I hate waking up. That monstrous beeping first thing in the morning and everything comes rushing back. Am I still alive? Am I still in Cairo? Is this a bad dream? Which side of the bed is the wrong side of the bed? Have I been doing it wrong for years? Who am I? What iseverything? I’m a monster in the morning. Not even one of those cool roaring monsters that scare people, but a lame furry monster from a Disney cartoon.

It takes me a good 6-8 hours to adjust to the horror of waking up. Recently though I have found the perfect remedy for waking up; napping. Earlier in my life, I will admit I shunned napping. I was always like “I’m so confused blah de blah, what day is it? I hate napping.” Since I no longer care what day it is if it isn’t Friday, this argument definitely doesn’t make sense anymore.

Now my new life ambition is a nap room. Also since summer/Ramadan/rehab I’ve gone down to drinking only twice a week. Not because of religion, but because when you’re over 25 (that’s when you’re over the hill according to X Factor. News that made me almost break the TV this weekend) your body gives up on working hard or something and you end up being fat all the time. It’s disgusting. So I’ve had to cut down on the beers and the vodka, because the only thing that would make my life worse would be fat. I don’t even need to work out; you burn 500-600 calories if you sleep for 8 hours. So I could burn off my calorie intake (1200 or something) in like 16 hours of sleep. My cardio is sleep.

Napping also guarantees you’ll never be inside/in the vicinity of cars/microbus/taxis/any moving vehicle that someone might decide to set fire to. Although I have been known to sleep through fires: last year a wire short circuited and set fire to one of our couches in the balcony at like 5am. I sleep in the room right next to it and barely noticed the smoke (it probably helped).I woke up to my sister dramatically saying “asphyxiated” and the dog barking manically. Despite being groggy, we got the bawab (the Egyptian equivalent of calling 911), switched the electricity off and threw the couch on the balcony floor. We then spent 45 minutes pouring water on the burning couch from an orange bucket. Then I went back to sleep.

Sure, sometimes sleep is bad. For example, strange dreams where Amr Adib is yelling at you for no apparent reason and you’re all hunched and quivering in a corner while he ga3ars at you. Is this the TV? Is this real? How can I stop this? What is happening? Is that Morsi grabbing his crotch and dancing to Gangnam Style at the same time? The horror! What on earth is going on? Am I dead? Is this Hell? But then you wake up and do yoga breaths and get your shit together. How many calories does a nightmare burn?

What I’m saying is, tonight instead of going somewhere and pretending what you’re doing is amazing, have a glass of wine, watch The Tree of Life and nap (I have no idea what happens in that movie, but I kept on sporadically waking up to Sean Penn or dinosaurs. Best movie ever). I might live in the city that never sleeps, but I’m going to bed and tuning that bitch out every chance I get. What I’m really saying is goodnight.

For more of Hassan Hassan’s writing and art check out hassanhassan.tumblr.com and follow him @h_hassan