No, Cindy

I have perpetual insomnia.  I should really do something productive during these hours like knit sweaters or read books like a good English major.  That's something productive that normal people do, right? I used to run at night when living in suburbia, but have only done that a few times now that I live in the big city.  I am too tired to focus on books and have to re-read sections.  I don't want reading to be associated with being sleepy, so mostly I fill this time with working from home or watching shitty television shows online.  Then, if I am able to sleep mid-episode,  I didn't really miss anything. So instead of being well read or really fit, I can reminisce about your favorite nineties syndicated shows and make dated cultural references in my jokes.

Weekends are special for my insomnia because my roommate is a super online gamer. He has a head-set and enemies that are apparently bitches.  I mean, why would he be shouting it if it wasn't true?  He stays up all night killing imaginary things on teams.  Very loudly.  I used to fight the noise and tell him to keep it down, but it always makes me feel like an old lady.  I really don't have anywhere to be in the morning. 

Tonight I could stop overheating.  I drank four glasses of cold water and kept spraying myself  with water and allowing the fan to pass over me, but I couldn't lower my core temperature.  I ventured to the kitchen in my skivvies and found blessed Fresca in the fridge.  I took one and hid it behind the forearm of my left arm just like I did in junior high to sneak by the janitor in order to get back to my room unseen.  Tim, my roommate, would probably let me have one.  And probably doesn't care that I took one, but I didn't want to risk it because I was drinking one either way.  

I'm all about avoiding confrontation and so is he, so we dance around roommate issues.  From time to time, I passive-aggressively accost him by text or FB message.  All the food minus one cupboard in the apartment is mine.  Tim runs across the street every single day to get food at the tiny convenience store owned by a sweet Korean couple.  So by deductive logic, if he's eating pretty much anything and hasn't made it across the street, it's from my stash.  I'd put my name on things but there are only two of us that live here, so having my initials is almost moot. Seeing my food labeled is still traumatizing to me anyhow.  My mother used to label the food in the fridge that she didn't want me to eat with a CINDY in big black permanent marker with a circle around it and line through it.  The universal sign for "NO CINDY."  Thanks, mom!  That's not humiliating at all.  It would be on things like cheese blocks, ice cream, the good cereals, and lunch meats.  I think it was her way of trying to help me lose weight, but it was never explained to me. With five other people living in that house, I don't think she consider the shame this could possibly induce in a fourth grader.  It also added to the confusion I experienced when visiting other people's houses and, when prodded to take what I wanted from the fridge, I'd always ask what food was off limits.  The answer was always a confused, "none."  I only realized I was being weird later. 


I still ate the cheese because cheese is fucking delicious.  By the way, Cops still has a great theme song.