Curiouser and curiouser

This is what happens when I wake up curious in the middle of the night…
–Me

When I wake up in the middle of the night I sometimes find myself heading down a rabbit hole.

It might be a rabbit hole involving a book, or a niggling idea that wants poking at, or even a series of messages needing to be sent. I do love writing at night, and I am appallingly indiscriminate about it at times.

Oh, the late night blogs and text messages.

If you are on my late night “send” list, I apologize. I can’t be held responsible for what I might do and say under the influence of insomnia. I do try to redirect myself to other forms of writing as much as I can, but I am only and eternally human.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with a weird question in my head.

More than once that has resulted in purchasing books I might otherwise never have read.

Or sometimes it’s a song or movie I can’t quite place. Googling ensues. What did people do in the middle of the night before the Internet? Did insomniac movie buffs just have to have unanswered questions about how many movies Bette Davis was in where she played twins?

Two, but I always think it’s three because I can’t ever remember that “Dead Ringer” is the movie it actually is.

Last week I woke up during the night and looked at my phone to see what time it was. It was after 0200. I saw I had a message on a dating app. I put my phone down and snuggled back into bed without reading it because it was the middle of the night. But then I was too curious about what the message said to go back to sleep. Which is silly, because usually the messages are really boring.

I picked up my phone and read the message and the sender’s profile. He looked just like the Dude. He was up in the middle of the night making donuts and new friends. We chatted for a little while about how the Dude’s sweater is different from Starsky’s sweater, why he would love Burning Man, and the awesomeness of kilts.

He said “when you went to bed a few hours ago did you think you’d end up talking to someone about Burning Man in the middle of the night?” “Not really, but this is what happens when I wake up curious in the middle of the night.” Then I went back to sleep.

It was an odd, unexpected sort of a thing. The sort of thing that happens when you give in to curiosity.

%d bloggers like this: