Snack! Goes the Bookworm

What I'm reading now:

Alexander Hamilton - Ron Chernow
The Cowboy and the Cossack - Clair Huffaker
Villette - Charlotte Bronte

What I'm eating now:
What am I not eating?

Let me back up a little.

As you know, the night time is the right time to be with the book you love. Anytime from eleven to midnight will find me crawling into bed with my Kindle, earphones, and assorted library books or paperbacks from my very own Bybeeary. Everything I could want or need, right?

Well lately, I have felt the need....the need for feed.

I am not a bedtime snack kind of person. I prefer to have dinner at six or seven then game over till breakfast. But these past few weeks, I've been going in search of chips, cookies, crackers, mixed fruit and nuts, chocolate...I'm sure there is something I'm forgetting. Oh, right, once there was pie. After the snack, I finally settle down and read for thirty minutes to an hour before falling asleep.

I try to fight this urge to chow down. Some nights I win, but those victories are getting fewer and farther between. Not surprisingly, my clothes are getting a bit tighter.

Why this change? Is it a sign of a weak character? Is it just knowing that the snacks are there and available? Is it menopause putting one last whipping on me?

I think I have finally figured out the answer:

I'm not hungry. I'm tired. I'm staying up too late then trying to fit my reading in on top of that. By that time, my brain wants a boost, a quick boost, which translates to something sweet or salty or both. Crunchy. Yes, God help me, crunchy.

Does this make it OK to snack? It's all for books and reading -- what could be nobler? I can't possibly go to sleep without reading; that would just feel wrong. An early bedtime? Nah. Being able to stay up as long as I damn well want is one of the few perks I've truly enjoyed during these last 3-plus decades of adulthood.

I suppose my best solution would be to prepare for the snack attack and have some healthy snacks on hand like fruit or yogurt. Veggies.

I could also grudgingly agree to give into Mr. Sandman for a while then wake up feeling fine after a short nap, able to sink my teeth into a few chapters at 3 a.m.

I could also drink water while reading. I don't think I would last long, but when I woke up, I would get in more reading time while relieving my protesting bladder.

It's 11:45 p.m. now. I am putting off going to bed, even though I want to get back to The Cowboy and the Cossack for a chapter or two, then finish off the night reading about Alexander Hamilton. But the Cheetos are looming large. Every time my mouth falls open in a yawn, they see an opening.