Stay awake and seize the opportunity: music haunting the halls, matched with softly rumbling dryer noise; silly music and strange music and techno music; movies both cute and horrible, seeping down the carpet to say hello to sleeping residents; in the morning the stirring of Cheerios in bowls and shaking apple juice to make it ready for pouring.
Maintain mindfulness and grasp the opportunity head-on: ignore the pain snatching at the stomach, don't think about vodka or anxiety, just go ahead and type and stay awake. Somewhere between Buddhism and Christianity, somewhere between East Coast and West Coast, somewhere between self-involvement and outward-focus, somewhere between consciousness and hard fast sleep. Keep the mind alert. Everything around contains not just itself - there is no self of these things - they all contain everything else. The couch is not a couch: it is hands sewing shut cushions, machines pushing the stuffing inside, the sunshine heating up the surface, the water that kept the whole thing moist and fluffy and ready to be shipped out so one day it could hold a sleeping man or semi-conscious woman.
Vodka and anxiety, turning stomachs and terrorizing sleep. Keep awake. Stay awake. Maintain mindfulness.
