From the time I got my first pink walkman and a cassette of Chicago’s “17” I would listen to music as I went to sleep. It helped with the insomnia that plagued me since I was a little kid. For as long as I could remember I did this. I would create entire bedtime playlists, and played one tape of Beatles songs on my stereo so often that Sister #3 still hates the band (this was when we lived in Chippewa Falls and all four of us shared this huge room with an office off the side of it that was my room).

Somewhere I dropped the habit. I think it stopped when I started living alone and didn’t have a noisy house full of sister or roommates to contend with.

A few weeks ago I had another bout of insomnia and decided to bring back this old habit to see if it would help. So far, it kind of has. My sleepytime playlist includes Ben Gibbard, Mike Doughty, and a bunch of other mellow love song type things.

Somehow, the songs have infected my dreams in a way that is hard to explain.

My favorite thus far is one where I was pregnant and decided to throw myself a baby shower. I had grand plans to serve 77 McDonald’s cheeseburgers to my guests. However, those plans were foiled when McDonald’s got all huffy with me trying to order 77 cheeseburgers at the drive-thru. It was at that point I told my mom and my sisters that I should probably make sure I was really pregnant before having the shower.

Yeah.