sleepyblinders.jpegI have a long history with what most people call “eye masks” but that which I refer to as “sleepy blinders.”

For some unknown reason, I am exceptionally sensitive to light while sleeping. Maybe my eyelids are thin, or I’m just neurotic in my sleep or something, but whatever the reason, if there’s light, there’s usually not me sleeping.

I was first introduced to sleepy blinders in 1992, when a friend gave me some as a joke. Her father was a doctor, and he’d gotten a promotional sleep mask from some pharmaceutical company. Probably a maker of sedatives or something. If I was then who I am now, I would have paid closer attention.

So, dear Jessica Toth gave me my first sleepy blinders, which I employed occasionally on weekend mornings.

When I left for my first semester of college in Boston, I brought the sleepy blinders along, thinking I might have good use for them, since I was sharing a room with three other people. (Yes, my dorm set-up was two big rooms and four girls. We decided it made the most sense to have a “study room” and a “sleeping room,” so this meant all four of us sleeping in one big room. Even at 18 years old, I didn’t find that fun. Except for that one time I, uh, “slept” in a roommate’s bed while she was out of town for the weekend, but that’s a different story.)

I grew addicted to the sleepy blinders in Boston, using them in conjunction with ear plugs to deal with the one roommate who would get up at 5:30 AM to laboriously wash and blow-dry her hair. She liked to sleep with the blinds open, too.

On weekend morning, a dude from across the hall walked into our dorm room while I was still assed-out in bed. He saw me in my sleepy blinders, with my long pretty high school hair, and woke me up saying, “Holy shit. You’re from California, aren’t you?”

I lifted up the edge of my blue blinders, scowled at him with the most grungy, bitter, patronizing Kurt Cobain-esque squint and said “No, actually. I’m from Seattle.” Reclaiming the sleepy blinders for bad ass chicks everywhere! That was me!

I kept that those sleepy blinders around for years, but lost touch with them sometime in the mid-’90s. For years, I used whatever dirty clothes were next to my bed to cover my eyes on bright mornings (or, during my “celebratory career,” bright afternoons) when I needed to sleep. Sometimes pillows worked, but usually the sleeve of a long sleeve shirt or a scarf was preferred. I also had a little thing like this. It was filled with seeds and smelled good, but eventually the pet chinchilla chewed it and all the seeds came out. Regardless! All these light-blockers could only be placed on TOP of my face. They didn’t hug me like the sleepy blinders had. It was a sad era of my somnolent evolution.

During my 2000 trip to France, the airline spoiled me by giving me a little care package filled with socks, handiwipes™, and a free sleep mask. Extra bonus: I got a care package going both ways, which meant TWO pairs of sleepy blinders.

Since 2000, I have never been without at least one pair of blinders by my bed. When Dre and I lived in Olympia, they were extra useful since we had a skylight over our bed. I use the sleepy blinders when I’m grumpy, when want to sleep in, when the moon’s too bright, or when I’ve been out late.

Usually, I slip them on in the morning, and I wonder sometimes if it’s weird for Andreas to go to bed with a normal woman, and wake up next to a slack-mouthed Valley of the Dolls-esque Judy Garland-type.

I love the blinders. They’re a necessity for chronic nappers like myself, and such a perfect way to convey to anyone who may see you sleeping that you are NOT to be bothered. Seriously. Or I might throw my little dog or my feathered high heel slippers at you.

My current sleepy blinders are just plain blue. But what I really want to do is make some great ones that say “FUCK OFF” across the front. Now that would be sleeping tight.