Could somebody please turn out the light? please?

      I looked a hot mess this morning.  Let me tell you why.  See, in our gorgeous house here in Los Angeles, I am sleeping in the living room--a room that I affectionately refer to as my bedroom.  It does have a bed, and is a room (duh), so I think the term is very direct and quite perfect.  Anyway, there is a huge, almost wall-size window that is directly opposite my bed.  Also, my room is adjacent to the kitchen, which has glass doors leading to the outside patio as well as another wall-size window.  These windows are beautiful and romantic most of the time.  They fail to lose their poetry, however, at about 6:30 am, when the windows are spilling in the sun's blinding light and I am hating it--yes, at that time in the morning, I am a hater.  Of light.  Sorry.  And don't even try with the spiritual metaphors, it's not that deep; I just want to sleep and the sunlight makes it difficult.  One night, I thought that I could dim at least a little bit of the daily morning oasis in my bedroom by rolling out the sliding door that separates my room from the kitchen.  Well, I rolled it out, and guess what?  The whole thing was glass.  Perfect, seemingly invisible glass that doesn't block out a darn thing.  Again, so pretty...but who cares about pretty when sleep is at stake?  

      Well, I am a night person.  I always have been. I love to sleep in; in fact, I was even born asleep.  Yep, I wouldn't even wake up to greet the world.  I figured it was a perfect time to catch a few extra Z's, I guess (Z's? Is that right? Do people really say that? It looks weird, but you know what I mean).  And now with a show most nights, I get a lot of energy in the evening, after the show. So, most nights I get to sleep around 2 am, which means that I will not be getting up with sun.  A lot of mornings, I can just deal with the blazing light and sleep through it.  But, this morning, I was fed up.  It was so blinding, that you could see the light through closed eyelids!  I mean, it is TOO BRIGHT if a God-given eyelid can't even block it out!   For a while, I tried to arrange my sheet over my head, but then within seconds I felt like I used up all the oxygen under the sheet and would have to peek my head out to get some more for another round of breathing.   Then I tried to put the sheet just over my eyes, allowing my nose to stick out to gain much needed fresh air--but that meant no sheet on my body, so no dice.  Finally, I begrudgingly allowed one eye to open slightly, just enough to see where my drawers were, and began rummaging through them for something, anything, that could be of help in this critical matter.   

   And I found it.  It wasn't great, but I could make it work (a la Tim Gun-style from Project Runway).  I grabbed a tight, black t-shirt and promptly put the neck hole over the top of my head, leaving the shirt upside down in the process.  I pulled it down so that it was covering my eyes, but my nose was free.  The torso of the shirt was covering my forehead and my hair, looking like some kind of strange turban for a blind person.  I was instantly engulfed in a calming lack of light, and fell back to sleep.   Later on over dinner, my roommate, Gabby, did ask what kind of black headdress I was wearing in bed that morning and after I told her, she calmly stated that I needed a sleep mask.  

  Huh, good idea.