What You Should(n’t) Do to Sleep

I’ve decided to explore a new blogging niche. That of writing anti-blogs. Is anyone even doing it yet or have I finally stumbled upon something original? What I have in mind are specifically anti-manuals, anti-instructions and anti-advice. Since I suck at pretty much everything, particularly life, I thought I’d share my wisdom for the benefit of those whom I might serve as a cautionary story.

I quite enjoy the irony of this idea: I can’t save myself, yet I’m proposing to save the world. Okay, not to save the world, I’m more modest than that, hence I only seek to make the world a better place. Do you believe me? You shouldn’t! For fuck’s sake, you’re reading an anti-blog! Also, do I give the impression that I give a shit? I hope not. Scratch that. I don’t have hopes.

I’ve been sleep-deprived for quite a while now. Which may explain the preceding and the following. A bar recently opened right under my flat and I think my sleeplessness might be related to this fact. It’s not just a bar. It’s a rock music bar. A non-stop music bar, to be absolutely precise. I have their fucking jukebox right under my bed. No kidding. Let’s just say that the constant noise of varying quality and quantity doesn’t exactly facilitate sleep.

Screw this shit

Which is where I’m getting down to my anti-advice. Aka, what you shouldn’t do when you’re trying to sleep. All the methods detailed below have been tested on myself and have been found inefficient, cumbersome and likely unsafe. While not recommended for human use, these methods seem to be safe for cats. Mine is not only not insomniac but appears perfectly at peace, especially in contrast to yours truly. My truly. Me.

The first method I tried consisted in listening to a meditation for sleep on the phone. This trick was actually nice and is comparatively safe. At least so I thought, until I talked to a friend, who happens to be a firefighter and who is obsessed with the idea that unattended phones in beds may spontaneously combust. Even when they are not Samsung. Do Samsung phones still explode? Just asking. I have a low-end phone and what it does is to freeze, so I assume no fireworks are happening here, literally or figuratively.

The second method I tried was purchasing a set of earplugs. I was very pleased with them because they looked cute and came in a pretty pod. They didn’t come with a manual, which displeased me, since I’m obsessed with manuals. So I googled. I was terrified, applying earplugs is basically nuclear science. However, apply them I did. Semi-successfully. They even worked, sort of, except my ears are still hurting from that foam shit. I must’ve misread the manual or something.

The third method I tried was to block the noise with even more noise. I was hoping one noise would cancel the other noise. Well, it doesn’t work like this. I selected an ambient ocean sound and played it in endless loop on the laptop. The roaring ocean was terrifying rather than relaxing. Though it did balance the noise nicely: there were drum beats coming from below and ocean screams coming from the left, where my laptop was sitting on the table. I didn’t dare to put it in the bed in case my firefighter friend would disapprove.

That much to my anti-manual so far. Excuse typos and general shit, I haven’t slept well. Like forever. Also, I’m writing this with my headphones on, listening to the roaring ocean. It sounds apocalyptic. I think it goes well with my life.

A Square Week

My week wasn’t particularly square. Neither was it round though. I’m just running out of ideas what to call my posts in the challenge which consists of snapping and Instagraming a photo a day and throwing a week’s worth bunch together over on the blog. What would you call it? The lazy challenge? The recycle challenge? The zerofucksgiven challenge?

Here you go. I challenge you to scroll down. Not in one mighty scroll, preferably. You know, I did put some minimum effort into making captions for the pictures. I challenge you to read them. Or not to read them. Whichever you find more challenging. Or less challenging. Wait. I know what to call my challenge. The challenged challenge.

2 April: My windows are so filthy that the cat has difficulty looking out through them. That’s the only thing that may coerce me to clean the windows. Maybe. 

3 April: Feel free to appreciate my cute yoga pants and fancy yoga mat. I also recommend to your attention the commendable fact that I painted my toe nails and shaved my big toes. 

4 April: This is just to deliver a bullet-proof proof that I also painted my finger nails. And that on this day, as on any day, I had coffee. 

5 April: There were blue holes in the late evening sky. Ozone holes visible? The photo turned out more like darkness visible. 

6 April: I have tiles. They are ugly. There are shadows on them. That’s about it.

7 April: I put my as lovely as beloved winter coat (rightmost) to sleep for the upcoming summer. I was surprised to discover I have multiple options of spring coats: blue and yellow (middle and left). How did that happen? What on earth possessed me to buy two versions of one thing and so expose myself to decision paralysis? 

