Nail polish remover on an empty stomach.

Once I had an outdoor living room with a carpet rolled out on the dirt and on nights when I was being peculiar and listless I'd sit in my nightgown coddling my teddy bear, rocking back and forth, humming and moaning in the dark, way past midnight, while trails of cloud vapor curled in front of the moon, if it was a fullish moon, and thin desert branches raped against one another, if the wind blew. It usually was and did. And at the sight of something like that I'd grow silent and scoot closer to the furniture. The kitchen table sinking in the sand, the console television cockeyed in the nook of a tree. I'd make my legs Indian style at the foot of the reclining chair and position the bear in front of me, and we'd hold hands, as if to confide like we girls did when sitting together in grass patches on the playground. I'd ask the bear to help me go to sleep. I'd say his name and try to make him understand. His plastic eyes were wide and black and went right through me. I'd ask him to listen, please, listen. I'd shake him a little by his plush shoulders, but he was emotionally impermeable and unflinching. His head flopped gruesomely on his cloth neck and I'd hug him and apologize. I'd squeeze him and his nubby arms poked under mine and the harder I squeezed the wider his arms opened, unsqueezing me back. Somehow I'd fall asleep.