Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

so here's a secret: i've been having a really hard time sleeping these past three weeks. i go to bed at about midnight and get up around 9. but in-between those hours i have a very fitful night's sleep.

and i know why.

ever since i was a kid i've had a radio/record player/tape deck in my bedroom. i would usually put on a tape, turn the volume down low, and be asleep by the second song. it was the only way i could fall asleep. there were many times when my father would come home, drunk out of his skull (how the hell he made it home behind the wheel i don't know), screaming for me to turn off my radio. not only did he disrupt my sleep, but he pissed me off royally. i knew there was no way in hell he could hear anything coming out of the speakers in my room. hell, I could barely hear it. but there he was, standing in my room, reeking of cheap beer and cigarettes, demanding i "turn the damn thing off!" of course, i wouldn't be able to fall asleep again, so i'd toss and turn till my alarm went off and i had to get ready for school.

during my senior year in high school, i found an old black-and-white TV set in our attic. of course, i didn't ask if i could use it (i was in that stage of every young girl's life where they feel entitled to things that aren't theirs. i'm sure many of you women reading this can relate), but rather took it and set it up in my bedroom. it only got one channel - NBC, and half the time you couldn't see a thing through all the snow. but i didn't care. it was a new way for me to fall asleep. and i knew that i wouldn't face my father's obnoxious way of "parenting", because at this point he was staying over night with his girlfriend (none of us knew of her at the time, but that's for another story altogether) and wouldn't come home for days at a time. so i'd fall asleep with the TV on and stay asleep throughout the night. even when the tube blew on the TV and all i got was sound, was still able to sleep.

fast forward to college. i'd use my radio (while living in the dorm for 2 years) to fall asleep and then graduated to a TV (when i got my own place). i think i've fallen asleep with the radio or TV on every night of my life since i was about 16. well, up until we moved here.

now that we actually have a bedroom (that happens to be on the opposite side of the house from the living room), going to bed at night has been rough. we only have one TV and NO radio/tape deck/CD player (besides phillip's DJ decks) that i could set up in the bedroom. so what i've been doing is this: fall asleep in the living room while phillip watches TV. when he goes to bed, he'll wake me up, and i'll (hopefully) sleepwalk into the bedroom and collapse before fully waking up. it hasn't worked out as planned. i end up falling asleep on the couch, but by the time i get to the bedroom, i'm wide awake. it's the silence and the darkness in there that's keeping me awake. and it feels like it's wrecking my sleep patterns.

so today, phillip bought a little thirteen inch TV from someone on craig's list. for $15. so i can finally fall asleep. he rode his bike to the person's house, thinking the TV could fit in his backpack (to his defense, they advertised it as a 9" portable. it wasn't till he got there that he saw it was a full 13 inches). it didn't fit, so he walked all the way home (it was at least 17 blocks from here) with the TV in his hands. in the freezing cold. he had to eave his bike behind in order to carry the TV. i hope it's still there tomorrow, or i'd feel so bad. i gave him lots of hugs and kisses and thanked him a million and one times. i have a very sweet hubby. a hubby who did all that just so i can fall asleep.