By BILLY MURPHY
Laugh Lines

“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 Billy@gretsch.com or visit him on the Web at http://billymurphy.homepage.com.

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