Writing on the Stall

Insomnia
By Cleo

      It’s 3:30 am on a Saturday night. Or Sunday morning. And I’m lying in bed not sleeping. There’s nothing on tv: some cows running down the interstate and an infomercial for some magical cleaning solution guaranteed to do the work of eighteen different products. And I remember that someone once told me that sometimes I’m crazy crazy and not just quirky crazy. I think of that and I lie here and worry about the germs that girl must’ve left behind when she plopped uninvited onto my unmade bed as I sat there and stammered, trying not to seem crazy. And now I’m laying here naked and worrying about germs. I wonder if I’m becoming Howard Hughes and wonder when I last cut my toenails. I can’t remember.
      I ate noodles from a green plastic bowl earlier this evening; the bowl’s sitting on the windowsill now, and I can smell the sauce congealing and turning into a gluey beige mess. I wonder if I’m going to throw up and imagine myself clinging to the toilet and watching everything I’ve ever eaten come burbling out of my mouth. Like a drunken Judy Garland or some other glamorous Hollywood creature with pouty lips and an addictive personality.
      I don’t have pouty lips or really any lips at all. No one’s really complained about kissing little Miss No-lips though. Of course, it has been a while, and I ponder calling up the ex-boyfriend. What boy wouldn’t love someone to call in the middle of the night and suggest a commitment-free snog? Snog. I like that word; very Bridget Jones. No. It’s too cold to get out of bed to grab the phone. And I’d have to go to the trouble to get dressed and find some shoes. No one wants to make out with a girl who has Howard Hughes’s uncut toenails. Besides which, he’d probably refuse on principle or because of a passing interest in whatshername; I should refuse on principle too or because of a passing interest, but I don’t…at 3:37 I tend to be low on principles. Either way I’d hate myself in the morning.
      But it is morning. And right now I do hate myself. If I weren’t in this fucking podunky Christian college, I’d have beer in the fridge along with the diet Coke, lemon juice, water, baking soda, homemade jelly, and low-fat margarine. Or maybe whisky. But I’m not sure whiskey should be kept in the refrigerator. So I’d have my alcohol and my abject misery, and I’d drink my self into a stupor. Like Jack Kerouac or Katherine Hepburn in one of her more daring roles.
      And cigarettes. Smoking in bed seems like a good plan. But I don’t smoke. It makes my liplessness woefully apparent. Anyway a cigarette would undoubtedly set off the smoke

alarm and wend the well-meaning and terribly earnest RD’s running to see if I was burnt to a crisp, an unfortunate victim of spontaneous human combustion. Like the drummer in that one movie. Damn. What’s the name of that movie? An ivory cigarette holder and a crystal ashtray. That’s glamour.
      My room’s a mess. I don’t deserve glamour. I never finished unpacking after Christmas and here it is almost March. Is it squalid? I think it’s squalid. Shit. I’m living in squalor. I’m two inches from being white trash. Or crazy. I think the insane sometimes live in squalor. I imagine myself lying in bed with my towering piles of books, magazines, newspapers, term papers, and clean laundry surrounding me like concerned friends leaning over a sickbed. Gad. It’s hot in here. I toss back the blankets and mutter disgustedly. People with small breasts ought not lie on their backs. They flatten out in a most grotesque manner. What is it with men and breasts anyway? Why are they so attractive? They’re modified sweat glands encased in fat. Ooh baby. Bleh. And nipples. Whose idea was that? It’s probably Freudian. Like Coke machines. Speaking of…it’s cold. Where are the damn blankets? So cold. So cold.
      Spinal Tap. This is Spinal Tap. That’s the name of the movie. The one with the combusting drummer. What was that noise? I imagine rats. Big hairy rats coming and nibbling at the blankets and crawling up into my bed using their (uncut) toenails. And then nibbling at my nose. My eyelids. Or a serial killer. It could be a serial killer.
      I should change the channel. Think of something else. Anything else. What’s this movie? Ooh. I like this one. Is it stupid and sentimental, and I’m merely premenstrual? Or is it actually a good movie? I’d like someone else’s opinion, but everyone else is either asleep or otherwise engaged. I could call someone up: hey, have you ever seen…. I can just imagine the response that’d get.
      I lie in bed and watch the movie and finger my nose. I wonder if I should get my nose pierced. My parents would go through the floor. Like Rumplestiltskin.
      Why am I watching this movie? It makes me cry. I forgot that. I’m lying in bed and crying like a little girl. It’s after four o’clock. That poor little girl in the movie just wants her mommy. Someone to stroke her hair and tell her everything’s okay. But everything isn’t okay. In fact, nothing is okay. Ow. I just dropped the remote control on my face. Right under my eye. Second time I’ve done that in two weeks. Hurt like a sonofabitch. What’re the odds? I wonder if it’ll leave a mark. I think I’ll change the channel.