be one of the subjects in his film.

Fast forward a few months and I am now a part of his podcast and will be doing some writing for his website and stuff.
Tonight we talked about the rapture and the end of the world. The caffeine kicked in at the perfect time. I (hopefully) sounded smart and erudite. I don't remember what erudite means. "having great knowledge or learning" (I just looked it up). That works. I hope I sounded erudite.

I don't know this guy, really. But I have known a lot of liars and even more people who don't think they are lying but are also not telling the truth. So I am always skeptical when people tell me good news.
So when this dude tells me tonight that he is meeting with one of Joe Rogan's people next week about being a guest on Joe's podcast and wants me to also have stuff ready just in case, I can't say I fully believe it. Earlier today he told me that there is a producer from HBO looking at putting money in the documentary he's making.
Which means this guy is totally full of shit.
Totally delusional.
Or is actually doing something that's getting noticed.

Who the fuck knows?
Who the fuck cares?

I'm just glad to have something to do.

A reason to sleep. A reason to wake up.
I know full well what it means to not have those things.
I'll take what I can get.

Even being conned is proof that you're alive, right?

Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time to lie wide awake in the dark for five hours and then to sleep through my alarm.

12:02 a.m. - 2020-03-27