What hath night to do with sleep?

Doesn’t the serpent seem like an enthusiastic puppy.
Maybe all he wanted was a nice game of fetch.
Hey, throw that round, red thing over this way and
I’ll bring it back to you!

The title's from John-boy's Paradise Lost.

"The night is the hardest time to be alive and 4AM knows all my secrets."
~ Poppy Z. Brite

Me? Midnight-ish.

"I’ve always envied people who sleep easily. Their brains must be cleaner, the floorboards of the skull well swept, all the little monsters closed up in a steamer trunk at the foot of the bed."
~ David Benioff, City of Thieves

"I’ve got a bad case of the 3:00 am guilts – you know, when you lie in bed awake and replay all those things you didn’t do right? Because, as we all know, nothing solves insomnia like a nice warm glass of regret, depression and self-loathing."
~ D.D. Barant, Dying Bites

For me it’s 1AM when the self-recriminations pop in for a spin on the oh-you-shoulda-done-THIS-not-THAT ferris wheel. I was, refreshingly, denunciation-free last night though (and, believe me, I checked for any and all faults. Yesterday was, apparently, a good-doobie day).

But lo,  midnight came and *PING* I was wide fucking day awake with dire, roiling worries about:

1. Mueller – will Trump shit-can him and, if he does, what will happen next!? Obvs we can't trust the Republicans to keep us safe from Russian interference.
2. That $30 mil which 45 and his Republican lickspittle toads are gonna spend on a schwanz-swinging bullshit regime military parade? Wouldn’t it be amazingly awesome if the military just said NO, we will not be used to prop up your disease riddled, mega bloated ego! And then didn’t show on Parade Day? How’s ‘bout they pocket the dough and spend it, instead, on helping vets, the folks who actually train and fight the wars the chickenhawks start. Also too, mebbe, fix military housing and hire more VA doctors. Yeah, sadly, that’ll only happen in my wild imagination.
3. Republicans, apparently feeling they’ve not done enough to line the pockets of their rich donors (and themselves), are looking to steal even more from you and me. One last fat hurrah before the big blue waves hit? Take the money (and everything not bolted down) and run?

The news, current events – not exactly conducive to happy sleepytime.

"But who, in these modern times, slept well?"
~ Dexter Palmer, Version Control

Don’t start me talking
I could talk all night
My mind goes sleepwalking
While I’m putting the world to right.
~ Elvis Costello

O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
~ William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2

There’s a myth – when you can’t sleep at night it’s because you’re awake in someone else’s dream. Whose? I wanna know. Do I like this person? Am I doing something horribly embarrassing in their dream? Something mean?  Did I poot loud, proud and odoriferously in the middle of their good-dream wedding? Are they having a nightmare? I think that'd qualify.

"How do people go to sleep? I’m afraid I’ve lost the knack."
~ Dorothy Parker

I, on the other hand, go off to the Land of Nod very easily – I just can’t seem to stay there.

"It is a special kind of homelessness to be evicted from your dreams."
~ Karen Russell, Sleep Donation

That’s it! I feel as though my somnolent self has rejected me!

"Most people do not consider dawn to be an attractive experience – unless they are still up."
~  Ellen Goodman

"To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub."
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet