Why the Dog Barks and City Girls Become Insomniac

View from my apartment  in the evenings

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Five nights out of seven I would drag myself to bed, eyes half closed, and somewhere between my head hitting the pillows I was already out. When you live in the city that never sleeps, you're either busy working, entertaining friends, running errands, doing house chores or just plain running around the city trying to keep up with everything. Sometimes the only quiet, alone time you will ever get is that moment when you're lying in bed in the dark, and those minutes that your brain is settling down and drifting off to sleep are the most precious minutes ever.
I live in an apartment right smack in the middle of the city. From my bedroom window I could see a lake and a landscape of the whole city. The apartment is right next to streets of shops and restaurants, so you could say that my residency is as city-ish as it gets. When I shut the lights and am about to lie down in bed, all bare-faced and in comfy wear, I see buildings in lights and the lake reflecting back everything. I see the city before I go to sleep at night.
Granted, the city offers lullabies for you as you lie in the dark in bed. Be it New York or Kuala Lumpur, you will often hear either police sirens or the ambulance speeding past your street. If it's a weekend night, you can still hear the distant sounds of traffic even at midnight, and those horrible karaoke singing from some drunken middle aged groups. Sometimes people next door would be arguing too loudly, or their kids start screaming for something. These would usually tone down as the night grows, and if you wake up in the middle of the night you might hear dogs barking or still, some occassional car driving past.
These soundtracks are often there to break the silence, but even then, while you're sighing and your muscles are finally relaxing, your mind seems to start its pre-bed routines, or so I call it.
It will start thinking about what you did for the whole day that day. If you've done something you probably shouldn't, it will remind you that you won't do it again (although chances are you might do it again anyway). If you haven't completed a certain task, it will say,"Okay, I'll handle it tomorrow". If you experienced something out of the ordinary, like a cute guy, a strange encounter, an argument or a funny moment, it will recall every detail of that incident and you will smile/laugh/frown accordingly.
Usually at this point you would already become pretty sleepy. But on some cases, you might have gone through some heavy issues, and it will immediately use this position to manipulate you and not allow you to sleep. I find this especially true when I'm up accidentally in the middle of the night. The thoughts would come rushing in and before I could stop myself I'd be thinking about it and I wouldn't be able to sleep anymore. My usual points of weakness are - Life and its complicated meanings, God, sins, family issues and broken hearts.
At this point I would usually lie in the dark, listen to my mind thinking while the dogs are barking outside. Well at least you know you've got company.