Sleeper Hit
I was too tired to write this column.

I went to Cape Cod last weekend to help a friend paint his 14-room rambler in Wellfleet. It's one of those houses built in the 19th century that seem to defy the rigor of 21st-century architecture. It has tiny nooks and strangely sloping ceilings, and you're never quite sure which staircase leads where.

The prior inhabitants left things behind—stacks of mismatched plates, empty gilt picture frames, a tiny roll-top desk the width and color of a dachshund. The tread on each step from the kitchen to the second floor is about half an inch.

I imagined I'd be covered in paint and sweat for three days, taking a sandwich break with the other workers, and then going back at it until the house was done.

Instead, I slept.

The room I stayed in had a slanted ceiling and was cozy because, anticipating Cape Cod's chill, I'd brought 15 blankets for protection. I also had sweatshirts and flannel pajama bottoms and puffy socks, and thus swaddled, was unable to get out of bed.

The first day I slept until 1 p.m. The next day I slept until noon, and then returned to the bed in the afternoon for a few more hours. I'd be roused from my slumber by clanking and hammering, and find a whole room had been painted, decorated and even photographed for potential renters while I slept.

I did finally swipe a brush around the border of a room, and forced myself to drive sleepily around the Cape so I could say I had. But mostly I stayed in bed.

That trip was a metaphorical wake-up call. I realized there's something wrong with me: I don't have a sleep shutoff. Most people go to bed and, some hours later, wake up without incident. Not me. One day last week I stayed home from work and slept for 20 hours. At no point did I feel I'd had enough.

Now, I know what you're thinking. There must be something wrong. I should see a doctor. Maybe I have mono or malaria or some kind of sleep disorder. And that's certainly possible.

But even as a kid, I loved to sleep. On school days I'd hit the snooze button on my white cube Sony Dream Machine countless times until my father came in and yelled, “Up and at 'em!”—which for years I heard as “Up and Adam!” and assumed was an Old Testament reference.

I've never been good at waking up, though the issue got complicated about 16 years ago, when I started taking psychiatric medication. Since then I've spent more time in bed than out of it, partly as a result of depression, and partly because in order to quiet the demons, I've been heavily sedated.

It makes the question of fatigue complicated, and doctors tend to get tired themselves when you talk to them about it. The family doctor always assumes it's depression.

But is it?

I don't feel especially depressed. I just feel like it's mostly pointless to be awake, which I know sounds like depression but is much friendlier than the depression I'm accustomed to.

The pillow seems so smooth, so malleable and loving. The sheets are like ripples in a warm pond. The blankets enfold me like waves of honey. I stretch my foot down to the bottom part of the sheets, and dip my toes into the coolness. I pull my hair back and hug myself.

As I fall asleep, hearing the tree outside my window creaking in the wind, I look at the clock and think, “I have eight hours of doing only this before I have to wake up again.”

I don't think life is hopeless or the noises in my head are too loud or that I want to kill myself.

I like life. I think the world is beautiful. I'm happy.

I just prefer bed to anyplace else.

Is it possible that I'm not ill? That my history of sleep-love isn't pathological?

It might be a quirk of character, something that in the Paris of Toulouse-Lautrec would've made me a sexy, heavy-lidded courtesan written about by writers with nicotine-stained teeth. I'd sleep, and they'd gaze at me—at my puffy lips and fluttering eyelids—and wonder what I was dreaming about. There would be poems written about me—La Femme Sommeil—and I'd become famous, like Sleeping Beauty but with bloomers and striped cotton tights.

These days sleepiness is a liability, and I can't afford it. No one can. Even my dreams—which are incredibly vivid—are spent productively, worrying over a deadline, or categorizing tasks that need to be done. There is no true rest.

After I write about this, I'm sure there will be blood tests and medication changes and giant bottles of Melatonin. There will be space-age pillows from Sharper Image, and sprigs of mint on my night table. There will be capacious cups of coffee each morning, perhaps some NoDoz during the day. There will be letters and emails from people with remedies and theories and eventually, I guess, a temporary reprieve from the allure of the bed.

It's so exhausting to think about. Maybe I should start with a nap.

[Illustration by Jared Drew Woody for PW]