I am at a sleepy time in my life. My sleeping patterns resemble those of recovering drug addicts and unemployed video-game enthusiasts. I sleep away my spare time to thrust myself into a subconscious entertainment that no one but me can witness, full of Muppets and fight scenes, made intriguing by long, survival-driven plots or political and humanitarian undertones. Sleeping until 10:30, living in a yawn-burdened semi-reality during the day, highlighted by a nap in late afternoon or early evening, and always capped off pleasantly by laying on my side on the frosty hardwood floor. Sleep is my guilty pleasure, taking away from my already minimal amounts of hard work and productivity.

Often I fall into the trap of television and internet, especially when living in a home with the perks of entertainment and nourishment, the tools that aim to stifle creativity. I find myself tired and mentally lazy, sitting in front of a television watching the unwatchable until ten minutes later I snap out of it and try for an activity that doesn’t make me feel guilty. I often try this activity, writing or reading or pool or baking or cooking, and end up laying on the couch, staring upwards, hoping for a Muppet to sweep me away into better realities. I can’t write, so I sleep.

And when I read, I find a piece of writing that makes me choke on my unpreparedness. Unprepared to read something that perfect. (“And love, as we all know,” the Kilraine fortune called after him, “makes the world go ‘round.”  As in Vonnegut’s short story, Money Talks, where a woman’s $12-million fortune tells a man what makes the world go ’round.)  Something I wish so badly that I had written which should motivate me to want to create until I come up with a something that I could deem as worthwhile, but usually motivates me to cursing my own artless endeavours and to lay back down on the couch for a nap to make me forget that I have devoted my past several years to a craft that is impossible to be pleased with. Creation of anything is the gateway to guaranteed insecurity. Sleep is the cure.