Absurdist

Question of the week:  What is sleep?

Tell me all about it so I can live vicariously through you.  My brain is an energizer bunny.  I’ll lie there for hours, trying to will myself to sleep, and she just won’t quit.  Right when I think I’m finally dozing off, I begin wondering things like – Maybe I should read my text messages from my phone in 2005 or I wonder what flights are like to Greece right now? – which then spirals into a cascade of what I would wear/need for the trip, do I own it and if not, where would I get it.  Total monster.  I’ll sleep in my next life.  My eyes feel like they’re  dripping down my face like some kind of Lord of the Rings cryptkeeper botox gone wrong face melt lady.  If I could redo my childhood, I’d sleep more.  What do you want to do today?  Sleep.  Where do you want to go on vacation?  To my room.  What do you want for your birthday?  To fall asleep.  What do you want for dinner?  To go to bed.  If kids only knew what they had going for them.  But that’s not the way life works is it?  You have all of the time in the world to sleep at the exact same time you have the highest amount of energy you’ll ever have in this lifetime.  Life is cruel.  This week I worked a lot, I cried a lot and I got screamed at by a homeless woman for being alive.  Life is also absurd…particularly mine. 

Since I find sleep so hard to come by these days, I am not a fan of waking up to an alarm.  I need my 7 hours.  I am into rising from slumber naturally.  I get so anxious knowing I have to wake up to an alarm that I usually don’t sleep at all or the sleep that I do get is similar to when you keep falling asleep while trying to watch a movie and your friend keeps poking you awake cause IT’S THEIR FAVORITE MOVIE FROM THE 80s.  Bad.  And then I get those nightmares where I’m late or I’ve ruined something or I’ve somehow cancelled Christmas.  Usually one of my exes shows up or if it’s not one of them it’s a guy I don’t even recognize telling me I’m the worst.  I am always failing somehow. When I wake up, it always takes a minute for my heart rate to normalize and reassure myself that none of it actually happened.  One time I was being swarmed by bees, this is when I was little, and when I woke up they were still there so I screamed bloody murder for my dad.  It took him five minutes to talk me out from under the covers.  Aren’t I fun?  They say dreams are a window into one’s subconscious.  I’m sure one day a therapist will be paid a stupid amount of money to analyze all of it.  Not a fan of alarms.  Also hate forks.  We all have our things.

So I have to tell you, I’m watching Bachelor in Paradise finale- I’m late to the game, I know, I know- and it’s that awkward part where all of the couples are deciding whether or not they want to go into the fantasy suite. (psst! that’s where they “apparently” have sex FYI) and it’s SO RIDICULOUS.  This guy is like ‘I think instead of going in the fantasy suite we should take this night to think’ – she cuts him off and goes ‘ABOUT WHAT?’  Oh, I don’t know NICOLE, maybe about how the option of getting engaged or breaking up after 2 months is ultra batshit?  Or how you’ve been kept away from society on an island without a phone and it might not be the most realistic foundation for a relationship, let alone marriage.  Meanwhile this other guy is proposing to this girl with his entire back drenched in sweat because he’s wearing a LONG SLEEVED SHIRT IN MEXICO IN JULY.  Excellent choice, sir.  I wouldn’t last a day on that island.  I don’t like bugs, I don’t like being hot and I don’t like dating.   

And in the spirit of tangents, here’s another one.  Advance apologies to the men who read this but I’m about to drop some serious lady truth.  Being a woman is excruciating.  Literally.  My cramps are doing everything in their power to kill me.  Pain is supposed to be your body’s call for attention.  Trust me, I KNOW what’s going on down there.  I don’t need a reminder.  So this pain seems satanic.  This last crimson wave was RUTHLESS.  To put it into perspective, I was having a hard time staying conscious.  And as I lay there on the ground in my bathroom I thought to myself,  no one should have to feel this way just to exist.  For those of you who’ve never had cramps before, it’s like the premier torturer of Guantanamo Bay is hiding inside of your torso and once a month, never the same day, he comes out of the shadows to remind you that he’s the captain.  He takes all of your insides and rings them out with his bare hands on and off anywhere from 8 hours to 2 days.  Not enough to kill you but close enough to get you thinking about it.  It’s like a monthly punishment for being a woman.  Being a woman is also occasionally absurd.

The Emmys were on Sunday.  You all know how I feel about award shows.  I couldn’t have been more excited to have hopped on board the Fleabag wagon just in time.  Deserving of every single trophy.  It really was some of the best television I’ve ever seen.  If you haven’t watched it, I highly encourage you to do so.  Not exclusively but especially if you’re like me and occasionally feel like a giant mess who has a penchant for chasing away anything good and isn’t the most sure of where your life is headed or where exactly it’s been and still wish you could pause it from time to time like Zack Morris.  So I watched this year and I don’t know if I was just in a mood or being over emotional as per usual but I could not stop crying.  Every speech.  Bawled my eyes out.  I haven’t had a good cry in awhile.  Look out.  I’m a walking zombie full of tears.  And one day I’m gonna fall asleep in a nice lovely bed of clouds and whispers where I’ll dream beautiful things and people from near and far will all love me…one day.  Not today.  Today I’m going to go out there and scare people with my face.  No mask necessary.  XX