Argh can't sleep!
Argh! It's ten to two on a Monday night/Tuesday morning. I got up this morning/yesterday at 6:30 (was trying to get to the gym but that was totally not happening, so I did some morning pages instead). I was really tired, zombie-like, at work by about 3pm. But here it is nearly two and I'm as wide awake as a tweety bird. Brain feels like a bright sunny summer day. Not even a yawn or a heavy eyelid or anything. What is happening?
It could be that I'm kind of rested from the weekend - had a big sleep in on Sunday morning. It could be that I'm still sort of high on my Memoir class experience, and also had a great hair day today and a pretty satisfying day at work. It isn't coffee, I didn't have any more than usual, or any later than 10am. It isn't sugar. It isn't any exciting email from a boy or other loved one because none have come today.
It could be beer. I stopped by the pub where I usually stop on the way home from work, and had a light and my usual pack of cheese and onion chips. I didn't have anything with me to read so I worked on the Meaning of Life paper. Very productive pub visit. And then I went grocery shopping, and then I came home and watched the West Wing and a Black Books re-run. And then went off to bed, but nothing. Turned off the light, didn't get stuck into reading or iPodding or anything. Wide, sunny awake.
My main goal for tomorrow was to get up at 6 and go to the gym, because the whole problem with me - the sleeplessness, the residual weird feeling from my car accident, the underlying stress, all of it - could be fixed through a little tiny bit more cardiovascular exercise. And I just can't get there. It's become a huge spiral of guilt and failure now - every night I have trouble sleeping because I don't get enough exercise, I vow solemnly to get up at 6 and go to the gym, 6 comes, the alarm goes off, the body says, "You have got to be fucking kidding me. I don't think so." We go back to sleep for a while, I have a morning (potter around the house a bit, when else will I do it?) and am at work late and feel guilty for showing a lack of commitment and also feel panicky because if I don't get enough hours up I won't be able to pay the bills.
Argh.
But anyway, I know from a whole lifetime of insomnia that when you're like this you can't just lie in your bed - the 20-minute rule should apply. Just get the hell up and do something else. And I know from my glamorous dot-com career that you cope with jet lag, you just get up and go to the meeting, and you probably don't die, and you can always sleep when they have bad movies on the plane on the way back home. Tomorrow isn't a particularly busy day at work. Tomorrow night is a completely optional activity, a meeting of a rival philosophy group that I was wanting to check out, but they meet every other Tuesday and tomorrow's topic isn't even all that interesting.
What I really, really want to do is sleep until I wake up tomorrow, then go and do a super huge session at the gym and really get back into it.
But then I really wouldn't be able to pay the bills at all, so we'll just have to do something else.
Meanwhile, back to surfing...
It could be that I'm kind of rested from the weekend - had a big sleep in on Sunday morning. It could be that I'm still sort of high on my Memoir class experience, and also had a great hair day today and a pretty satisfying day at work. It isn't coffee, I didn't have any more than usual, or any later than 10am. It isn't sugar. It isn't any exciting email from a boy or other loved one because none have come today.
It could be beer. I stopped by the pub where I usually stop on the way home from work, and had a light and my usual pack of cheese and onion chips. I didn't have anything with me to read so I worked on the Meaning of Life paper. Very productive pub visit. And then I went grocery shopping, and then I came home and watched the West Wing and a Black Books re-run. And then went off to bed, but nothing. Turned off the light, didn't get stuck into reading or iPodding or anything. Wide, sunny awake.
My main goal for tomorrow was to get up at 6 and go to the gym, because the whole problem with me - the sleeplessness, the residual weird feeling from my car accident, the underlying stress, all of it - could be fixed through a little tiny bit more cardiovascular exercise. And I just can't get there. It's become a huge spiral of guilt and failure now - every night I have trouble sleeping because I don't get enough exercise, I vow solemnly to get up at 6 and go to the gym, 6 comes, the alarm goes off, the body says, "You have got to be fucking kidding me. I don't think so." We go back to sleep for a while, I have a morning (potter around the house a bit, when else will I do it?) and am at work late and feel guilty for showing a lack of commitment and also feel panicky because if I don't get enough hours up I won't be able to pay the bills.
Argh.
But anyway, I know from a whole lifetime of insomnia that when you're like this you can't just lie in your bed - the 20-minute rule should apply. Just get the hell up and do something else. And I know from my glamorous dot-com career that you cope with jet lag, you just get up and go to the meeting, and you probably don't die, and you can always sleep when they have bad movies on the plane on the way back home. Tomorrow isn't a particularly busy day at work. Tomorrow night is a completely optional activity, a meeting of a rival philosophy group that I was wanting to check out, but they meet every other Tuesday and tomorrow's topic isn't even all that interesting.
What I really, really want to do is sleep until I wake up tomorrow, then go and do a super huge session at the gym and really get back into it.
But then I really wouldn't be able to pay the bills at all, so we'll just have to do something else.
Meanwhile, back to surfing...
posted by Ellen at 1:48 am
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