Friday, February 11, 2011

I found my hairbrush in the fridge--was it evil elves, Inception, or insomnia?

Yesterday morning, I couldn’t find my hairbrush.

I looked in all of the places that I could have logically set it down.

No luck.

I looked in all of the places where it could have fallen after I logically set it down.

Nothing.

I looked in Rosie’s crate and under my bed (where she likes to hide anything that interferes with my ability to devote all of my attention to her all of the time. My cell phone winds up in both locations frequently).

Still no hairbrush.

Finally, I gave up because I was running crazily late for school and keep a hairbrush in my car.

And then, of course, once I stopped looking, I found it.

In my refrigerator.

Yeah. That was a proud moment.
Now, your average person would be able to make one of three logical assumptions upon finding her hairbrush in the refrigerator.

Logical Assumption #1: Early onset dementia. Or, as we call it in my family, turning 35. But I’m not close to that age yet. And while I AM precocious in many ways, I still have the ability to work a dvd player, send an email, and drive a car without knocking off my side mirrors, so I think I can--for the time being--rule out that special hereditary gift that I’m eventually bound to inherit.

Logical Assumption #2: The elves that break into my apartment every night to cobble shoes and order pay-per-view movies on my account got drunk Wednesday night and thought it would be hilarious to put my hairbrush in the fridge and my bras in the microwave.

I do know that the elves were on the job Wednesday night, because all of my shoes were freshly cobbled and my cable bill is listing the movies, “Our Bodies, Our Elves,” “Snow White and the Seven Horny Elves,” “Harold and Kumelf go to the Keebler Factory,” “The Wizard of Elf,” and “Pretty Woman.” (Because as everyone knows, elves love elf porn. And Richard Gere movies.)

But none of my bras were missing, so I’m pretty sure the elves just did their normal cobbling/movie watching and then went on their merry way.

Logical Assumption #3: While I was asleep, dream terrorists entered my dream, planted the idea of my hairbrush in my refrigerator, started spinning a top, and made me very confused about whether Leonardo DiCaprio is awake or in limbo at the end of Inception. 

I can neither confirm nor refute this assumption, leaving you to wonder if I’m awake or asleep right now. Or maybe I don’t exist and YOU’RE asleep right now and someone just planted the idea of ME in your mind.

Except I know that Logical Assumption #3 is completely illogical in my case.

How?

Well, it’s actually simple. I know I wasn’t asleep. Because my body hates me and I’m an insomniac.

This isn’t anything new. I’ve been an insomniac since early childhood, when I used to get up in the middle of the night and sneak downstairs to watch tv because I couldn’t sleep (which is also, coincidentally, how I know that elves love elf porn and Richard Gere). Usually it’s just an inconvenience and means that I get less sleep than I’d like to. But sometimes I go a week or more on one or two hours of sleep a night.

Which is what happened this week.

And which is why I wasn’t all that surprised to find my hairbrush in the refrigerator.

Because when you aren’t getting any sleep, your brain basically pulls an alcoholic, snowed-in at a haunted hotel in the Rockies Jack Nicholson.


In fact, finding my hairbrush in the fridge was kind of a relief. At least I didn't write an entire novel using only the sentence “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” chop down my bathroom door with an axe, try to murder my family, then freeze to death in a snowy hedge maze.

This time.

The last two weeks have pretty much sucked sleep-wise, but as my personal bouts of insomnia go, I’ve actually been fairly productive.

At least I think I have.

I keep getting brilliant ideas for my blog/next book/hair style/makeup line that I’m going to start someday/plan to take over the world within the next couple of years at about 3am. And because I know that when I’m in a bad cycle of insomnia, if I don’t write the ideas down, I’ll lose them forever, I keep a pen and notebook next to my bed to record these flashes of genius.

Unfortunately, the pen and notebook are missing and after checking the logical locations AND the refrigerator, I still can’t find them. So I’m forced to record my amazing bursts of insight using whatever tools I can find in the dark at 3am, which sometimes works fairly well and is sometimes rather disastrous.

Last night, for example, I came up with the title for the book I’m planning to put out this spring. I’d been trying for nearly a year to figure out the right title, and inspiration finally hit. So I grabbed my phone and typed the title and my plan for how to work it into the novel appropriately into a memo to myself.

Which was better than the night before, when I wound up scribbling ideas for future blog posts on my mirror in $24 Stila lipgloss. Fail.

It also worked out better than the time I had a sharpie but no paper and wrote my holiday shopping list on my leg. You get some really weird looks at the mall when you have to look down your pants to see what you need to buy.

I was actually really excited to have figured out what to call my book, and after typing it into my phone, I fell asleep for a couple of blissful hours.

The excitement ended this morning, however, when I tried to read what I’d typed and discovered that I apparently speak some language that’s a cross between English, Japanese, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, and whale mating calls. And I can only speak it between 3:04am and 3:22am. After that, it’s just plain gibberish.

Hopefully the insomnia spell will break soon and I’ll be able to resume my role as a semi-functional member of society. Until then, if you talk to me and I seem a bit odd, try to go easy on me. And if you run into me on the street and start talking about an underground boxing club that I started, don’t be surprised if I get really mad at you.

Because the number one rule of insomnia is that you do NOT talk about Fight Club.

3 comments:

  1. Hi Sarah - not specifically about this post - just to say I have read 'Beyond The Palace' and I loved it. If you want me to say more just let me know.

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  2. Lol it's all good, lots of people put the h on... I blogged about that awhile ago: http://saraegoodman.blogspot.com/2010/09/its-spelled-s-r-but-its-pronounced-sara.html
    :-p

    And yay! That's an AWESOME comment to start the day with! Thanks so much!!! :-) :-) :-)

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