it's 11:30 and i can't sleep. sigh......

i went to a baby shower tonight and i was told the coffee was decaf but i'm starting to wonder. i've layed here in bed for over an hour now and have not even come close to drowsy. this from a girl who is regularly asleep before 10:00. i've tried making mundane lists in my head. tried not thinking of anything at all. tried listening to the drunk crazies pouring out of the bar down the street. i'm wide awake.

my eyes are burning but not drooping. what to do.

anyway... the drunk people in our street are a weird set to me. every weekend there are, without fail, a few yelling, swearing people who pass by our house. it doesn't bother me all that much. i mean... i grew up in a terrible neighborhood and night noise, fighting, swearing, sirens... all that is just part of the sound track to me. it isn't unsettling, scarey or even that annoying. it's just baffling and disilluioning that people are that far gone. do they even stop to look around and see that there are houses beside them. houses with strollers on the porches and minivans in the drive way. with the lights off and familes sleeping. and why do they feel the need to communicate so loudly? again... not that it bothers me all that much... just seems so incredibly immature and i can't understand what possesses grown people to make such asses of themselves and pay so little respect to others. i know, i know... alcohol. but really... it's the same way i feel when i've watched "the real world". i always have this depressed feeling... "is this a cross section of my generation? do these people really have so little self awareness? does the average twenty something person function on this level of ignorance and immaturity?"
so every weekend earlier in the evening i see young women tucked into too little clothing hobbling down the side walk on obviously uncomfortable heels and wearing too much make up and basically screaming for a guy to spend some time perusing her wares only not with their voices... yet.
and every weekend later that night i hear someone being cussed out. or breaking up. or screaming just to hear their voice. or honking their horn over and over... and i think... "really? i mean, really? there are that many people on a regular basis who do this every weekend and find it appealing enough to keep doing it?" i don't know.

tonight i heard a guy screaming "bitch!" and a girl screaming "it's OVER!" so who was breaking up with who there. then she continued to explain at the top of her lungs.... "you mean nothing to me! it is OVER!!!" and i just layed there thinking. the whole neighborhood is now in on your fight. i wondered what kind of relationship this couple could have possibly had to begin with and if he could have ever meant something to her. and what she had in mind when she set out for the night with this guy to the bar and if she'll do it next weekend. i just don't get it.

two weeks ago i heard one guy saying "get off of me! stop! stop!" i looked out the window and saw two guys... one obviously drunk and trying to fight the other. the first guy was trying to ward him off and restrain him and he said, "listen to me! do i mean anything to you?" after a while of them off and on fighting in front of the house... i went out on the front porch in my pjs and said... " okay guys... knock it off or i'm calling the cops. just work it out... you don't need to fight. there is no need to touch each other." they looked shocked and said, "we're fine." maybe it was the first time they stopped to think that people were listening to them. who knows.

seems to be a theme... this "meaning something" to someone... hmmm?

anyway... in that moment i became my mother. as i stepped inside i had a distinct memory of my mom pulling up to a street fight in our family station wagon and rolling down the window and yelling in her southern accent... "ya'll stop this. this is just silly. now ya'll cut it out or i'm going to go call the police." the two guys and the surrounding crowds just stopped and starred at her as i hid my face in the back seat. i've told this story so many times and laughed about how cute it is that my mom did that. i am my mom. am i cute or just naive?

okay... i'm going to give this sleep thing a whirl again. wish me luck.