3am

Eminem's song 3am deals with the darker side of life. At his very hours I am also dealing some of the more troubling aspects of my personality.

Over the previous three weeks, as I become more adept at freelance work and the inclination to wear a suit and tie in an office job slowly but unquestionably dissipates, my body clock is adopting a new, rigorous and unsocial rhythm, allowing me to think most lucidly and work more productively at hours which are simply, well, wrong.

I hesitate to say this without a medical opinion, but I feel insomnia is becoming a new partner in my life. Since I've always been an early-to-bed, early-to-rise-and-consume-lot-of-caffeine kinda guy, the frustration I feel at remaining alert at deeply nocturnal hours is real, disturbing, and hopefully not demonstrable of new life-long habits.

My need to be awake during the same hours the sun's rays hit my side of the planet has been a constant, unmoving feature of my life until now. Apart from a brief stint as thesis-writing student way back before Twitter and non-carbonated energy soft drinks, sleep has always come to me at the same time at the late night news. In fact, it's because of Channel 9 programming that my mother was able to establish my sleep routines as an adolescent.

Where most youth railed against their parents at the thought of getting under the bedsheets when the sun was still on day shift, Australian television programs, and more likely, the personalities fronting them, induce so much rage within me that the safest outcome was to remove me from the living room, out of harm's way and far from the mental pollution emanating from the screen. A Current Affair is like Stilnox, though perhaps a poor analogy as I became exhausted after first shouting insults at the screen.

Eminem likens, or imagines himself a serial killer in his 3am track. I often imagine myself a serial killer when watching Australian television, whether at 3am or not. It's just that is actually is that time at the moment, I'm not watching television, but I still want to main a TV presenter.

Life's funny like that. I can't sleep, not a televsion in sight, and yet I still want to kill a TV presenter. Insomnia is not going to be a benficial addition to my lifestyle.