Sleep deprivation.

If you were to encounter me a few hours ago, you probably would have laughed. And pointed. And possibly thrown something at me to verify my capacity for stimulus-response. But I was comfortable. In full public view near the entrance to the Museum of Art, I lay like a scrunched slug under my neon-rainbow winter coat across a run of three couches, face smashed in James Joyce's The Dead, hands strung loosely through my purse and backpack straps, and legs sprawled all over the place. Next to me sat a vat of bright lemon dish soap I'd brought for a presentation's object lesson, my open anatomy lab manual, and a half-finished water bottle. I passed out on those couches for a good three hours, dead to the world as my brain forcibly commandeered the rest it so badly needed. I'm surprised security personnel didn't ask me to leave. Maybe they felt bad for my pathetic-college-student state of health. Or maybe they left me there because I was framed by two colorful displays from the modernist exhibit and my presence added to the quirky consumerist theme. Regardless, I was grateful for the break.