Insomnia

Pets are just animals without jobs, I thought to myself, watching a hedgehog fumble down a flight of cement stairs at the local park.

It looked like so much work for his little round body. And where was he going? To get food? And after securing his meal for today, he always has to get food again tomorrow, right? Because I don't suppose he has a little hedgedhog-sized fridge and pantry in his little hedgehog den. And where is his home- up the stairs or down the stairs or does he have one at all?

Meanwhile all those pets at home are being enticed to follow simple commands in exchange for treats and being waited on with timely meals and warm cushy accomodations. Cats sure have a nerve being so cranky- they're basically just cute, unemployed, fat, moochers. At least dogs encourage their owners to be active.

I ran all of these thoughts by Gavin.

Have you ever been tested to see if you fall somewhere on the spectrum? He asked me.

I thought that was kind of a low blow. I mean, who even asks someone that?

Also: No, Gavin- Just because I have weird thoughts doesn’t mean I’m autistic - I'm sorry my thoughtful and engaging stories are so boring for you, but it’s not as if I rebuild a train track across my living room every day in a different configuration. I just had some funny observations about a hedgehog and I thought I’d share them with my freakin' boyfriend.

Gavin and I have never been a match. I've already known that for a long time. I wish this was what nailed the coffin shut, but it's hard to let go of your shitty relationship to make room for what will likely be just another shitty relationship.

...I may have made a lot of mistakes in past relationships, but I certainly never accused any of my exes of having a developmental disability just to be snarky.

And then, as you may have guessed, I spent like 3 days wondering why he would ask me that. Like, are there other "spectrum disorder things" I say or do? But no one has ever made a claim like this about me before, and besides, Gavin is an asshole.

A friend did think I was asexual once- because when you’re not a slut everyone thinks you’re asexual. And I'm sure a few have thought I was a lesbian. But no one has ever thought I was on the spectrum. Not that it's okay to make sexuality assumptions, but disability speculations feel even worse.

...I’ve never seen a hedgehog going down stairs other than that one time. Actually, I'm pretty sure I’ve never seen a hedgehog in person either.

Maybe he was lost. Apparently a lot of people have hedgehogs as pets these days- I’m not sure if that’s legal.

I know there’s a list of animals somewhere that you can’t keep in your home, but unless you have something extravagant like a monkey or a coyote who is really knocking down your door to inquire about whether your pet is legal? I mean, if it can live inside how would anyone find out unless you were incredibly irresponsible. Then again, if I had a baby sea otter living in my bathtub, it would be hard not to share a major photodump of selfies on my IG.

There must be a ton of illegal pet owners out there. But my desire of social media street cred aside, if I had an illegitimate pet, no one would know unless they needed medical attention. Because I suppose you can’t really google how to manage bonobo monkey palpitations; you have to take them to someone.

Then again, I had palpitations for years before my mother thought to take me to someone-- which is kind of suspect. Or sus, as the kids say.

I mean, you really don’t think it’s a problem that your 11 year old has palpitations, Mom?!

When I was 14 we had an EKG done to confirm my heart wasn’t going to explode or anything- and lo and behold it wasn’t... no danger of a heart attack and the doctor said you’re fine and no one ever asked me if stopped having palpitations which I didn’t, really. But at least I got to stop worrying I was going to die from that. It helped me moved on to worrying about all the other things that could kill me.

The kids I babysit for are afraid of so many normal things. Cliche things. Monsters. Killer puppets. I made them "monster spray" and it actually worked.

These brilliant, gifted kids were like, Oh wow this unlabeled dollar tree spray bottle with a handrawn angry emoji sticker will definitely do the trick! Thanks Gemma.

Look... I don’t just love them because its so easy to be a hero, but I guess you could say that part of my job is pretty great. I haven’t been able to do much for their fear of puppets though.

When I was a kid, I was really into movies about scary dolls. Did I somehow cause this by making their dolls talk? Probably not- I never said anything frightening.

