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To Sleep, perchance to humiliate oneself in public...

I promise to post whatever it is I write here now at this moment. Damn it. I feel some serious weirdness coming on. This is an exercise, a fragment, work in progress or something that will be discarded. It's just this, and so, I offer my apologies. You've been warned. This is just silliness with grammatical errors, prattling, so much blahblahblah and etc.....

We sleep.

We do not sleep quietly.

We do sleep soundly.

Except when we don't, and then well, you know, we don't sleep quietly or soundly.

The sputter and snore of it, mumbled muttering, nonsense, “Monkeys on the roof, waffle umbrella-shark. Ahhhh...”

The inevitable passing of gas; sleep farting. God forbid.

My son laughs in his sleep.

This is a delightful thing. My son laughing in his sleep is a beautiful thing and it makes me feel hopeful.

My son is a dear darling boy so I imagine  that he dreams happy wholesome dreams, dreams about the things that delight children; puppies and butterflies, balloons, baby hippos, and farting.

When I was a child I didn't want people to see me with my eyes closed. I don't know what I thought would happen to me if I closed my eyes in public for longer than the time it takes to blink-- to blink, to prevent our eyes from drying out and dropping from our eye sockets, dessicated and shriveled, eye-raisins.

When I was a first year student at college, I was18, shy, depressed and far too serious for my own good. 

One warm October afternoon, I fell asleep in the university library. I awoke in a panic minutes or hours later, I had no idea which, and peeled my face off the sticky vinyl couch cushion with an audible 'rrrppppp'.

My cheek was hot and wet with sweat and drool and the shit brown Naugahyde upholstery wore a glossy sheen, a glinty spitty sheen which I'm sure I wiped away with the floppy cuff of my green and purple paisley blouse.

I straightened my Louise Brooks bob, readjusted my wire framed glasses, smoothed my vintage Girl Scout green pleated skirt, picked up my Sony Walkman and slung my black book bag over my shoulder with as much dignity as I could muster, which was probably a lot.

I avoided making eye contact with the assortment of grad students, undergrads, and pretty Tri Delts in their tight magenta sweatshirts and stiff big hair and I was gone.

Having drooled on myself and on the university's hideous plastic furniture was embarrassing, but the thing that made me sick to my stomach was the horrifying thought that I may have farted in my sleep.

I still don't like closing my eyes in public, it makes me feel vulnerable and from time to time I find myself worrying about falling to asleep in a room full of quiet strangers.






Comments

Carol Willette Bachofner said…
yes, the falling asleep in public thing is embarrassing. However, sometimes you just do. Movies are a good place for a snooze, followed by coffee shops, and of course church.

Funny blog post! Thnx
January 12, 2013 at 8:14 AM
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