Are You Still Watching?

Not only is my sleep schedule completely fucked, but apparently the way I sleep and where I sleep is equally fucked.

Hazards of living alone, I guess.

Most nights, I get home from work, heat up something vaguely edible, sit down on the couch, and throw on an episode or two of Law & Order. Then I kick the footrest out, roll onto my side like some exhausted possum, and promptly fall asleep on one end of the couch.

Now, I’m a side sleeper, so this setup makes absolutely no fucking sense ergonomically.

Eventually discomfort wins the battle and I wake up twisted sideways beneath the glow of the television, staring directly into Netflix’s passive-aggressive little prompt: “Are you still watching?”

Yeah, of course I’m still fucking watching, you judgmental little bastard.

So naturally, I click “yes” out of pure spite… and then immediately shut the TV off completely as though I’ve somehow proven a philosophical point to an invisible balding Netflix executive monitoring my decline from a control room somewhere in California.

Then I pretend to become a responsible adult.

I march upstairs to my bedroom where there’s an actual bed.
With pillows.
And blankets.
And all the normal sleep accessories civilized humans supposedly use.

I crawl into bed, wad one pillow into some bizarre neck-support pretzel configuration, get comfortable, and eventually drift off to sleep…

…with the fucking light still on.

Now, before anybody starts psychoanalyzing me, it’s not because I’m afraid of the dark. I love the dark.

Honestly, these days I’m not particularly afraid of anything.

I would love to tell you there’s some deeper meaning here. Some profound psychological explanation involving preparedness or trauma or existential awareness.

But the truth? I’m just fucking lazy.

I know I’m going to wake up again soon anyway, so turning the light off feels inefficient.

That’s it.

So I end up half-sleeping beneath a fully illuminated bedroom light while my brain and body wage psychological warfare against one another.

The light says: “WAKE UP.”

My exhausted soul says: “Fuck you.”

Eventually I get tired of being tired, stretch one arm toward the pull chain, and give it a tug.

Darkness.

Silence.

Instant relief.

And then finally—real sleep.

For approximately twelve minutes.

Because shortly afterward my alarm detonates beside the bed while the faint glow of sunrise starts bleeding over the eastern mountains.

I fight it, of course.

But somewhere deep in my DNA, my Lutheran guilt and Swedish sense of responsibility rise from the dead and drag me bodily out of bed and down the stairs to prepare for another workday.

And honestly? I fully recognize how catastrophically unhealthy this entire process sounds. But somehow I wake up surprisingly refreshed most mornings.

And somewhere in the middle of all this up-down-up-down nighttime nonsense, I usually manage to write a few pages of something worthwhile.

Sometimes after I first crawl into bed. Sometimes after the couch phase. Sometimes during the existential negotiations with the bedroom light.

Apparently this is just how my brain works now. Like some weird nocturnal writing goblin trapped in the body of a middle-aged motorcycle enthusiast with unresolved trauma and a Netflix subscription.