Sleep cycle

10:00 pm: Lying in my hammock with my headphones on. I’ve read two books in the last three days and tried to start a third but it was terrible. It was a collection of stories by David Sedaris. Dan Ryckert would really hate this book, I thought to myself as I suffered through the first few stories. I hate it too. I’m going to suggest this to him so that we can talk about how much we hate it together sometime. Criticizing bad entertainment with Dan is always a good time.

Betsy left me a box of books in the pueblo when she got sent back to the States for surgery. I need to do that tomorrow, or soon, I think. Walk into the pueblo and stop by her house to pick those up. I don’t remember exactly which house she lived in, but I know the neighborhood and I shouldn’t have to ask more than one person where the white girl used to live. People tend to notice those kinds of things. Especially when the white girl is 5’10 and got ran down by a motortaxi once.

My thoughts are interrupted by a beetle divebombing my head. I backhand it and it falls to the ground, dead, next to the four others I’ve killed the same way in the last 45 minutes. I’ll have to make sure to sweep them out tomorrow or the ants will swarm them. I push off the wall with my left leg, roll to the side and hop out of the hammock as it swings to the top of its arc. A moth swarms my head as I turn off the light and crawl under my mostquito net and into my bed. Just a minute ago as I took my headphones off I could hear the TV in the living room, a handheld radio in one bedroom, and a boombox in the other, the noise nonsensically mixing together, a news anchor talking about murders over poorly edited filming along with the voices of two men singing in Spanish about love, all fighting for my attention. But everything is off now and I can hear a runny nose sniffling in one room and sheets ruffling in the next. The interior walls don’t go all the way to the ceiling and the smallest noises are vividly audible at night.

4:30 am: Dogs barking wildly. I have an urge to get up and kick one of them, but that wouldn’t do much to stop the other 10 in the neighborhood from barking, and even the one I kicked would be making noise again a few seconds after I left. These stupid dogs sleep all day, that’s why they make so much damn noise all night. Maybe a better strategy than kicking would be following them around all day, shaking them awake everytime they try to doze off. That way they’ll be so tired they sleep at night instead of organizing fight club or whatever the hell they’re doing. I can hear the ground rumbling and the gravel path crunching under the weight of cows being herded by the house. So that’s what’s got the dogs going this morning. Not that they need any special reason to bark for hours on end.

5:15 am: Awoken again, this time by roosters. I wish I had snapped more of your necks when I had the chance at the quinceñera. Despite their inability to fly, these heinously loud birds find a way to flap their wings wildly enough to propel their fat little bodies onto a bush, where they then hop up into a tree. Once they get into a tree, they have a competition to see can screech that terrible noise the loudest. Being in a tree allows the noise to travel further.

7 am: With the animal chorus at full blast, I normally only get a few minute of sleep here and there after the roosters start crowing. This happens everyday, but for some reason I’m still determined to stay in bed until 7 trying desperately to sleep. Taking deep breaths, counting each one. Imagining myself floating through the air, deep asleep. Shoving foam earplugs as far as they can go into my ear canal. Putting one ear against the pillow and covering the other with my arm. It almost works. Maybe if the roosters weren’t in trees. Or if the world’s mangiest dogs weren’t 5 meters outside my window. I’ve been telling myself lately I’m going to start getting out of bed at 5:30 to exercise. That way I’ll be getting something done instead of laying here pissed off everymorning. At least the people are easy to get along with.