Should I Be Worried About This?

Although I don’t consider myself an uneasy sleeper, I have never really gone easy into that good night, either. Too often in my life, surrendering to sleep just means that the next thing I’m aware of is morning, with its attendant responsibilities and unpleasantness. As John Fogarty puts it, “night time is the right time” as far as I’m concerned.



So this means that I usually have to read myself to sleep. Or maybe do some crossword puzzles or sudokus or something. And before you want to tell me that sleep experts would suggest that’s only going to keep me awake, remember that’s just the point: to pretend I’m staying up while actually I’m slowly getting sleepy but don’t notice it. Anyway, the upshot is that I have piles of various reading materials by my bed, ranging from newspapers and magazines through novels and textbooks and back to Bloom County collections. And occasionally I have to break down and gather them up and put them away.

Not a pleasant task, but I discovered something both entertaining and unnerving the other day as I was doing this: I could sort the reading material into piles based on the seven deadly sins:

Gluttony: Various cookbooks, Cook’s Illustrated



Pride: Strength Training Anatomy, Body by Science, other books on weight training. As if.



Sloth: Crosswords. Sudokus. Get Fuzzy. Dave Barry. Patrick McManus.



Wrath: Most of my professional books on education, most of which make me angry.



Lust: Sorry, I gave this up when I got married, unless you throw it in with:

Greed and Envy: Consumer Reports, especially when it deals with off-road vehicles.


Oh well. I wish I could honestly say that I’m surprised. But I’m not. I couldn’t find a single piece of bedtime reading material that I could throw in a “cardinal virtue” pile.

No, I really can’t count holy writ. It isn’t bedtime reading, after all. It puts me to sleep.

Can’t have that.