Going To Bed Should Not Be This Difficult

Going to bed is one of those things that is one hundred percent harder than it should be. It would be awesome if, when I looked at the clock and saw that it was six past midnight, that generated the following train of events:

1.    “Oh, look. It’s past midnight. I should go to sleep, so when I have to get up for class on Monday, I’ll be alive.”

2.     I pack my things together, leave Somerset and walk to my dorm without any interruptions.

3.    Go into my room quietly, change into my pjs, get into bed.

4.    Go straight to sleep.

However, this is generally what ends up happening instead:

1.    “Oh, look. It’s past midnight. I should go to sleep, so when I have to get up for class on Monday, I’ll be alive.”

2.    Then I check my email.

3.    Then Facebook.

4.    Then my blog to see if anyone commented or is following me.

5.    And then I stay up for another long period of time doing stupid internet things, or maybe watching Twin Peaks and/or knitting.

6.    Eventually I am too exhausted to be alive and the mere thought of being awake is enough to make me cry.

7.    Pack my things, leave Somerset, walk past the coffee shop and get depressed because I’m out of culinary cash and there are a whole eleven more days until the end of term.

8.    Walk to my dorm without any interruptions.

9.    Go into my room quietly, change into my pjs, get into bed.

10.  Play backgammon on my phone for an hour. Possibly also cribbage and Sudoku, maybe even Rush Hour, though usually I’m too tired to think that clearly.

11.  Put my phone away and spend another 30 to infinity minutes not falling asleep because I’m incapable of falling asleep.

You can start to see why this is a problem even within those lists. I am actually tired, tired enough to not remember how to use tenses. This is related to another problem with staying up late—I can do homework if I woke up before noon, but I can’t think much beyond YAY INTERNET!!! past, say, eleven-thirty. Then the following events occur:

1.    Wake up at quarter of one in the afternoon.

2. Throw on whatever clothes are closest and sprint down to the café before it closes for lunch

3.    Forget to bring study supplies.

4. Need to walk back to dorm after lunch and return to the same building to study.

5.    Look at the clock.

6. Get panicky because it’s quarter of two and I haven’t gotten any work done yet.

7.    Do stupid internet things to calm down.

8.    Realize it’s quarter of three.

9.    Get panicky.

10.  Finally get some work done, but continually get distracted by IMs and the Internet and the most recent episode of Grey’s Anatomy and knitting and Twin Peaks and looking at pictures of Montana.

By the way, friends, Montana is the most beautiful place in the world. If I didn’t love my college so very, very much, I would transfer there so I could live in the mountains and breathe the fresh, mountain air and go skiing all the time. There is not a lot of skiing in the Midwest. It is very flat. Plus, about the air: my campus sometimes, for no reason whatsoever, smells like cow poop. This could be because the entirety of the downtown area is built on a landfill. Or maybe because there’s a paper factory across the river. I don’t know. But it’s gross.

I have cleverly blacked out the name of the paper mill so you can't find me and won't kill me in my sleep.

I am concerned that, since the town is built on a landfill, there is secretly a Trash Monster that comes out at night to kill people who don't live by the CC&Rs like in that X-Files episode.

Picture taken from: http://xfphotos.fredfarm.com/index.htm. If you never need X-Files pictures, that is the place to go.

I did not take this picture because I have never been to Montana. I will, though. One day.

Picture from:  http://www.montanadeathrecord.com/montana.jpg.

Another consequence of not sleeping enough is that I get crabby and the little things, like everything smelling like cow poop, start to get to me. If I could go to bed at midnight like a normal person, I bet when I woke up and walked outside and smelled the cow poop, I would be like, “Wow! Cow poop! What a beautiful day!” But no. Instead, I go outside, and I’m like, “Grrrrrr cow poop you make my life miserable. I hate you, cow poop.”

This is now sitting face down on the coffee table in front of me so people don't see it and think I'm crazy.

Okay. The CD I was listening to just ended, and I am going to take this as a sign that it is time for bed, even though I have not drawn pictures of cow poop yet. I can do that tomorrow, and it will make no difference whatsoever because I don’t want to post two posts in one day because:

1.    I don’t want to overwhelm my readers.

2.    I don’t want to use up all of my post ideas right away.

3.    I don’t have the materials for drawing on hand, and my roommate is asleep and I don’t want to wake her up to get them. Plus it’s cold out, and I don’t want to either:

                             a. Walk to my room and back.

                             b. Pack up, go to my room, get my things, sit outside my room and unpack again.

4. I can’t take a picture of the paper factory because it’s dark out.

5. I don’t have a picture of the building with the crack in the floor because the whole town is sinking, or even remember what building it is, which means I will have to ask my professor, who looks like John Stamos.

Also, there’s a really loud band playing somewhere and it’s driving me absolutely crazy. Good night, friends.

p.s. I did not go to sleep. Instead I stayed up late to write blog posts. I did, however, move away from the obnoxious loud band. I also changed into my pjs in the dark, then decided I wanted to stay up. This involved grabbing a bra at random because I couldn’t see, and also a shirt at random, because I couldn’t see. So now I am wearing a skintight Lifeguard Hampton Beach shirt that I got as a joke and my super push up bra. A mistake has been made.

You do not get to see the skintight shirt or the super push up bra because I look like a skank and that is not the image I want to project onto my internet readers.

p. p. s. The Somerset situation has gotten more intense.

People have started moving the comfy couches and chairs to the tables lining the windows. This is one example, but the same is true up and down the room. My roommate walked in, looked at the situation, then looked at me and gave me an "Oh god, you weren't exaggerating" look. I was vindicated.

Also, no stalking!!