Asleep
Adam’s been in Boston for a bunch of days, and man, I can’t sleep when he’s not here. I never thought I’d be one of those wimpy people, but the painful fact of life is: I’ve never lived alone. Never! I’ve had roommates or siblings or parents sharing my home since I was born. Truthfully, if I were prone to regrets, I’d regret it quite a bit. I never had my own apartment where I could do my own decorating (I can’t even type that with a straight face. Decorating. We’d be lucky if I put the food in the refrigerator.) Oooh ooh, and I would eat whatever I want for dinner – things like fat free hot dogs, mashed potatoes and large piles of sauerkraut! And pickled brussels sprouts! OLIVES!
Alas, I never lived the dream. And while I am more than willing to sacrifice pickled cruciferous vegetables and brined fruit for the creature comforts of domesticity, sometimes I wonder if I’d actually lived alone, would I be more comfortable sleeping when Adam isn’t here? Because when he’s gone, I don’t sleep. There is at least one reader who can attest to receiving emails from me at an ungodly hour because I just couldn’t sleep. I laid awake until 3 a.m. listening to the sounds of the house creaking. I slept with the television on at a low volume and when some stupid commercial for bathroom cleaner let out a series of three beeps that were not dissimilar to the sound of our house alarm, I launched of bed and grabbed the hunter’s knife Adam keeps in his nightstand (?) and tumbled down the stairs screaming, “I HAVE A KNIFE, ASSHOLE.”
I mean, honestly, like, what was I going to do? Stab them? I can barely make it down the stairs without falling on my ass, and I was going to stab them with an unstable fold-out knife with a mother-of-pearl handle? I’m lucky I didn’t hurtle down the stairs and impale myself on the knife, leaving my body in a pool of blood for Adam to find when he gets home tomorrow. And I know when and if he reads this, I’m going to be in a lot of trouble for even attempting such a ridiculous stunt. I’m sure as hell not going to bring it up.
Anyway, this little outburst meant that there would not be any sleeping happening for the rest of the evening. I spent the rest of the night in that miserable quasi-dreamlike state where one moment I’d be sitting in my bed and the next minute I’d find myself brushing the mane of some random horse and the oddity of that moment would jolt me out of sleep and SHIT, I’d be up all over again. And then Sunny would start licking her crotch and I’d wonder “Is she puking?” and I’d have to jerk myself upright to check. Then Snapper would start meowing in my face because gee, if we’re all awake, why don’t we get up and get breakfast? Who cares how dark it is? IT IS ALWAYS TIME FOR BREAKFAST.
And then suddenly, it was 8 a.m. and I had to get up and as you can imagine, this was met with about as much enthusiasm as a tongue lashing from a rabid crocodile.
The day did not go well. I actually found myself drooling at 11:30 a.m. as I went through my e-mail, I dropped an entire mugful of tomato soup in my lap and while I was interviewing this nice gentleman today whose native language was not English, I misunderstood something he said and meant to ask him, “I’m sorry – did you say ‘strong?’” as I tried to build a quote, but instead I ended up *actually slurring* from what I can only imagine was exhaustion and so I asked him, “I’m sorry – did you say schlong?” And then I promptly died while trying to keep a straight face. The worst part was that he barely speaks English and so DID NOT GET IT, so I was left alone with the oddly hilarious bit of self-inflicted humiliation.
The good news is that right now I am so unfathomably tired that it will be a Christmas miracle if I don’t get a good night’s sleep tonight. There is a good chance I will be entirely comatose before midnight and wouldn’t even notice if a gang of burglars came in and stole the contents of our entire house. And Adam comes home tomorrow and let’s all praise freaking Jesus and the gods of sleep, mmkay?
*Smiths
24 comments August 8th, 2006