Who needs sleep?

August 16, 2003

Holy cow today sucked. It wasn’t anything in particular, just how I felt all day. After I finished up my web page entry last night, I watched “Monk” and “Wings” and then tried to go to bed around 1:30. I tossed and turned, got too hot, too cold, started coughing, because hot again, and so on. Around 3 AM I gave up trying to sleep and just lay there trying to relax before I closed my eyes again. At 4 AM I gave up and got dressed to go watch TV. What followed were another 16 hours of almost pure misery. I watched sveral movies in a row on TV (and then with my Dad when he joined me at 5 AM) starting with “Strictly Ballroom” and then into “Return to Oz,” a movie I haven’t seen since it was in the theaters in 1985. I had only vague recollections of it, but my Dad helped me along since he’s read all the Oz books several times and remembered everything. I had no idea he was such an Oz fan, actually. Then we watched “Galaxy Quest” which I’d brought over for him to see.

The rest of the day has just sort of creeped by. I didn’t want to go to sleep in the middle of the day for fear of having another sleepness night, so I’ve just been waiting and waiting. To rule out environmental factors, I washed all my sheets, vacuumed and dusted my room–after all, I DID start coughing in the middle of the night, so I might as well be sure. The one interesting thing that happened tody is that Rudy, one of the cats over here, somehow ended up with a big 4-inch cut on his chest and had to be taken to the vet. Now he’s wandering around upstairs with one of the big blinders on so he doesn’t lick the stitches out.

One last thing to mention that rounded out my day: steak, corn, and fresh Walla Walla sweet onion rings for dinner. Not exactly the healthiest meal in the world, but right now, frankly, my mind just isn’t into being health-conscious. I spent most of the day feeding myself sugar and caffeine to keep myself fueled, and so a dinner of red meat and deep-fried vegetables was a good end to that. After all, my body was awake for more time than asleep, and your body burns more calories in an awakened state. So heck, if I stay up another 24 hours and eat just a little bit, I can burn off tonight’s dinner just by being awake. Or not. I asked my Dad how much money he’d give me for beating his stay awake record, but frankly, I don’t have a desire to stay up for 88 hours straight, nor be in his conditions of driving across the country. Most I’ve ever done is somewhere around 36 to 40 hours, but I don’t really remember. Right now I stand at 36 hours, but I don’t think I’m even going to shoot for my own record.

“Tremors” is on TV now, so I think that’s a great going to sleep movie. I hope. If I can’t sleep again tonight I’m going to go crazy. I have a sleeping pill and a bottle of water next to my bed just in case, but I’m confident that my body will do the right thing and get me off the dreamyland. That’s about all my mind can handle for the time being. Night all.

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