Not to mention the avian flu.

Quite often, I find myself awake at a time no human being should be. As How I Met Your Mother taught us, nothing good happens after 2 AM. Except goat adventures. Unfortunately, usually when I am awake after 2 AM it is not because I am having farm adventures and hijinks, it is because I am worried about something. Occasionally my mind is too restless to sleep, so it wanders around from topic to topic until it finds something that distresses me enough to dwell on it rather than sleeping.

This is extremely annoying.

In an effort to avoid this, I have decided to make a list of things that are not acceptable things to worry about instead of sleeping. I present here, that list for your review. If you worry about any of these things, you are probably insane. Also, you should stop worrying about them.

1) North Korea - Though the world would be a much better place if I could, I'm afraid there is absolutely nothing I can do about how much the leadership of North Korea hates the population of the United States. Not only am I a lowly librarian, I also do not speak a single word of Korean. Not worth worrying about.

2) Cavities - There is something I can do about cavities. I tend to get a lot of cavities because I have "groovy" teeth. Groovy in the sense that they have a lot of grooves, not in the sense that they're totally groovy, dude. Of course, the things I can do about this are things I will have done before going to bed, and thus do not warrant worrying.

3) AT&T - There was a longer explanation here, but just typing it up stressed me out and I wouldn't want to subject you to that. Suffice to say I have done absolutely everything I can in this situation, including calling and e-mailing the CEO of AT&T (his name is Randall). I will now consider him my close friend. This warrants no more worry.

4) Zombies and rapists breaking into my apartment - This is simply a silly thing to worry about. I keep a hammer beside my bed for this exact occurrence. Next!

5) Who will win the battle for the cowl? I'm kind of pulling for Dick Grayson. But this is also another thing that does not warrant my worry. Not just because it is imaginary. But mostly.

6) Ebola and Necrotizing Fasciitis - Ebola is probably the scariest disease I can think of and flesh-eating bacteria is just gross. However, there is nothing I can do about either, and I live in a place where it is unlikely I will contract one of them. I used ebola as an excuse once to explain why my homework was not finished. It didn't work. "I had a light touch of ebola," is not such a believable excuse. I'd go with Alice in Wonderland Syndrome.

7) Money - I'm going to be paying off my student loan for the next nine-and-a-half years. However, for now I can actually afford it, and worrying about an imaginary time in the future when I will not be able to does not help at all. I'd rather think about Where's George if I'm going to think about money.

8) Bear attacks - It is well known that bears eat people basically all the time. Luckily this is generally not in apartment buildings.

9) Sleep - The fact that I can not sleep. This should be obvious, but when I can't sleep I get worried about how tired I'm going to be in the morning and how incapable of functioning I'll be and the fact that I might sleep through my alarm clocks (I have more than one alarm clock because I have an amazing talent to incorporate the sound of my alarm clock into whatever dream I'm having... my alarm radio is set to NPR so current events and the president show up a lot in them). This is an especially dumb thing to worry about.

There are far too many things to be not worried about. I have wonderful and interesting friends, a supportive family, and no bad debt. I have a good job and a nicer camera (and more awesome boyfriend) than I deserve. I have four limbs and am not allergic to peanuts. I live in a country where a woman can receive the same education as a man. I am very lucky, and those are the things I should think about when I can't sleep instead of things like the fact that the bonobos are disappearing or whether I will ever be able to retire. Or afford that yacht. On the moon.