Dammit All to Hell

It's 3:08 a.m. I was just about to fall asleep and heard a rustling coming from the closet. I looked to my left. My cat was there. I grabbed the flashlight (that I happened to have in bed, because my new bedroom layout didn't allow for my bedside lamp to be plugged in and I've been too lazy to rig it any other way) looked to my right and a giant cockroach was making a mad dash for my bed. Then he flipped over on his back and started flailing his legs wildly in the air. Knowing he was too injured to chase me (hey, it's happened before), I jumped out of bed and looked for the bug spray, only to notice it was between me and the big guy.

I tried to direct the cat from the bed to the floor, tempting her with the flashlight, but she just stared at me, who had also begun to flail wildy. (Seriously, why do these things only happen when I'm naked?)

Realizing the cat was of no fucking use to me in this time of crisis, I ran to the kitchen to get a heavy Pyrex lid to put over the intruder, but realized that would actually require getting close enough to be accurate with the placement of the lid... and that one of my Pyrex lids would be forever tainted. So I went to the living room and found the heaviest book I have, a Spanish textbook from college. I stood in the doorway and threw it on top of him. Thank goodness it was big, because my aim is never good with these things.

Problem is, now I'm sleeping next to a giant fucking cockroach which is "sleeping" under my Spanish textbook. Er, should I say giant fucking la cucaracha? Anyway, I'm glad the textbook finally came in handy (I totally had to google the spelling of "la cucaracha") but I'm so fucking jumpy I'll never be able to sleep. Seriously. It is right next to me. I'm not even asleep and I'm already having nightmares of his mighty cockroach strength overcoming the weight of the textbook.

Lay, Lady, Lay

I am not a pretty sleeper. I know this. In fact, one Halloween, when I'd passed out on the couch, my then-boyfriend decided it would be funny to take a series of pictures of me asleep, dressed up like a mouse, with my little mouse nose in its final stages of being smudged off, looking like one of Jerry's Kids. It was funny. Then.

Those things are funny when you're in love. And when the person laughing at you has already decided that s/he wants to be with you even if you're a retarded, drooling sleeper with frequent gas and a tendency to cry at episodes of Grey's Anatomy.

That is comfort, I guess. And after my break-up, I wanted comfort more than anything. I was so used to sleeping next to someone big and warm, that whether it was my best girlfriend (who was not big) or a rebound (who was not big, either), I just needed to fall asleep next to a warm body. I asked my friend Liz to stay the night probably far too often--so often that the one time (that I know of) that a giant cockroach made a pilgrimage across my bed, Liz's face was there to serve as a buffer between la cuca rocha and me. She was there. And I was grateful. Not only was I grateful that the cockroach had crawled on her face and not mine, but I was grateful that she was there in spite of whatever noises or fluids may have been coming out of my body at the time. I slept better with someone else in my bed. Period.

Fast forward a few months and I'm back to my old, pre-relationship ways. I love my bed. And I love that if the corner of the sheet is coming off of the mattress, that I did it, and I'm responsible for putting it back. I want to drool and snore alone, and, for the most part, I want my bed to myself. Sharing a bed makes me conscious of the fact that I'm an ugly sleeper, and who wants their last thought of the day to be "I'm falling into ugly?"

Maybe this is what getting over something is--getting re-acquainted and comfortable with old habits... while getting comfortable with new ones, like cooking dinner for oneself and Running for Fat People.

The Twilight Zone

OK, not exactly twilight, but the world is a very different place in the morning. Since returning from my trip, I've had a hard time sleeping late. I never quite recovered from Netherlands time, which is fine, because getting up at 7 in Amsterdam is like getting up at 1 in the afternoon on the East Coast. And I used to do that -- often. I've now found a happy medium and wake up around 9 every day. Fine. I'm actually more productive when I get up early. Go figure.

Anyway, I'm going to The Meatwave today and wanted to pick up a nice cut of steak and some sausage, but at 10:00 on a Sunday none of the meat markets in Greenpoint are open. I'm going to blame it on Sunday and not this crazy time we call "morning."