Welcome back to another school year! Some of us may not be very excited to be back, but we are legally required, so here we are. At least now that school has started again I can burden others with the weight of my thoughts. Over the summer, I have had numerous thoughts, at least eight of them, and I’m finally able to share them.

Have you ever been so tired that you just feel like taking a nap? I do, constantly. However, my problem is that I can never get a good night’s rest. I struggle to sleep until midnight, and then when I do finally fall asleep, I wake up several times in the night for at least 10-15 minutes at a time. More recently, I’ve been waking up at the ungodly hour of 5 a.m. because the universe hates me. If you are wondering why I hate waking up at five in the morning, then it must mean that you are some sort of eldritch monstrosity that somehow finds nothing wrong with waking up so early. For reference, I typically wake up at 6:30-7. Losing that 1.5-2 hours of sleep is so utterly sadistic of whoever is causing this. I think I know who it is, though. Rather, who they are. It is my personal belief that at night I am plagued by little gremlins. Invisible little gremlins that poke and prod me in the middle of the night. I have attempted to catch these creatures multiple times, but each time they escape with the bait. I have lost far too many chocolate bars in this battle of attrition. I have reached my limit. No more chocolates shall become casualties in this war. I will fight them myself tonight, staying up, waiting for the first sign of sound or movement. For my weapon, I choose the mighty cup of water I keep by my bedside. I may get the floor, or even myself, wet, but it is a sacrifice I am willing to make. Once I assert dominance, I will attempt to establish peaceful negotiations between myself and the gremlins. If successful, my hope is to allow them to live within my house, while not terrorizing me.

Why does my younger brother sleepwalk and talk in his sleep? I don’t care about the actual reasons he does, I just want to know why he is allowed to do so. I am so tired of reading a book downstairs and hearing his lethargic footsteps come down. Once he reaches the bottom, he turns in the general direction of the TV, mumbles some gibberish, and goes back upstairs. That isn’t the worst. I have to listen to music to drown out the Lovecraftian chants my brother draws out of the abyss. They’re almost never actual English, but when the words are, it is a truly horrifying experience. “Hulk craves the green flesh.” I’m sorry, what? Like seriously, why? He might have picked up the “craves flesh” thing from me after my wisdom teeth were removed, and I constantly murmured, “I crave teeth,” along with, “They’ve taken my flesh.” (In my defense, I was on heavy painkillers.) However, he should not be saying something so utterly terrifying. I don’t want to know what Hulk craves. Hulk can stay away. “But Drew,” I hear you say, “just close his door and yours, and you shouldn’t hear him anymore.” No. You do not understand. I have heard him loudly shout gibberish at night, through both of our doors, even though our rooms are essentially two walls apart and I was listening to music. I don’t need to be shaken awake in a cold sweat because my brother is attempting to sing “Amazing Grace” but horribly. He once walked over to my door and knocked on it, murmured something about the crickets watching us, and then went back to his bed. I don’t deserve this; no one deserves this. I just want to try to sleep in peace. Alas, I cannot.