It is late and I am tired. Sleep does not find me easily tonight. The boy I am watching over sleeps with the television at volume. Sports commentators in the next room vie for my attention in their gustatory cadence. A Boston terrier dog grunts and snorts and huffs in its sleep, no doubt from the effort of maintaining its eyelids shut firmly around those preposterous orbitals common to the breed. For these reasons and others I do not sleep.

the namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri lies on a marble countertop. It is still warm to the touch from the hours I've spent reading it, my legs dangling over the side of an oddly patterned love seat. As I look closely the pattern reminds me of a DNA autorad with its shadowy ladders and cold truth. The book has taken up a large part of my day. I assume I am enjoying a book when I forgo food, water, and my bathroom privileges rather than stop. I feel a brief flash of pity for producers of bookmarks, for if books of this caliber persist there will be little need for them. I had no need of one.

The book sits in my bag and has for the past few days. This morning, as I fed the nephews and listened to Diane Rehm on NPR, she began to discuss the book. I listened guiltily for some minutes before turning off the radio but the damage was done. The sin of knowledge stained me and I resolved to read the book before the echoes of intelligent comments faded and were lost for all time or until I downloaded the podcast.

The book is good.

The boy I am watching over has shut off the television. Some subconscious part of his brain must have decided that it had absorbed enough subliminal sports knowledge at last. The boy and I share a name if not a love for loud television. Yet while I have been called by his name I doubt he will ever be called by mine. Unless he takes a Spanish class.

The house is quiet and I decide to gather up my names and go to bed. It takes longer than I expect; many have drifted beyond my arm's reach.