Sleep

Lately trying to fall asleep here in my apartment in New Jersey has been kind of a chore. The work schedule I occupy at the D doesn't get me in until late at night. 1 or sometimes 2 in the morning. Then it takes me at least an hour just to settle down, I can never just go right to bed. Falling asleep then is the real chore. I lie in bed trying to fall asleep, but my window is facing the street. The street is the main street in town and it actually is a highway, technically, route 17. So there is a lot of traffic. Often it is heavy traffic like trucks, buses, more trucks. And the police station is right down the road, too, so whenever there is a call, the sirens start a wailing and the police are on their way.
The traffic is just inconsistent enough to be annoying and to keep me up. If it was constant, like New York traffic, I would have no problem. I can shut out noise and ignore it when it is in the background, like a tv or music or the constant flow of traffic. Late at night, where I live, however, the traffic is not constant at all, and it is just a burden. I'll be drifting away, after twenty minutes of silence, when out of nowhere a tractor trailer rattles by, shaking my windows and abruptly putting me into consciousness. It is very frustrating. And, of course, the closer it gets to dawn, the more frequent the traffic gets, which means it is less likely to fall asleep.
There are a number of other factors in my room and my surroundings that make it difficult to sleep. Aside from the noise, there are a few night lights I keep on all the time that, in normal circumstances, I have no problem ignoring in order to fall asleep, but when the noise starts, I look to my left and see my lava lamp dancing in the night, as if mocking me to say, "I'm gonna be up all night buddy, just like you!" That and my computer screen takes 20 minutes to screen save and I just recently got a USB multi-port that sits on top of my cpu and flashes like a discoteque.
Typically, instead of shutting everything off, I'll just play musical beds as I hop to the couch in the living room or the futon in the living room in order to find some solace. I haven't mentioned yet that it also gets very hot in my room. In an attempt to make it cooler, I usually have a window open, but then as I mentioned before, when the traffic noise strikes up, it is nearly impossible to ignore with the window open. Also, I have a downstairs neighbor that tends to like hip-hop at all hours of the morning.
I came up with the realization last night due to my delirium, that falling asleep any more is like playing a game of UNO with the clock. As every hour passes, the clock throws down a new card, and I am scrambling through the pile drawing card after card until I can find the right one to play on top of it. As every hour passes, I have to try and find the new card to match that one of the new hour. If I find the card, I'll get to sleep, and I'll be able to wake up at a decent hour. If I don't find the card, the night keeps perpetuating until it's a new day and I just have to shuffle the deck over again. I'd love to just play a wild card at any time, but if I'm lucky enough to have one of those, God only knows when I'll wake up from that.
The morning time is the worst because there are two schools right across the street from me and early in the morning all the kids walking to school make all kinds of racket on their way and let it be known that they are right outside my window. The traffic just gets louder and more frequent, often more angry as people honk and get congested and brake on their way to work.
And the church across the street has a bell tower with a bell. The bell rings on the hour sometimes. It doesn't ring every hour, but it rings when I'm trying to sleep. The most annoying, frustrating part about the whole thing, is that the bell has no pattern whatsoever that it goes by. It at least does not have a discernible rhythm that I can figure out. It doesn't ring as many times as what hour it is, it doesn't ring as many times as what day in the month it is. It just rings. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but always loud, and always unignorable.
It leaves me without sleep, which leaves me angry, grouchy, crotchety, however you want to describe it. And it just gets me more and more frustrated about my living situation and how I'm climbing to get out of it. So if it sounds like I'm angry at life, that I'm taking a long time pursuing my dreams, I am. I am frustrated. This is a large reason why.