The really scary thing with dolls these days is how they’re designed to look like sex workers. DeeDee’s LOL Surprise dolls have lower back tattoos and fishnet stockings that appear when you immerse them in hot water. SURPRISE, kid; Your doll is a working girl!

There was a controversy about the company a while back, but then the press died down. At least they don’t have as much makeup as the Bratz dolls. I don’t think girls are as into Barbies anymore with so many heavily made-up options.

I liked Barbies. And I thought I liked that they make them in so many sizes... You can buy a barbie with a real body now! Well, not a real body, but you know what I mean. More of a realistic body; It's supposed to help build sensitivity and show us that we live in a world where every body is different and every body is beautiful...

DeeDee and Nathaniel pointed them out once when I took them to Target to browse the toys.

There’s the fat barbies, Nathaniel said puffing out his cheeks.

Well, good job, Mattel.

To be fair, the concept sounds really good, but is anyone actually buying the chunky barbie with the big butt next to all the emaciated ones they’re used to? Maybe some moms are buying them. Solidarity, sisters! I mean, I’d buy those dolls if I was in a moms' group.

But the real kicker is, if you look at the merchandise you’ll quickly realize they’re so realistic that just like real humans whose bodies are bigger than a size 10, they have nothing decent to wear. There's no Barbie fashion line for the curvy Barbie dolls.

Even with a body that’s 11 inches tall no one cares about making a fat girl feel good about the way she looks. Now that is realistic.

I'm working on the way I feel about how I look. I’ve been trying to buy myself more clothes, but nothing looks as good once I get it home. At the mall, with the ambient lighting, I can see it, but in the mirror at home I feel like I’m just playing dress up; especially when I'm wearing make-up.

Make-up makes me feel like a clown. It always has. Even the slightest bit of blush feels ridiculous. The lighting in my room doesn’t help. It's has the worse tinge of green.

My curtains are supposed to be blackout curtains; that’s what the packaging said. Then again, I bought them from Target.

The dispensary across the street has their big, green, neon-light on 24 freakin' hours a day. You’d think I'd have gotten a better deal on rent, but it's a pandemic, after all.

That green light makes you look crazy. My best friend Samantha likes to stand right in the window and pretend she’s the hulk. It never gets old- I think that's how you can tell if you're really friends. Someone else making that joke would annoy the heck out of me, but Sam can do it three times a week and it just gets more endearing every time.

Once I made the mistake of asking Gavin how I looked before we left for a date and he told me I looked like Shrek. I know. Still didn’t dump him.

We were supposed to go out tonight. He sort of said maybe, but he was definitely going to call. Am I silly for waiting up... Especially now? He's not going to call this late, but I'm not tired yet.

I guess coffee at 3pm was a mistake. It was a Venti. A lot of people now order a tall cup with no ice and apparently it's the same amount of liquid, but isn’t that sort of an asshole move? I don’t want anyone to spit in my drink.

How common is that anyways, I wonder. Probably not as much now with Covid…but did people actualy used to do that or is it just an urban myth parents told their kids in the 1990s to teach us to be nice to customer service people? I hope it's a myth. I mean, seriously, how gross.

I’m pretty sure you could go to jail for that now. I think some woman got locked up for coughing on someone on purpose. They had her on video.

What an embarrassing way to go down.

It would have been nice to have a smartphone in high school but it definitely gives you a lot of ways to damage your reputation.

I still feel bad for the one time I insulted someone in high school. Right to his face. Like out of all the idiot bullies I could have stood up to, I made a short-joke about this guy who had never even been rude to me. I remember feeling like I was outside my body as I said it- I was just trying to deflect the negative attention I was getting, which was undue, except for at that moment that I decided to be a jerk for the first and only time.

I've probably been a jerk other times, but I never knew I was doing it, so I'm not going to lose sleep over it. I suppose I'm already losing sleep over enough things.