February 03, 2001
Hello Darkness, My Old Friend
Why do I do this to myself?Let's, for a moment, assume that I am a reasonably intelligent, mature (stop laughing) adult who is aware of the consequences of her actions. Why then, would I choose to stay up to truly ungodly hours of the night, knowing that even though it is Friday night, that I'm still going to have to get up on Saturday and go to work?
Why then, would I be considering a Coke chaser for my 20-ounce cappuchino breakfast in an attempt to unfog my brain?
The only response I have to give is one that has echoed down the corridors of time, the continual answer to the exasperated question, "Why did you do that?!" -- "Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time..." Here's what I wonder: I'm a pretty strait-laced person. I've never experimented with drugs, I can count on one hand the times I've drunk enough to get drunk. I wonder if not sleeping is my way of experimenting with altered states of consciousness? I definitely feel altered right now...
Some things seem more important than sleep, at least until the piercing shriek of the alarm threatens to make my head explode. Then nothing in the world seems more important than keeping my eyes closed for another nine minutes. That's the thing about living with other people. I can't just let my alarm blare and blare on a Saturday morning. Although, this morning my mom and stepdad were both already up -- in fact, my mom had showered and done her hair, all so she could sit at her computer and work from home. (I'm not going to go into the amazing wrongness of getting all gussied up to work from home on a Saturday morning. All I have to say is that if I were fortunate enough to be able to telecommute, I'd be a scary, scary person when I was working.)
I'm happy to report that one hour after I started this, the caffeine has started to work, and I don't feel like I'm looking out at the world through a haze of brain-fog. My only thought is no longer a muffled whimpering drone, "...bed...." (Actually, right now it's "...food...")
Sleep deprivation and I have a long and checkered history together. When I was a kid, Friday nights were the best night of the week, because I could stay up late. (Couldn't stay up late on Saturdays, of course. Church the next morning.) The older I got, the later I stayed up. I can remember going to slumber parties (where of course, you have to be the last person up, or face dire consequences) and marveling at how amazingly cool it was to be awake at 4 and 5 in the morning. My first stint in college, I actually had a curfew of 11:30 or midnight, depending on the day of the week. After that, I had to be in my dorm. The end result was I didn't usually stay up much later than that.
For a time there, our relationship was wild and crazy, one all-nighter after another. This was during the deepest, darkest time of my MUSHing addiction, and when some of my most favorite people in the world lived on Pacific Time (they still do -- damn time zones, damn them to hell!). There were too many nights of blearily looking out at the light brightening outside the windows and thinking, "Oh shit. I did it again. I gotta be at work when?" Sleep deprivation was my constant companion, along with the caffeinated monkey on my back. We split up every once in a while, usually when I decided it was no good for me and that I wanted to move on with my life. But, like the ex-boyfriend who still hangs around for the occasional sympathy fuck, sleep dep and I managed to stay at least somewhat in touch.
We're having another fling at the moment. I dunno yet if it's just for old time's sake, or if this is the start of another beautiful friendship. I know I'm too old and too busy to get lured back completely into our old relationship -- school and writing have won too solid a place in my affections. I won't talk about the sordid nights when writing and sleep deprivation gang up on me -- that's more information than you want.
Tomorrow is blessed, blessed Sunday, and if anything makes me open my eyes before noon, I'll hurt somebody.
Wow. Just... yeah. What Erica
Wow. Just... yeah. What Erica said. Bill Mahar may not know much about the internet, but the man knows plenty about ego, I'm sure.
On an unrelated note, can you inject caffeine? And barring that, can I nap between phone calls? Zzzzzz...
