Why is so bright in here?

Let me tell you a little something about me that a lot of you may not know: I can't sleep when there is a lot of light in the room. It used to be any light would keep me up, but I've gotten better at it in the last year or so. However, last night was just too much for me. With all the snow falling outside the bright whiteness seemed to intensify and thus it was almost like the middle of the day in my room (I may be slightly exaggerating for dramatic effect, but only slightly). Right now, in the middle of the day, it is darker in my room than it was at 3 o'clock this morning. As a result, I got the worst night of sleep I've had in months. I never really got to sleep, instead as I would just pass out for an hour at a time.

At about 4 AM, I decided that the chief culprit for the brightness was the fact that I have just mini-blinds up and no curtains. My old room had double-thick light killing curtains that I would bring in here, only they're black and my walls are light green, so I think that it would look awful (manly, no?). So, after shoveling out the latest snowfall (I think it was about 6 inches or so. I've reached the stage that every New Englander gets to in about January - I no longer care about snow if it's less than 4 inches and if it's more than that I don't freak out as long as it's not heavy.) I came inside and started doing some online shopping, looking for curtains.

[editor's note: please don't try and suggest a sleep mask. First off, I hate those things. Secondly I tried one before and every morning the thing was either down around my neck or had slid up and off my head and it was a scavenger hunt to find it again.]

Which brings me to my next question: why are curtain so freaking expensive? I first noticed this when I was browsing through Linens N' Things (that's right - Linens N' Things... and I wasn't even with a girl) and found that, even at going out of business prices, curtains there were still $10 a panel. That's $20 a window and I have 4 of them in my bedroom. Seems high. It's not like these are special curtains - they don't open or close by themselves. Hell, they weren't even light-blocking. They just hang from the windows... like, you know, regular pieces of fabric. For that type of money I was hoping for some kind of special feature.

I held off on ordering them, because I want to see if it's as bad in my room tonight as it was last night. But if it is, then I'll probably be too sleep deprived to care that I'm getting ripped off.