Chapter 11 Summary: I Like to Get High at Night and Think About Whales
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
The chapter opens with the narrator describing her subscription to a phone app called White Noise, which costs $1.99 a month and grants access to dozens of ambient sounds—light backyard rain, waves crashing on rocks, an evening bird chorus—that she can loop for up to ten hours. She admits the bird sounds don't relax her, since she isn't a bird person.
She traces the app's origin to a night at a Detroit hotel, where the only available room was Rolling Stones–themed and shared a wall with the laundry room. The water pipes in that adjoining room screamed and groaned at an intolerable pitch all day, and at night the noise became deafening. With no other buffer, she played a simulated box fan sound through her phone. Since then, she never leaves home without orange foam earplugs from the hardware store.
The narrator then reveals she follows Instagram accounts devoted to videos of whales drifting, feeding, surfacing, and playing. She also watches whale clips on BBC Earth, and she weeps at the thought of sharing a planet with both wide receivers who can run twenty-three miles per hour and seventy-year-old humpback whales. She acknowledges this is stoner behavior, but marvels at the existence of animals as large as city buses, noting that blue whales reach one hundred feet and four hundred thousand pounds, consume forty million krill, and migrate from Antarctica to the tropics.
Her bedtime ritual involves taking a couple of cannabis gummies and, while they take effect, lying on her back in the dark with a fan blowing on her face, the window open even in winter, and gentle water sounds playing through headphones. She imagines herself on a raft in the middle of a pitch-black ocean, feeling the waves created by a whale swimming six thousand feet below. Then she pictures the whale rising until it surfaces alongside her. The image sends a shiver through her body—she wonders what anyone would do if a whale cruised next to their soft human body. It makes her want to cry in both wonder and terror, with her eyes squeezed shut, picturing a clear sky full of stars and lapping waves as the THC moves through her bloodstream. She describes the feeling as the scariest but also a kind of sexual sensation—being eye to eye with the largest creature on the planet, completely at its mercy, as it circles her flimsy raft. This is her favorite way to fall asleep, and she closes by declaring her yearning for the chillness of whales.
Key Events
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The narrator downloads the White Noise app during a sleepless night at a Rolling Stones–themed Detroit hotel room that shared a wall with the laundry room.
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She begins carrying orange foam earplugs from the hardware store as a permanent travel companion.
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She curates her social media feed around whale videos and BBC Earth clips.
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She establishes a nightly ritual: cannabis gummies, a fan, an open window, headphones with water sounds, and a guided imagination exercise.
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She develops the recurring fantasy of floating on a raft while a whale surfaces beside her.
Character Development
This chapter reveals a contemplative, almost tender side of the narrator that sits alongside her familiar self-deprecating humor. She calls her whale obsession stoner behavior and declares herself out of her mind, yet she also weeps at the beauty of sharing a planet with enormous creatures. The essay shows her building a private, repeatable ritual to manage anxiety and find peace—a practical, almost engineering-minded approach to her own comfort. She troubleshoots her sleep problems (the app, the earplugs, the fan, the window) with the same blunt pragmatism she applies to other areas of her life, but the whale fantasy adds a layer of genuine vulnerability. Her willingness to admit that the imagined encounter feels sexual, with a parenthetical question mark, is characteristic of her candor, but the uncertainty in that aside also signals how unfamiliar she is with allowing herself this kind of soft, awe-filled experience.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
Escapism through technology. The White Noise app, Instagram whale accounts, and BBC Earth clips all serve as tools for escaping the noise—literal and figurative—of daily life. The app was born from a genuinely unpleasant situation (the screaming pipes in Detroit), and it has evolved into a cornerstone of her nightly retreat.
Awe at the natural world. The chapter is built on the narrator's genuine wonder at whale scale and behavior. The blue whale's size, weight, krill consumption, and migration route are presented as staggering facts that reframe her own problems as small.
Sleep rituals and sensory comfort. Every element of her routine—the gummies, the fan, the open window, the headphones, the darkness—is carefully chosen to create a cocoon of sensation. The ritual is both practical and almost ceremonial.
Cannabis as meditative ritual. The gummies are not recreational in this context; they are a deliberate tool for slowing down and entering a receptive state, allowing the fantasy to unfold.
Fear and wonder coexisting. The narrator explicitly describes her whale fantasy as both terrifying and beautiful, crying in wonder and terror at once. The whale is not a gentle companion but a massive, indifferent presence that could destroy her raft without noticing.
Human insignificance against nature's scale. The contrast between her soft human body and a creature the size of a city bus underscores her smallness—and, paradoxically, comforts her.
Imagination as a form of escape. The fantasy is the centerpiece of the ritual; the technology and substances are merely scaffolding for the imaginative act.
Why This Chapter Matters
This chapter is a standout in the collection because it shows the narrator at her most still and introspective. Much of her humor is loud and defensive, but here she allows herself a quiet, almost spiritual practice without fully dropping her ironic guard. The essay also demonstrates her signature move of grounding a profound reflection in mundane, specific detail—the $1.99 app subscription, the orange foam earplugs, the Rolling Stones–themed hotel room. It's a meditation on how we build small sanctuaries for ourselves in a noisy world, and it reframes her characteristic cynicism as a protective layer over genuine sensitivity.
Study Questions and Answers
1. How does the Detroit hotel story explain the narrator's current sleep setup?
The hotel room shared a wall with the laundry room, whose water pipes produced an intolerable, deafening noise at night. With no other option, she used the White Noise app's simulated box fan sound as a buffer. That experience taught her the value of controlling her auditory environment, leading to her permanent habit of carrying foam earplugs and relying on ambient sound apps.
2. What does the whale fantasy reveal about the narrator's emotional needs?
The fantasy combines terror and wonder, suggesting she craves an experience that makes her feel small and insignificant in a comforting way. The whale's indifference—circling her flimsy raft without malice—offers relief from the pressures of being a person with responsibilities and anxieties. The ritual is a way of surrendering control and being held, even if only in imagination.
3. How does Irby balance humor with genuine awe in this chapter?
She undercuts her earnestness with self-deprecating asides—calling her obsession stoner behavior and declaring herself out of her mind—but she never fully retreats from the awe. The humor acts as a permission slip for the sincerity, allowing her to weep at whale videos and describe a sexual encounter with a blue whale without losing her comedic voice. The parenthetical question mark is a perfect example: it's funny, but it also honestly marks her uncertainty about the feeling.
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