Don\’t get up; sleepwalk
There are some mornings when I am sure I’m going to die before I get to the bathroom. I walk as though a vigorous game of tug-of-war were being played, with my arms as the rope. Sometimes, miraculously, I make it out the doorway into the hall. Other times it smacks into my shoulder like a high-school bully.
The trip through the dark hallway to the bathroom is fun; kind of like one of those haunted houses at the state fair where some things punch you and everything scares you. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve almost overshot the bathroom door and barged in on my sleeping roommate across the hall. It’s a good thing I haven’t, too. If I ever do, I’ll probably just collapse into his bed and sleep some more.
By the time I get in front of the mirror, I’ve often forgotten what I’m doing. I’ve caught myself just standing there, staring. I don’t allow myself to sit on the toilet (or anywhere else) until after I’ve showered. In the morning, sitting down for even a second is as deadly as pausing for rest during a snowstorm – they find you a few days later frozen stiff, with a peaceful expression on your face.
Then there’s the problem every single human being since the beginning of time has had: how to force yourself to get out of the shower. I’ve tried counting to ten, but it doesn’t work. I just keep counting, and with no goal, it becomes another reason not to leave. I’m already at 230, let’s see how high this baby goes!
It’s a little easier in the summer, but in the winter, when a hot morning shower is the next best thing to sleeping, it’s practically impossible to get out. The best technique I’ve found involves standing rigidly, arms up, and then giving myself a little push off the opposing wall. Like felling a tree.
Whatever the process, the shower accomplishes the miracle of waking me up for a brief eight-minute window. Just long enough for the really dangerous part: shaving. I’ve got the eight-minute shave down to an art; any longer and I’d end up like that crazy singer from The Wall, i.e. eyebrow-less.
Unfortunately, once the shower-effect wears off, I enter a mode where I’m not awake enough to realize how not awake I am. I drive to work on instinct and chance, like a blind Titanic slipping through the icebergs of the North Sea. Except without the sinking and the death. So far.
See, my problem is I’m already prone to mixing states of consciousness. I sleepwalk, I sleep-talk, I even sleep-pop-and-lock (no, I don’t, but wouldn’t that be cool?). Once, while visiting my grandparents in Argentina, my grandma found me in the kitchen, bumping my head against a wall.
“Bruno, what are you doing?” she asked.
“This door won’t open,” I said, in what I still think is the best description of a wall I’ve ever come up with.
She led me back to bed, but I don’t remember any of it. On one hand, it’s pretty cool that my body can sort of function even while I’m asleep. On the other hand, it’s scary that it only sort of functions.
The problem with sleep is that you can’t do it part way. It’d be nice if you could; for example, if I could sleep everything below my neck, but keep my head awake, I could go on writing this thing late into the night. But since sleep is all or nothing, I’m going to have to cut it short before it’s finished … otherwise tomorrow morning I’m going to find myself in my roommate’s bed for sure.
Of course, now it dawns on me that with everything below my neck asleep, I wouldn’t be able to type anything. So maybe it would be best to do it the other way around; go to sleep above the shoulders, and let my mindless trunk of a body do the typing on its own. It’s not like anyone will be able to tell the difference …
Must kill braaaaaaain!!!! Want eat caaaaake!
Oops. That’s the elbows talking. Time for bed.