10.12.23

It’s 1:25am on a weeknight and I am, tragically, very awake.

I watched the tail end of the Phillies/Braves game tonight after I finished working and went for a dusk-cloaked walk, scooping up the remaining third of a leftover Chipotle bowl with Tostitos. At the conclusion of the broadcast, HBO Max offered me the Dodgers/Diamondbacks, and I obliged, despite its after-9pm Eastern start time. I watched the whole game (including the four homers in one inning by Arizona — that was bananas!), and moseyed to bed around midnight.

I laid in bed and cracked my book by my bedside “lamp” that’s really more of a nightlight. There are no outlets on the wall where my bed is (you gotta love that pre-war charm), so I had to settle for lights that are cordless. I pull it as close to the pages of Qian Julie Wang’s Beautiful Country as I can get it. I plan to read one chapter, but read two because I’m not really feeling tired at the end of one — despite how heavily I was yawning on the couch in the latter innings of the Dodgers’ final game of the season.

I lift up the light and flick its switch (so conveniently located on the bottom — flawless design, no notes!) to Off. Anticipating issues with falling asleep, I reach to the bottom shelf of my right-side nightstand and retrieve Pudge — a stuffed pig I have had since I was very young, maybe five. I remember my mom helping me to name him after I picked him out from the toy store at the mall that I can’t remember the name of — not KB Toys, the other one. When you first walked in the main entrance of Crossgates in Albany, past where there are escalators now but there weren’t at the time, it was just to the left. It was something like Zany Brainy… I have an image of the logo in my head, a kid with crazy hair, maybe with big ideas spilling out of his big brain, but I’m not sure if I’m conflating it with an old logo for Noggin, then a programming block on Nick Jr. In any case. from this store we purchased Pudge, who still makes occasional appearances as a sleeping companion to me, his restless owner. He serves, in my apartment in the city, as a reinforcement on the nights I really struggle to doze off — the beer pong celebrity shot of insomnia.

Pudge is a little worn and has seen better days. He is probably very dirty — I’m actually not sure he has ever been washed. I recall having two stuffed animals that I slept with as a child, Pudge and No Name. No Name, named and originally owned by my older brother, is a cheap, clearly “It’s a boy!” teddy bear that, legend has it, he dropped in my crib when I was first brought home from the hospital, declaring, “Emma can have No Name.” Who am I to change the name of a gift such as this (the answer is me, once, as I did at one point try to change his name to Henry — but it just didn’t suit him)? No Name, who still lives at my parents’ house (freeloader!!!) was stitched and stuffed tighter than Pudge is, and thus safer to wash without fear of disfigurement. My mom once said that she worried that Pudge would get misshapen in the washing machine or, God forbid, the dryer, so I took that to heart and never washed him, ever. Anyways, let me make sure I spend an extended period of time with him really close to my already acne-prone face!

I have never been a good sleeper. I remember often waking up far too early as a child, long before my alarm, opting to listen from bed to the early show on Fly 92.3 quietly emanating from my radio clock before I had to get up to get ready for school. I recall fitful nights as a teenager when I would wake up suddenly, short of breath and terrified of nothing. Once, as an adult, I had a boyfriend (or not-boyfriend? It’s hard to remember what life cycle of our relationship we were in at the time — there were so many!) wake up in a similar manner in a bed we were sharing and I reacted in a way I find, now, regrettably harsh. So unwelcome were the sudden reminders of my teenage anxieties that I accidentally opted to forego any tenderness that ought to be afforded to my partner, decidedly exhibiting behaviors eerily similar to those I exhibited when I was Not Doing Well, in favor of being startled and frustrated and huffy about being roused. I think about that a lot when I’m having a hard time falling asleep, which is the sleep issue that most often plagues me now.

I toss and turn for a long time, or maybe a short time, I don’t know. This side of the bed, that side. These pillows, those pillows. Do I even like any of these pillows? Are they ever comfortable? I wonder if maybe I would have an easier time falling asleep if I got up and took a shower. Or would that just wake me up more? Am I too hot? I don’t currently have screens in my windows — I have been meaning to replace them — so I can’t open the window and leave it unattended, for fear that I will wake up with an agitated pigeon in my bedroom, who managed to find his way in but cannot for the life of him find his way back out.

I get up and open the window, placing a fan on the sill to blow in some of the cooler Fall air. I sit in the yellow chair in the corner of my room and keep reading my book until I start to feel cold, then close the window and get back in bed. I wrap myself in my quilt, my favorite old one from my parents’ house, made by someone’s aunt on one side of my family or the other, who can remember which. I feel more tired until I don’t, and my eyes snap open. Nothing to be done. Might as well break out the laptop and write an insomnia blog.

It’s now 2:16am. I am no closer to sleeping than I was at the start of this. Astonishingly, staring at a computer screen in the middle of the night in a dark room is not the lullaby I hoped it would be.