It’s Saturday, and I didn’t sleep well last night.

It was one of those hot and cold nights.

Although the night air outside the van cooled off, inside the van the air was warm. I guess it was too warm inside the van, or maybe my feather comforter is getting to be too much. In any case, I had one of those nights where I’d wake up too warm and push the covers off my upper body. (I always sleep with at least a sheet over my legs.) I’d doze off, then wake up cold and have to pull the comforter over me again.

During one bout of too hot, I opened the curtains over my back windows to let the cool mountain air rush in. That was delightful…until it wasn’t.

Maybe the real culprit was playing solitaire on my phone right before trying to sleep. I’m not a gambler, and in fact I dislike playing any card game with a group of friends, but something about solitaire on an electronic device grabs me and won’t let go. Winning or losing, I just want to play. This is it, I tell myself, the last game, but then I play ten or fifteen or twenty more, until I can barely keep my eyes open. Maybe the blue light interfered with my ability to sleep, or maybe the game itself overexcited my brain.

Daylight was barely a hint outside my windows when the birds started their chirping. 4:45am and the birds were already communicating at full force. I know the early bird catches the worm, but are worms out and about and ripe for catching before daybreak? Didn’t the birds get the memo that folks like to sleep in on Saturdays?

(Back in the day when I did drugs that kept me up at night, when I heard the birds singing–even if the sun wasn’t out–I knew there’d be no sleep for me.)

Because the curtains were open, when the sun did come out, the light was right in my face. Sigh. So I gave up on getting anymore sleep.

I’m not exhausted. I did get some sleep. But since I didn’t get the amount or quality of sleep I wanted, I feel tired. I have to work in the parking lot today, and it will probably be busy. I told myself I’d be nice to people today and not give sassy answers when people ask me why so many trees are dead. I was hoping to feel chipper and excited, but I suspect I’ll spend the day feeling slow and dimwitted. Maybe pancakes will perk me up, or maybe I’ll need a cup of black tea.

I wrote this piece on June 4, 2016. I ended up not drinking tea, and the parking lot wasn’t too busy. I did ok. I think I was mostly nice and while my brain might have been slow, I didn’t make any major mistakes.

Photos courtesy of https://www.pexels.com/photo/playing-game-card-58562/ and https://www.pexels.com/photo/nature-animal-cute-sitting-36430/.