Insomniac in New York
I don't sleep. I just don't. I have always wished I could retire at 10 pm, change into nightclothes, splash cleanser on my face and climb under my pale blue sheets for a slumber. What a luxury to take the day and turn the volume down to mute. Hear nothing but the beat of my heart and the steady rhythm of my breath into peaceful oblivion.
But this rarely happens. Instead I slip into bed and stare at the ceiling fan. My thoughts spin faster then the whirls of the fan. Thoughts of my father, Paul, Alex, rent is due. They are going to cut my cable off. Are my pants going to be too tight in the morning? Why did that mother fucker Bush get elected? I need to call Pilar in the morning. I should really get to sleep though. Just a few hours left. But the dishwasher needs loading. So I get up and load the dishwasher and I start to get sleepy. I have that moment of hope, when reality tilts a little to the side and I crawl back between the blue sheets. I look at the clock. One more hour so I close my eyes but the heaviness does not come. Oh I want the heaviness to come, but it doesn't and now a purple hue is coming through the window and I know this means that my alarm clock will go off soon and it will be time to put on a costume and go to the cubicle farm. I think of ways to get out going to the cubicle farm, headache, toothache, diarrhea, menstrual cramps, toilet exploded and I have to wait for the plumber to come, I have locked myself out of the apartment, or I have locked myself in my apartment and I have to wait for a locksmith. All of this so I can get one more hour, maybe two of sleep. But then what? Watch Judging Amy or ER reruns on TNT? Oh I will sit in front of my laptop and try to type a story (this one here) but I will feel like a bum and wonder what fires are brewing at the office. Are they hiring my replacement while I'm out?? Do I really care?
So I crawl out of the bed and scrape the clothes that are on the floor, give them a shake (I showered the night before and my hair is twisted and styled) I throw on the most comfortable shoes possible and stumble out my front door like one stumbles out of a porta-potty and head toward the subway. All the way there I wonder if I left the stove or the oven on even though I haven't cooked since Thanksgiving 1999 when Clinton was in the White House and the world was a better place. Sure it was the end of the world as we know it but I felt fine .... now 2005 and I worry if the stove is still on. So much so that I contemplate getting off of the subway at Atlantic Avenue to go home and check it. Okay, I did do this once but I am happy to report that not only was the stove not on but the gas had not even been hooked up yet.
I stop in the ladies room to take a look at my face and notice the harried look and the dark circles that are under my eyes. This can't be good. There is another lady in my office that suffers from the same plight. Her eyes are dark and like me she moves in slow motion through the office, like a plane taking off at La Guardia, ready for take off but fifteenth in line. Oh sure we get our work done, probably with more efficiency because our eyes are too fried to look at anything else but the work. We have to look at these words extra extra hard.
I go to the gym because that is what New Yorkers do and when I go there I can feel every muscle in my body as it moves. This is because when I tell my body to move it wants sleep, sleep. So I do my thirty minutes on the bicycle because I fried my ankles running years ago. I take my shower and sweat the day out in the steam room. I stuff sneakers, workout clothes that are now soaking wet into a plastic bag so the sweat of my clothes does not damage my digital camera, my ipod, my palm pilot. I run to the subway for my ride home but I have to walk three blocks to get there and then three blocks to walk home and I wonder what the hell is the point of doing thirty minutes on the bicycle if I have to workout just to get to the bloody gym? I stumble in the door juggling mail, gym bag, and purse. My cell phone is ringing I don't answer because it's him again when I really want it to be him but it's not him it never is. Why? Because I'm too self conscious to tell him I'm interested. I can only give him flirty eyes that are crowded with sleep dust and dark circles. He probably thinks I'm a methadone addict.
I empty out the gym bag, flop in front of the TV and try to unwind from the day but I know I'm going to do it all over again in the morning, which I will see coming in from my bedroom window rethinking this diatribe all over again.
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