At 6 a.m., I gave up. I went to the kitchen and made a breakfast that didn’t feel merited, and put on my bathrobe to take a morning’s shower, seemingly mistimed. It was miserable. Before I stepped beneath the hot streams to stir awake, I decided to try sleep one more time.

So I went back to my bed, still wrapped in my bathrobe, fresh from yesterday’s laundry, curled up like a terry cloth snail on my mangled, clean sheets—also fresh from yesterday’s laundry. It was 7 a.m.

I fell asleep in my bathrobe. It was bizarre, it was pleasant, it was the only two hours of sleep I could give to my bed. My biological clock hates me. I’m an insomniac. And I’ve forgotten how to really sleep.