"Daddy,

sleep is boring." With those words, I knew my

daughter was truly mine. Not that Olivia, my 4-year-old,

hadn't already shown signs of being my brood; like being

shy and aggressive at the same time or having an intense

interest in scratching away every surface to see what is

underneath.

Yet, her confessional on

the uselessness of sleep is a perfect replication of

mine. Don't get me wrong, sleep is a wonderful thing and

I love it. I actually do it pretty well, too, I just

don't seem to need much of it. As the old cowboy once

said, "I can sleep plenty when I'm dead."

Not one to be accused of

sleeping my life away, I think I have more REM in my CD

collection than I get in my bed. I'm a borderline

insomniac. I fall asleep very fast when I go to bed, I

just don't spend much time there. I learned long ago that

it is just too boring to follow the conventions of time

and culture and go to bed once the nightly news has

informed me of the local car wrecks and most recent

political gaffs.

Sleep should be as

individual as the... uh... individual, but the protocol

of the world would say everyone needs to get that perfect

8 hours, and at night. Thus we have all sorts of people

tossing and turning thinking something is wrong with

them, just lying there thinking, "Why can't I

sleep."

What a waste of time. Get

up, read a book, watch TV, get on the Internet. Jeesh,

why are we made to feel if we are up past midnight we are

engaging in some mortal sin? I only wish it was that

exciting.

Yet, nothing beats

microwaving processed cheese singles over nachos and

crying to "Love Story" for the 15th time. My

nights are not spent in vampiric revelry, but counting

down top ten lists with Dave or laughing at the '70s

hairdos on the fur-clad characters in "The

Beastmaster."

There are many ways to

sleep, mind you. You can sleep in the buff, be asleep at

the wheel, sleep like a log, sleep on it, sleep it off,

sleep tight, you can even sleep around. But that's not

really sleeping at all, though it could start with

sleeping in the buff and it does mostly end by sleeping

it off. You can be too tired to sleep and not sleep a

wink, but that's not really anything to lose sleep over.

Really wise people (meaning

they are either dead, British or go by three names) say

things about sleep like, "We are not hypocrites when

we sleep," or "Sleep, dear sleep, sweet harlot

of the senses," but in the real world sleep is a

little more simple. Like, "We are not super heroes

in our sleep just because we wear Spiderman

pajamas," or, "Sleep, dear sleep, good gosh,

what time is it? I'm late for work!"

It's a simple fact that I

could use a little more sleep, yet I don't know how to

make it happen. I could probably use an even bigger dose

of beauty sleep. But, we all know how it is, too. The

more sleep we get, the more sleep we seem to want. This

is also true of chocolate and Chinese food but not of

Ricky Martin. It's also a fact that the older you get,

the less sleep you require, so Cher should be down to

about 45 minutes a night. Dick Clark hasn't slept in 15

years.

Anytime anyone tells me

they can't sleep I conceitedly reply, "If you can't

sleep you just aren't tired enough." My response

doesn't win many friends. Well, if they can't take the

insomnia, stay out of the bedroom. Besides, I don't have

guilt. They made their own bed, let them go and not fall

asleep in it.

[E-mail Billy Murphy at [email protected] or visit him on the Web at https://billymurphy.homepage.com .