31.

Good morning, world! I slept like crap last night. Sorry for my language, I guess I have to mark this blog 18+ or something, but today is the day for such language. It is how it is.

For a few days, mosquitoes have been plaguing our apartment. That sounds really dramatic, I know, and it's not as bad as I'm making it seem. It's mostly that I feel plagued by them. Also, it's freaking January, they shouldn't even exist for another few months! Anyways, last night was the worst in the mosquito story. I woke up around 2:30 to the sound of buzzing around my ear. Somehow these fuckers systematically ignore the person lying next to me and go straight for my scent. Maybe it's because I sweat so much. Anyways, irrelevant. I hear the bug of death. I know from experience that swatting it away and trying to get back to sleep is an exercise in futility. What will happen is: they go away for a few minutes, scared of the big moving monster, and then try again when you've stopped moving for some time. They come, you wake up, wave your hand around, they hide, rinse and repeat. That's a guaranteed night without sleep. No thanks. So instead, I change my position so that there's more than just my head sticking out of the blanket. (I love burying myself in blankets!) If it's just your head, they'll go for your cheek or forehead, and there's no way you can sleep through that anyways. So I put my arms above the blanket, lie on my back, and wait. The idea is that the mosquito approaches you, finds a juicy spot somewhere, starts drinking, and I either let it do its thing until it's saturated and we can both go back to sleep (I figured that mosquitos don't fly around humans for fun, but only out of hungry desperation, so when they're full they'll stop bothering me), or I grab it while it's quenching its thirst. Good idea, in theory.

The problem was that this bastard was terribly indecisive. I heard him fly around constantly, but it never went in for the kill. My delicious blood was right there, waiting to be drunk, yet the animal wasn't going for it. So I lie there, on my back, my arms slowly freezing in the harsh outside world, and I'm wide awake.

Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity and a half, the guy (I assume it's a guy for some reason) sits on my arm, I muster up the patience to let it settle (if you move too quickly it will fly away, but once it's drinking it will stay there), and after what seems like another half an eternity, I move my hand and grab it from my arm. Great success! Now mind you, I'm not proud of killing mosquitoes. I'm not for killing animals of any kind, whether it's dogs, pigs, chickens or annoying mosquitoes. But this night my desperation overtook my principles, and I killed the guy.

Now that's not the end of the story, but I'm getting sick of writing about it. So here's the short version: I went back into my sleeping position, happy that this was over. But behold! There was another one. Higher-pitched buzz, same level of annoyance. At least two eternities pass by before I finally take out this one. Yet while this guy was still drinking happily from my arm, I already heard another buzzing sound. I knew exactly what it meant. A third one. And I didn't manage to get this one. It didn't go for the bait. I must've lied in position for another 20 minutes or so before giving up, hoping that he gave up too. He did. I finally fell asleep.

I have no accurate way of telling how long this took, but something in me insists that it must've been three hours. I feel my right to sleep has been severely violated. So this entire morning I was grumpy, angry even, and sad. This feeling is very specific, and lest this post stays without a point, I'd like to present a phenomenology of the day after a bad night:

The feeling after a bad night consists of two parts:

1) Resentment – you're angry that somehow, something managed to keep you from sleeping. You wonder how this could've happened, and why those responsible haven't been punished.

2) Sleepy sadness – the direct result of not having gotten the sleep you needed. Your body desperately wants to go back to sleep. Your brain knows it can't. Your emotional  and cognitive capacities are limited, and your emotional cup seems like it can overflow any moment.

These two parts interact and strengthen one another, thus creating the unique feeling after a bad night.

Sources: none.