Open All Night

"Sleeping is giving in,

No matter what the time is.

Sleeping is giving in,

So lift those heavy eyelids."

– By the Arcade Fire, "Rebellion (Lies)"

I like a good, hard slumber as much as anyone, okay? But there's no law in my country, or in any place I know of, that requires everyone to be in bed by 11 p.m. People who don't know me well – or who don't know better – used to buzz me every night on Yahoo or AOL Messenger and it typically would go like this:

PERSON: "Hiiii!"

me: "Hi, so-and-so."

PERSON: 

me: "Can I help you?"

PERSON: "What time is it where u r?"

me: "Almost 2 a.m."

PERSON: 

PERSON: "u dont need sleep??"

me: "I'll sleep later."

PERSON: "why u dont sleep? I think u shud be sleeping now."

me: "I think you need to be doing your job instead of chatting with strange guys like me."

PERSON: 

PERSON: "But I'm bored."

me: "Yah? You're boring me too."

PERSON: "hehe."

PERSON: "Why u dont sleep?? I think it's not healthy u stay up so late."

me: "Did you want to chat with me, or send me to bed?"

PERSON: "hehe."

PERSON: 

PERSON: "I worry for u."

me: "Fine. Worry. That's up to you."

PERSON: "Humans ndee sleep."

PERSON: "need, hehe"

PERSON: "So u human, so u should sleep."

PERSON: "Dont u think so???????"

PERSON: "hello? r u there?"

PERSON: BUZZ

me: "ok, fine. Goodnight."

And then I’d seek out the IGNORE feature and eliminate the person from my screen forever.

My question is: Why do people pop up just to tell me to go to bed? I don't get that. As you might have inferred from the example above, these are often people on the other side of the planet who'd have no access to me at all if I slept regular hours. They said they wanted to be friends, but whenever they see me, they make a big deal about how abnormal it is for me to still be awake.

The truth is, I feel the most alive after midnight. Is that wrong? What do I need with the morning when my work needs me to be at my sharpest from 9 p.m. to midnight? Why can't some of us work until midnight, play until 4 or 5 a.m. and sleep until noon? This works for me. It's worked for me for years – nearly all my life, actually.

I like to sleep. Sometimes I even love it. But I'll be damned if I'm gonna lay my ass in bed, wide awake, just because of what the clock says or because of what other people think is normal. I like my lifestyle. I like the little bags that show up under my eyes sometimes. I like it that annoying people call my place at 10 a.m. and get stuck with the answering machine. I like it that I don't have to plant myself in front of the TV at 9 a.m. to watch Good Morning America, or The View or any of the stupid local morning news shows here. I like going out in the late afternoon, feeling cucumber crisp while everyone else is drooping like old lettuce. And, yes, I love being awake when everybody else is sleeping. I've always been excited about that. That's me!

If all of that makes me wrong, then I don't want to be right. To quote Warren Zevon, "I'll sleep when I'm dead."

By the way, Warren Zevon is dead now.

And I'm going to sleep.

Goodnight.