I cannot sleep (again)

We have been here before, dear readers, but this time, I am nearly desperate!!!

Most nights, I am almost dead by 9.30, drooling on the sofa and able, if I were left there, to sleep in my clothes with Canada's Next Top Model playing on an infinite loop in the background. But no! I rouse myself; I brush my teeth, etc; I disrobe and re-robe, as appropriate (and depending on the weather); I go to bed.

The pathologist also goes to bed, if he is not there already reading "Histopathology Monthly", feverishly (but calmly) searching for the latest gags about Weigert's resorcin-fuchsin method.

But the duvet is not right. The cover is twisted. The bed is the wrong way round; there is dust; the neighbour's dogs are barking and now the neighbours are shouting at the dogs to stop barking. Something is flashing. It is too hot, and too cold. The McGill freshmen run up and down the back alley shrieking with a rising inflection.

The pathologist falls into a deep and immediate sleep and starts snoring. I need a wee, a glass of water. My tummy hurts. My eyes are sore and I think I have shin splints. My ankle is aching.

I start to think about the work I have not done because I am tired, or the other thing I have forgotten to do because I can't summon the energy to walk to the post office; I think about the things that are not to do with work that I have to do and have not, or that have not happened yet but might; the things I have decided to do that perhaps may end in disaster. (Conversely I do not dwell on the past and/or have regrets about things, as that is bonkers.) I wonder why I am doing all the things I am doing at all ever, and wonder about what I should do next and how many more years I have left to do them in, and how many books I can read before I die.

It goes on and on and I think again about Things by Fleur Adcock again, and then I think about how irritating I find it when people at work talk about being tired, and then I think, no I must explain to some of the people that I work with that I have had 2 hours' sleep because I am not sure I am making any sense, and any moment now, I am going to break something, and it may not be very good.

What is the answer, dear readers? I think it may be meditation, but I am not sure! I am willing to consider:

1. Removing the pathologist's nose that he may no longer snore;
2. Medicament that will have definitely worn off by 7am;
3. Medicinal 'marijuana';
4. Any kind of therapy (not homeopathy though, that's stupid).

I have tried:

1. Not drinking. (Helps.)
2. Those over-the-counter sleeping pills. They also work, but I am nervous of using them more than once a week for no logical reason;
3. Writing lists;
4. Earplugs;
5. Reading AA Gill's book about the English;
6. Imagining a blank blackboard;
7. Counting sheep;
8. Imagining life as a top-notch book-writer/cake maker with 3 Facebook fan pages.

Some work, some don't. Some say it is 'stress', but the only thing that is 'stressing me out' is the fact that I can't bloody sleep.

And still the pathologist snores on. On Wikipedia, I think they call that 'poor sleep hygiene'.