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Let me be honest, that having a staring contest with a cat at 3 a.m. in the morning, isn’t typically how I enjoy spending the wee hours of any day.

I was pondering this as Nemi stood on my chest, staring at me using the cat equivalent of, “you’re laying on my couch. Why?”

To be fair to her, it was a good question if not somewhat of a mundane question. I was there because I had a million thoughts racing through my mind regarding work, life and the appropriate amount of any kind of beverage before sleep. In this case, water.

Draw your own conclusions.

At any rate, there I was, early in the nothing-is-happening part of the morning, with a small cat standing on my chest. A cat, I might add, that somehow feels like one ton of animal when standing on your chest and those little paws are bearing down.

I’ll never understand cat physics.

After about 30 seconds worth of stand-off, Nemi assumed her place between my legs — a place she usually goes to after finding out I sprawled out on the couch, ensuring she is comfortable and I am going to be uncomfortable.

Her settlement also allowed my mind to continue drifting towards those things that were keeping me up and had me lying on the couch. A lot of what-ifs really, as I tried to figure out what was going in the next magazine and what I had to do a full three days in the future.

“What’s the matter, gray matter?” Hmm. That should be a T-shirt.

My thoughts weren’t always dedicated to work or life-related things. Sometimes, the misfiring thoughts of an early morning took me outside as I watched the world go by at a snail’s pace.

Every so often a car would go speeding by, treating both the stop signs outside of Ellis Middle School and IJ Holton Intermediate School and the speed limit as little more than suggestions.

I wonder if I get some sort of commission if I let a police officer hang out in my driveway?

Even less than the law-adjacent speeder, was the random person walking past the house. Not in a state of “I’ve stayed out too late,” but rather, in more of a “I need to get somewhere” sort of state.

Inevitably, you wonder where they are going, why they are going and how fast are they going if I suddenly come running out of the dark wearing a hockey mask?

Holy cow, are our windows dirty. That’s a realization I have because the spotlight that is IJ’s security light facing our house is illuminating the telling evidence of someone who doesn’t clean windows all too often.

I tell myself I should probably get to that as Nemi’s steady breathing turns to purring as I scratch her back. I read somewhere once that a cat’s purr registers at a certain frequency that makes it easier for others to become relaxed.

I’m not sure as to the truth of that because it’s pitch dark outside except for the IJ spotlight and I’m too lazy to turn on the computer to research this. Still, the sound of her small, but audible rumble starts me returning to the last visit to sleep I had so I tried focusing on that, rather than the strange sounds the house is making.

The first time I registered a strange sound from the house was when temperatures dipped and the settling of home’s bones caused an audible “crack,” leading me to wonder if the house was going to collapse our first winter of home ownership.

Clearly, the house hasn’t collapsed, but there are other sounds. Upstairs, I’m pretty sure Buster is walking around, which he proves not long after hearing the soft thump on the ceiling above. He wanders close to the couch, poses a similar question as Nemi did before drinking some water and heading back upstairs.

There are yet more sounds — sounds I can’t place and that convince my mind to interpret all sorts of things from ghosts to aliens and back to Buster.

Probably Buster.

It’s about 4 a.m. when sleep begins tying weights to my eye-lids. Eventually, I return to bed where I do fall back asleep, as short as it is.

Re-reading this … it’s no wonder my thoughts keep me up at night.