The Princess and Her Pillows

Often, I get the comment from visitors to my bed (not lovers, just friendly visits) that there is just so much shit on my bed that they have no idea how I even fit. I explain to them that I’m rather tiny and sleep curled up in a ball, so I need minimal space to be comfortable. The “shit” in my bed that they’re referring to has a lot of components: books, my laptop, a hair brush, once a wrench, a hoodie, maybe a snack. The key to my bed, though, are my pillows. I don’t want to be facing cinder block every time I roll over during the night, I want a nice cushioned barrier to increase the snuggle factor, so I line the wall with pillows. As with most things in my life, my pillows are just strange enough to be worth reading about.

Turtle Pillow Pet

One of the best inventions known to man, the pillow pet is both a comfortable pillow and a inanimate pet. My turtle is a Christmas gift from a friend of freshman year, hopefully a friend in the future. I think his name is Clarence? I’m not positive, but he’s definitely a man. I’ve also been told his head kind of looks like the head of an angry baby.

Purple Bunny Pillow Pet

Another pillow pet! Hooray! Never too many! I’m in the market for an elephant! Anyway, the next item of this specific list is a nameless purple bunny, with very floppy ears and a sweet face. It’s a darker color than lavender, but still pastel, and matches my sheets. My older sister calls me bunny sometimes so I like having various bunny-related items close by.

Weird Fox Thing From Yosemite

I’ve always had a penchant for stuffed animals, for fuzzy textured things. My parents went to NorCal this past fall to see some old trees and some older trees. They stayed in Yosemite and Seqouia, my dad brought home a lot of pine cones and my mom did more hiking than she really wanted to. My mom wanted to bring me home a gift and when she visited Kenyon about a month after her trip, she delivered her present. The picture will do it more justice that I can, but I would describe it as a smallish square fuzzy pillow with a fox kind of sticking out of it. Like, the body is a little raised off the pillow, but the head, and deceptively pointy nose, is straight up protruding out of this thing.

Ram Face

I like emojis and I especially like animal emojis and I especially like when people choose strange emojis to represent things that they don’t inherently. I think this calls to the spirit of the emoji, allowing for meaning to be what we assign it and not what societal standards call it. For all these reasons and also none of these reasons, I have a thing about the ram emoji. It is my truest affection emoji, and if I send it to you, feel special, feel loved. Before I went to college, my sister bought me a pillow with a real life ram face on it. It’s black and white, slightly disarming, but somehow gives off the vibe of a protector.

I like to cuddle, I like bunnies, and I like gifts. I like my pillows and I like being a little basic. There is no reason not to surround yourself with all the love that you can. My various strange collections, whether it be my perfumes or my pillow pets, remind me of good places.

Image Credit: Lily Alig

• bed
• collection
• college
• Comfort
• dorm
• kenyon
• ohio
• Pillows
• university