I am supposed to be asleep. I cleansed, toned and moisturised. I brushed, flossed and rinsed. I took zinc, muli-vitamin and st johns wort with an effervescent iron and vitamin C solution. I used the sleep-gel on my neck, temples and ears. I read for an hour. I turned out the light. Why am I still awake? I know i'm tired - I went to bed because I was tired.

The light is back on and I'm in bed with some Fantastic Noodles thinking the having-dinner is the part of the process I shouldn't have skipped. I had an exceptionally late lunch and it threw off my appetite feng shui. So between the heat of the noodles and the rehydrated monosodium glutomated peas I should be back to monkey-laiden dreams from last night before I know it.

I'm a bit weirded out too - I have to say; because I came home a bit late, and went straight to my computer to complete the work I'd started this morning before my meeting in town - I didn't shut any of my blinds. Now, my lounge and kitchen are visiable to anyone who cares to see (from that weird angle from the street if you stand by the hedge and cock your head just so) and it's like.. the NUMBER ONE RULE of women living alone. Close. Your. Blinds.

The fact I'm reading American Psycho won't be helping matters. Though not the gruesome nature of American Psycho, but the unrelenting detailed catalogue that has become a passionless monotone chanting on regardless of whether it's describing itemised brand names clothing the immaculately dressed Pat Batemen or the systematic torture, mutilation and eventual death of his victims.

It's the words; endless, restless. repetitive. chanting, detailed descriptions waken the voices in my head to narrate everything I do and think. KEEPING ME AWAKE. Even he has to cover his ears from live music, from chattering dates, from the city noise because it's just _too_much.

The amazing thing about reading this book in the first person is that it appears normal because he's me, my eyes - and I'm normal, right? Hell he's even likeable. There is no horror or passion associated with him or his actions because he is Being Pat Bateman. Mr Completely Insane. It's the times he has his anxious moments, where he loses touch with his control that we realise he realises just how much will he exercises containing his compulsions. Though he often expresses his desire to cut someone's arms off, or slit their throat, no one ever takes any notice of him because in the expansive, expensive, vacuous 80s - no one is listening. When he does let his urges free - he revels and relishes and rampages. He's one inventive little puppy.

There are lines and sentences that made me bark out loud laughing. I wanted, may times, to take a highlighter and drag it across passages and conversations so I could find them again - but you know how hard highlighters are to find when you really need them.

I'm thinking that I will try to sleep now my belly is cradling a warm tangle of Fantastic noodles.