Sleeping

On Monday night, after realizing that my difficulty in sleeping was impairing my ability to function at the easiest job in the world (my current temporary assignment), I went to Bed Bath & Beyond and bought new pillows. Then I journeyed to CVS and purchased some Tylenol PM, which has been my savior in the past. I lugged my purchases home through the NYC humidity, which was kind of like walking through a bowl of soup. Dirty, dirty soup. With thousands of other soup-waders. I got home and CLEANED my bathroom. Not just any cleaning, but the organizing kind of cleaning. Where you sort things, and throw things out and make decisions like 'Am I ever going to use this sample sized portion of Murad face lotion, risking an addiction to expensive beauty products, or should I just bin it?'

By 8:30 pm, I am exhausted, there is nothing on television worth watching, and so I decide to take the Tylenol PM. I gleefully get into bed at 9:00, picturing how much more sane I will be tomorrow after 9 hours of sleep (no more bursting into tears!). I carefully get into bed, lie on my new pillows and...can't sleep. I finally get out of bed at 9:47 and decide that I am going to eat peanut butter, which IP at work recommended for insommnia. Somehow, this seems like a reasonable solution. When I get out of bed, I notice that, while the Tylenol PM hasn't helped me to sleep, it has certainly has impaired my motor functions. I feel like I am drunk, and I stumble into most of my furniture on my trip to the refridgerator. Once there, clinging to the door handle for balance, I gulp a large spoonful of peanut butter, which becomes lodged in my throat. So now, to recap, it's 10:00 pm, I still can't sleep, I'm dizzy and I'm eating peanut butter by the spoonful. When it is firmly lodged in my throat and I begin to have strange half-hiccups, I panic, which cues visions of me dying alone in my apartment and being discovered by the recovering heroin addict neighbors and/or police several days later in my sleeping attire, which is M's stretched out wife-beater undershirt. To prevent this tragedy, I drink a large glass of water, which helps somewhat, and decide to get back in bed. Because nothing helps the ability to swallow a large chunk of peanut butter than adding cold water to that mix and then lying down.

Two hours later, I discover that I have to get up to use the bathroom, thanks to that large glass of water. I interupt the plotting of my response e-mail to M's next missive, which has occupied the better part of the last hour, to journey to the bathroom. Still dizzy. Still stumbling. On the way back to the bedroom, I consider more peanut butter. Then I read the label on the peanut butter jar, and discover the amount of sugar in said peanut butter which I have just rammed down my throat. I'm never going to sleep now. I've just performed the equivalent of feeding a toddler 5 chocolate bars and then commanding naptime.

When do I finally drop off to sleep? Around 1 am. When do I wake up? Around 5 am. When does the Tylenol PM kick in? Immediately when I get to work and feel like I am swimming through deep water just to walk to the scanner.