8 April: I read. That’s apparently what people do. Hence, I’m people. Though I have my doubts.

 

Bringing Light to Instagram

Do you think this post is going to be about my enlightening Instagram? Gotcha! Of course not. You should know better now than to trust me. I bring gloom and doom wherever I go, including Instagram.

Since the last week’s power outage, I’ve been entirely enthralled with manifestations of light. Light is good, especially artificial light, because artificial light means the power is on. And so is WiFi.

So I bring to your attention another instalment of my photo-a-day project (which I’m still denying I’m doing), as originally posted on Instagram.

19 March: Go, Cheddar, go! Cheddar didn’t but I went to get groceries.

20 March: The grocery mission was an unqualified success. For a small fee, I will organise your fridge all neat and nice like this. I’m OCD, that’s what I do.

21 March: This is my flat entry door. I think someone forgot to throw in a threshold. Light Exhibit #1.

22 March: That’s a perfectly useless random window in a wall between two rooms. But, good for Light Exhibit #2.

23 March: I wasn’t drunk when taking this. My phone apparently was. But it’s Light Exhibit #3.

24 March: I changed the bulb. Not ideal, but I never said I was a good janitor. Light Exhibit #4.

25 March: I specialise in low-res grainy shitty photos. Street Light Exhibit #5.

 

Staring into That Good Night

So it’s night and I go to smoke
Outside
And see—so many fucking stars
Just hanging up there
Flickering like crazy

(Maybe
Some of them are planes)
Anyway
Here’s the epiphany:
I feel existential fear
Because I’m so tiny

So tiny
I can’t see but a microscopic bit
The whole of it I can’t see
Because of these spiky things
Of roofs
Thrusting upwards into the sky
(Not going gentle into that good
night)

They’re cutting out a miniature piece
For me to see
While the whole of the universe
Is laughing at me
Bastard

Weekly Photo Challenge: Out of This World

In response to WP Weekly Photo Challenge: Out of This World.

I’m not a frequent traveller, less so a frequent flyer, so the night-lit landscape as seen from the plane on my recent enforced business trip was quite otherworldly to me. I mean, it is lovely, but I do hope to avoid travelling in the future, as it’s on the list of top things I hate the most.

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: A Face in the Crowd

In response to WP Weekly Photo Challenge: A Face in the Crowd.

The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.
—Ezra Pound

An Anti-nursery Rhyme

Sleep is when

You’re awake, but unaware

Or comatose, and oblivious

Or dead, not a care

Sleep takes 

The pains

Out of all things

Who’d want to be up

Not me

Let us sleep

No flowers

By request

Caturday Sounds

In the night, I listen to the sounds that the cat makes. It’s sort of soothing. Here are the sounds:

• Floor creaking: the creaky old floor creaks even when my light-weight cat walks on it. There’s an element of suspense because you never know where exactly she’s heading and what she’s up to.
• Radiator clinking: the old wheezy radiator makes sounds of its own, but when the cat jumps on it, there is lots of clinking as her nails hug the metal grille when she’s tiptoeing on top of it.
• Soft thudding: it’s more of a feeling than a sound, but I can tell when the cat jumps on the bed or the sofa to settle there. It’s a vibrating sensation and it’s nice to see the cat is making herself comfy.
• Crunching and munching: you wouldn’t believe the noise that resonates in the night when the cat suddenly starts chewing on her dry food. You can hear each pellet being crushed by her teeth.
• Tongue clicking: so you think that a cat washing herself makes no noise? Wrong. She produces a variety of tongue clicking and licking and slurping noises as she processes her fur. It’s a good sound to fall asleep to.

The cat on her new cat bed (sofa)

What a Quiet Night Tonight

When it’s so quiet
You think
You should hear yourself breathing
But you hear nothing

Have you gone deaf
Have you died
What’s happening
You’re terrified

---

Has it ever happened to you that you thought you went deaf because you couldn’t hear any sound around? The house is quite quiet tonight and it doesn’t seem right. I had to double-check that I’m not deaf, that I’m still breathing and that I’m probably still alive. I’m still terrified though for no good reason.

The Noise in the House in the Night

I’m waiting for my bedtime and not really up to anything. So I penned a poem (so-called). I was just listening.

---

In the middle of the night (but not midnight)
The laptop is humming
The old heater is crackling (but not heating
properly)
The cat isn’t purring (she doesn’t care
she should
for my poem)

A scream in the street
A door banging somewhere
More screaming coming
From seemingly everywhere
(A drunk domestic?)

The toilet flushing
Upstairs
The ancient floor creaking
Above my head

The house is unwell