how to sleep in a bed without a boy by your side

DISCLAIMER: What follows is decidedly unfeminist and I am not ashamed.

11:00pm: It was a long day at the office, and a long night of editing away in my home office (a.k.a. my bed when my laptop computer is open on it). YAAAWN. Phew, my eyelids feel heavy.

11:05pm: Time to wash my face and brush my teeth. I close my laptop, put it on the floor beside my bed, and hop out of bed, on my side. My side is furthest away from the door to my bedroom. I walk all the way around the foot of the bed, swerve to avoid walking into the book case, and another book case, and another piece of furniture. I head for the bathroom.

11:06pm: It occurs to me as I flip on the bathroom light that it makes no sense to take the long way around to the bathroom. I avoided crawling over to the other side of the bed & hopping out right beside the door because there is usually a person lying there beside me. Tonight, however, I am alone. Mental note: Stop doing that. Next time crawl across the bed, reach the bathroom quicker. Next time.

11:22pm: I am back in bed, tucked into freshly washed sheets. They feel heavenly, and smell divine. My white comforter floats around my face like a cloud. I nuzzle into my pillow. For a brief moment I consider reading my book, but decide not to. I am simply exhausted. I reach up and turn off the light.

11:27pm: I am a little cold. I actually felt cold a minute ago, ignored it. I thought the temperature of my body would warm up the cool clean sheets, and that in a minute I'd be toasty.

It didn't. I'm still cold.
But I'm so tucked in...

Knowing that in a minute I'll be freezing, I throw the covers off of me, swing my feet around to my side of the bed, walk all the way around the foot of the bed, narrowly missing two bookcases and a piece of furniture, and open up my closet door to rummage around for my little black hoodie. Of course I'm cold, I think, shivering a little, the wood floor cool on my bare toes. My nightgown is a pink, loosefitting, summer-y little dress. What am I thinking? This is New England, most people probably tuck into bed wearing flannel PJs and socks. Mental note: the pink nightgown is only a viable option when wrapped around a boy.

11:29: I fish my hoodie out from between a blanket and a towel on the top shelf of my closet. Finally! I shove my goosebump covered arms through the sleeves of my hoodie. This is the same sweatshirt that Rachel once referred to as "the smallest sweatshirt she'd ever seen." Duh, I got it at the kids section at Walmart. I head back to my bed, back past the furniture and the two book cases, all the way around the foot of the bed, to my side. I dive under the covers, throw them dramatically over me, and nuzzle in, attempting to recapture my formerly blissful, tucked in state. I close my eyes and sigh, realizing that, damn it, I just did it again.

11:32pm: I am curled up on my side of the bed. Way on my side. As in, as though there was a person on the other side. Actually, more like as though there were two people on the other side. Or perhaps as though a line of demarcation had been drawn down the middle of the bed, and were I to cross that line, I lose a digit or a limb. But whatever. I'm too tired to adjust.

11:37pm: I feel ashamed that I was so quick to surrender the privilege of sprawing across my queen bed. I worry that this is a symbolic representation of my own independence. I thus creep a few inches closer to the center of the bed. My fingers crawl over to the other side like little spiders. I tuck them under the other pillow.

12:ooam: I am dozing now, almost asleep actually, when I realize that I am still cold. The thought wakes me up. That's it, this itty-bitty Walmart hoodie ain't cuttin it. I need to find the other hoodie. But where is it? The bathroom? I remember my independence this time, and crawl out on the other side of the bed. To do so, I must wrestle the sheets out from under the other pillow, and tear them from between the mattress and box spring, where I had so neatly tucked them just hours earlier while making the bed. I try to do this with as little effect as possible, so I don't ruin my beautiful bed-making handiwork. In the process, I fail to untuck the sheets enough, get my right foot caught in a tangled mess of covers, and basically fall out of the bed, wacking my arm against the wall, right on the spot where I bruised it last week when I fell down the stairs.

12:02am: I am finally back in bed, wrapped in the other hoodie, which is bigger, warmer, and navy blue. I pull the hood up over the crown of my head. I remember to situate in the middle of the bed, and am, for the most part, comfortable. I reach up to the thermostat above my head, and turn it sharply to the right, just in case. Having exhausted all possible hoodie options, my last resort is to turn up the heat.

1:35am: I wake up sweating, swaddled, nearly strangled in the huge navy blue hoodie. My decision to turn the heat up to "way way high" in a moment of sleepless frustration now seems totally dumb. Also dumb was my decision to eat my weight in ice cream before going to bed. My body is clearly having a bitch of a time processing all those carbs, especially in this oppressive, almost tropical heat. My room is sweltering, and my once lovely sheets are now twisted around my legs. They feel swampy, yet the air is as dry as the sahara. I throw the covers off of me, frown up at the ceiling, and sigh.

Is body termperature really this difficult to control???

2:00am: I am half alseep on top of the covers, and it appears to be cooling off in my room. I have cranked the thermostat down to "comfort zone", and it's true, my body temperature does appear to be approaching a more comfortable zone. At least the radiator isn't heaving and wheezing like it was before, struggling to pump my room full of as much hot air as possible.

2:10am: I am cooler, perhaps ready for a sheet.

3:20am: I somehow wormed my way under the blankets in my sleep. Okay, fair enough.

5:00am: I recall that this hour, the final hour before day break, is the coldest hour of day. I grab the navy blue hoodie, which is by now cool and dry, and put it on. This time, I leave the hood off my head.

?am: In my dream I see my mother and my friend Kim. We are drinking peppermint tea, and laughing over some joke I just told, about penguins and pandas. I don't recall the punch line, but they seem to, and they seem to think it was hilarious. They are laughing and laughing and I do too, even though I don't think whatever I just said was very fun. I laugh anyway, it is a forced laugh, then realize I have to pee and excuse myself to use the ladies room. In my dream I know I am in my mom's house, but I've never been inside this house before. It kind of looks like Aunt Jan's place in Sacamento. Where the heck is the bathroom?

6:57am: I have to pee. I glance at the clock. My alarm is going to go off in four minutes. I stare up at the ceiling. Maybe if I close my eyes I can sleep for just a little bit longer...I shut them... oh my god, do I have to pee. I brace myself for the cold wood floor on my feet, then swing my legs over my side of the bed. I walk all the way around the foot of the bed, swerve to avoid bookcase #1 & bookcase #2, and narrowly miss the other piece of furniture.

7:00am: I investigate the dark circles under my eyes in the mirror as I wash my hands. Wow, do I look tired. I twist the knobs on the faucets to off, and as the spray of the water ceases I hear my alarm clock go off, bleating like an angry sheep.

Happy Monday.