Sleep, interrupted.

Several things happen when your electic fan breaks down in the middle of the night.

First, you find yourself sitting on your bed in the dark after unplugging the appliance. You considered trying it out in a different outlet, but figured the electrical thingies inside are all messed up and an indoor bonfire is probably not a good idea for now.

As (bad) luck would have it, it's an uncomfortably warm night. You could open your bedroom windows for ventilation, but you don't want to. There is no screen and you don't want to be invaded by insects that fly, crawl, buzz, or bite. Or even birds. A small bird wandered through your bathroom window a couple of weeks back and you let it have your bathroom for a few hours until it found its way back out. Your roommate made fun of you for that, but what the heck. She's the vet, not you.

There's an abanico somewhere and you try to search for it in your bedside table. You don't turn on the lights so your hands feel around your books, your lamp, your alarm clock, your phone. You eventually find it and begin to fan yourself. 

The humor of the situation sinks in. It's past midnight and here you are in the darkness of your room, the silence accentuated by the absence of the usual hum of the electric fan, and you're sitting cross-legged and using the abanico like some weirdo. You're just reenacting another Earth Hour, you say to yourself.

You look around your room and admit that you really should think about reorganizing. You come up with a to-buy list: table, whiteboard, magic tape, bookends. Maybe a small rug. And oh, you really should find the time to hang the cool "Les Aventures de Tintin" decor that your friend Karina got you from Vietnam. You have attempted to hang it several times before, but couldn't commit to a wall or to a height. It doesn't matter if the 3M hooks are peelable and come with extra adhesives. You just want to be sure the first time. You start to think about what that implies with other aspects of your life, but you stop yourself before the pseudo self-psychoanalysis could take off.

You think about reading. Or rereading something. You've recently finished "Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman!" - the memoirs of the Nobel Prize physicist, Richard Feynman. You found it very interesting and amusing; there were several sections in the book that you want to review. But then, you would have to turn on the lights. You learned from somewhere that light is the strongest zeitgeber. Your circadian rhythm is messed up as it is and decide to drop the reading for tonight.

Ironically, the more you think of how much sleep you need, the less you end up having. And that results to a lack of enthusiasm for early mornings at work. Ah, work. Inevitably, you think about work and incidents and clarifications and teleconferences and emails. You realize you have the entire workday to worry about those things, and you force yourself to think of something else. 

So instead, you think about your life and ask yourself if you'd be proud to introduce yourself to your - let's say - eight-year old self. Can you unhesitatingly go up to your kid-version and say, "You're going to be me when you grow up! You should be excited!"

You try to remember being eight years old and play off this conversation in your head. You make a mental note to write that conversation down somewhere. There are so many things your younger self wants to know. Why you're not a doctor, why you're single, and how come everything you think you need always comes with batteries. 

Several things happen when you ask yourself questions. But you're too tired, and rest seems like a very good idea even on a warm, airless night.