For as long as I can remember, I have never beenwhat you would call an "easy sleeper."
Now, before you start to laud me for my sensitivity in caring so much for the fate of the world that I cannot rest my pretty head at night, let me assure you this is not the case. The thoughts that run through my mind when I am trying to sleep are not so much "Golly, I wish there was world peace," but are more likely along the lines of "Hmmm ... I wonder if that hot guy who sits across from me in history likes blondes with Southern accents."
I have tried everything to get myself to sleep at a decent hour: warm milk, hot chamomile tea, reading my econ textbook and most recently, codine-laced cough syrup (shh ... don't you tell Student Health or I won't get a refill) -- but alas, I always end up unwillingly bright-eyed and bushytailed at 4 a.m., checking people's away messages. Note to people on my buddy list: I get irrationally jealous when I see "Sleep!" and a cheesy yellow happy face on your away message. It's just a cruel taunt to your insomniac friend Erin, and frankly, I don't appreciate it.
Perhaps the reason it is so hard for me to sleep is that I am somewhat finicky about the conditions required for sleep to even be an option. I cannot fall asleep facing to the right. I must sleep in an unobstructed diagonal line (a deal-breaker for sleeping with others, trust me). Having less than three pillows is laughable. Having more than four is overwhelming. And, despite the pleas of family, friends and, okay, total strangers, I've got to sleep naked. I realize that was a total over-share. Sorry.
One of my roommates keeps (depending on who you ask) even more ridiculous hours than I do and often wakes up early to study. This creates some problems in that, being a rather jumpy kid, I can get pretty scared when I run into her in a dark hallway at 3:16 in the morning (or, let's be honest, 3:16 in the afternoon). I attribute the jumpiness to my older brother who, throughout my childhood, used to find great joy in hiding behind corners and jumping out, screaming like a possessed banshee and grabbing me around the neck. I also fault the roommate, who is undoubtedly the quietest walking human I have ever met. I swear she has padded feline feet or something. If not for the facebook, I would totally have her do all my stalking for me.
Since I don't sleep at night, I have to find more creative (read: awkward) ways and places to sleep. One of the mainstays on my tour of daytime narcolepsy is the library on the third floor of the physics building, where I have two classes -- neither of them having anything to do with physics. For those of you who don't frequent the Physics library, let me enlighten you on the layout. The whole library, including bookshelves, tables and computers, is roughly the size of a Monopoly board. There are exactly two "plush" chairs in the physics library. The rest of the chairs are about as pleasant as streaking the Lawn in mid-January (er, from what I've been told). If you pull the two plush chairs together, it forms quite the commodious little cot to pass an hour -- or seven.
The downside is the problems I inadvertently cause for the physics majors. While I curl up in a happy ball of sleep, the physics kids straddle the pieces of wood our University calls chairs and try to lunge over me to get the desperately needed physics journals that I am blocking with my ass. If the situation were reversed, I probably would have already dropped multiple pieces of gum in the offending sleeper's hair. I guess something about particles makes physics students docile. Thank God -- I love my hair (and I really am hoping that guy in history loves it too).
I don't want to misrepresent my insomnia -- it really isn't all bad. I have definitely found some creative ways to fill my insomnia time, such as scrolling through the archives of "Rolling Stone" magazine, tearing apart my room in hopes that I might find the shirt that mysteriously disappeared last semester and getting in touch with my feelings via Dashboard Confessional song marathons. My roommates have hinted that maybe I could use this time to do something worthwhile like wash my dishes or straighten my "scum hole" of a room. My roommates should probably stop complaining and thank their lucky stars that I don't use my special insomnia time to draw on them with Sharpies while they are sleeping. Haha. Joke, girls. Really.
One day, maybe I'll spontaneously get to sleep before the sun rises. It could change my whole life -- my grades, my appearance (dark circles are not cute) and the number of physics kids who want to throw me out of a third-story window. In the mean time, I plan to fluff my pillows, turn off the lights and pray this column hasn't prompted my roommates to launch a pre-emptive strike with the Sharpies.
Erin can be reached at gaetz@cavalierdaily.com
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