My Story
I used to fall asleep by 9PM every night. But now I sit here at 11:33PM in the passenger seat of my car with a street light glaring at me like a Southern Baptist who caught a glimpse of me wearing my “WWJD (for a Klondike Bar)” t-shirt. Fuck you, lady.
And fuck the street light, too.
Four nights ago, I cried for two and a half hours and I didn’t even have the common decency to cry myself to sleep. I just got to sit there, my bloated, near-spoiled strawberry of face reflecting back at me in the rear view mirror. That’s what made me move to the passenger seat.
Don’t even ask me why I got out of bed to come sit in the car. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because the car’s four walls are closer than the four walls of my bedroom. Smaller, more compact. Crushing.
Shit never breaks even. Especially me.
Do they make Soul Glue?
So for the past three nights, I’ve sat in this here passenger seat. This here passenger seat. I sound like a guest on Hee Haw, except I look like ass in gingham and hay makes me itch like I have chiggers. I remember the first time I got chiggers. High school – out in the softball practice field one unfortunately memorable spring day back in tenth grade. I sucked at softball so I became the team manager. Didn’t help me any with the chiggers, but I got PE credit for it. That, and I got to be comfortable with gay women who didn’t know they were gay yet.
Tonight’s the first night I haven’t cried, though. To be honest, I’m kinda tapped-out. The well’s run dry but the sleep still hasn’t come. I was kinda hoping it’d be like it is with dicks: if you’re having sex, you can’t pee in a girl ‘cause that valve shuts off so you can…y’know. Yeah…apparently I have Girl Valves and when one shuts off, the other one’s still lost in the clearance racks in Nordstrom’s shoe department. Girl Valves suck.
I haven’t looked in the rear view mirror yet tonight either. That’s a first. I don’t know if I could call it progress but the last thing I really want to see right now is my face so that and that alone could be the reason I haven’t looked. I bought this truck because I liked the color. It’s a complete piece of shit and was the day I drove it off the lot but considering I’ve been sitting in the passenger seat for three nights now, I can’t say it’s not comfortable. I guess if you’re going to listen to your heart rot, you may as well not get ass cramps or a sore tailbone in the process.
Every time I fly for more than a few hours, my ass falls asleep. My tailbone HURTS. I can’t get comfortable and it’s as if Satan personally placed a bruise on the tip of my tailbone and does this mocking little dance, pointing at me for the whole goddamn flight. Of course, I’m the only one who can see Satan and I’m sure of this because I asked Combover Guy in the Window Seat one day on a flight from Vegas to New York and he assured me that he could not see Satan dancing in the aisle. Combover did, however, get a kick out of watching me wedge the in-flight magazine and SkyMall underneath my ass in an effort to get a little hemorrhoid-type cushion lift.
I don’t really know what I’d do if I could sleep. Yeah, I’d sleep, but part of me thinks it’s safer to stay awake. At least when you’re awake, you can control some of the fucked up shit that runs through your head. Sleep? Kiss that control goodbye and be prepared to wake up with whatever your twisted mind’s conjured-up when you weren’t paying attention.
Y’know when you go for an early morning bike ride and get clotheslined by a spider web? You never see it coming unless the sunrise lights it up in just the right way. This is, naturally, right before you run the fuck into it and go through the whole panic/gross-out/wave arms/over-correct your steering/nearly wreck/realize you’re not part of a horror movie so you keep pedaling phase. I didn’t really think I could feel this way.
I’ve been clotheslined but it’s my heart that’s come to a sudden stop and…it’s not like I can’t keep pedaling.
I’ve forgotten how.
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