Sleep and Other Obsessions
I learned the other day that Will Rogers was one of those people who only needed 4 or 5 five hours of sleep a night to be fully functional. I wish.
I require an average of 8 hours and my body keeps this schedule whether I want it to or not. If I run a two-hour sleep deficit on Monday, I’ll feel it until I can make up the time. This used to mean sleeping in on the weekend because, due to regular work schedule, I woke up at the same time every day. I could often resolve the deficit by going to bed early but not always. I tend to perk up around 9:00 pm, even if I’ve sleeping on my feet at 8:30.
This week has been rough. I’m managing to average 8 hours of sleep, but in wild swings of 4 hours one night and 12 the next. My body doesn’t know what the hell is going on and I feel vaguely jet-lagged all the time, wide awake at 6:00 am and then dead tired by 1:00 pm. Today I woke up at 5:00 and couldn’t fall back asleep. Yuck-o.
Part of the sleep problem is due to a racing mind. I’ve mentioned before that I swing between wanting to do nothing but read and wanting to do nothing but write. The pendulum has swung fully to “write” recently and that means explosions of new ideas, ways to resolve problems with old stories, and the desire to do it all now.
I finished “The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter” yesterday and posted it for my grad writing workshop as well as my Clarion group’s message board. It’s a bit of a strange story so I’ll be very interested to see how the two different groups attack it. Then I began work once again on “The X-Ray Style,” a story my Clarion compatriots will likely remember from week four. (The one with the slacker/genius inventor) The story sagged in the middle and now I think I’ve got a solution. We’ll see.
The other Clarion-era story I think I’ve got a handle on is the one about the prescient Swedish immigrant who moves to Minnesota in the 1880s. I wrote myself into a hole the last time I worked on this one—literally. The main character and his horse can’t get a stump out of the ground and I realized this was very much my subconscious saying “stop writing, you’ve lost the thread of the story.” Now I see I need to rewind, erase (egad, no!) and restart with an entirely new slant. I had one of those “oh, so that’s what this story is about” moments.
Unfortunately, these moments seem to strike between 11:00 pm and 7:00 am. See above.
Unrelated: Is Rachael Ray the most overexposed pseudo-celebrity of the moment or what? Good lord.
Current Mood: Zzzzz | 
Future Mood: 
Pick-up Friday! | 
Currently Listening To - Woody Guthrie - “Woody Guthrie Sings Folk Songs”
Rachael Ray the most overexposed LIVING pseudo-celebrity of the moment. As opposed to Anna Nicole Smith who is dead and may someday actually be buried. And Brittany Spears who is trying to become dead.
I survive on four hours of sleep most nights, except on weekends. Usually if I sleep more than four hours in one session I just hurt. Having said that, though, the semester with the thrice-damned 8am class and having to get up Way Too Early and having to go to bed Way Too Early, I had trouble sleeping in January and have to take a nap most days. Left to myself, I’d stay up to 3:30 to 5am and get up 4 hours later and be good. This going to bed by 1am to get up at 5am — ridiculous. Mrs. Dr. Phil, of course, would like 8 hours a night and usually gets 7+. She finds my lack of sleep requirement annoying. (grin)
Dr. Phil
PS — I had to take multiple naps during the day during Clarion, because that was just plain exhausting duty!
Comment by Dr. Phil — Fri, Feb 23rd, 2007 @ 2:06 pm
I thought Rachael Ray was overexposed two years ago when they gave her a third show on Food Network. I have a couple of her cookbooks; they’re great if you like paprika in EVERYTHING. Also, no one should be that cheerful. It’s not healthy.
The great thing about working from home is there no one to tell me not to nod off at 1:30 if I want to. It also means that if I want to stay up until 3 a.m. working, I can. It does mean that my wife expects me to do the laundry, though. Well, we all have to make sacrifices.
Comment by John League — Fri, Feb 23rd, 2007 @ 3:32 pm
Don’t make fun of Rachel Ray! Thems fighting words! How many other people can teach you thirty minute meals while being that annoyingly perky? I gotta a lot of good recipes off her show!
Comment by Eric — Fri, Feb 23rd, 2007 @ 5:16 pm
Phil: I couldn’t agree more regarding ANS. Remember when she was alive and taking pot-shots from every two-bit comedian on the planet, and had a show that invited the whole nation to laugh at her as opposed to with. Everybody loves you when you’re dead. And I am jealous of your sleep-resistant kind, Dr. Kaldon. Sleeping is one of my favorite hobbies but it’s sometimes a burden. Like eating.
John: I think there’s a difference between being overexposed on the Food Network and being overexposed to the public at large. I mean, Paula Deen, Emeril, Bobby Flay, Rachael Ray—plus about a dozen other “food celebrities” are on that channel around the clock. But it was when I saw Ray’s mug on three different magazines at the grocery store and in about seventeen books at the bookstore and happened to catch her daytime talk show…that’s when I realized she’s way, way overexposed. She was tolerable and kind of cute on $30 A Day. Now? If I had the chance to murder her, I’d take the opportunity to torture her too, even if it meant a greater chance of getting caught.
Eric: Have you successfully made one of her meals in 30 minutes? I’ve heard it can only be done through the magic of television.
And you know who’s not nearly as hot as Food Network would like her to be? Giada de Laurentiis. From certain angles she looks really, really good, but she has a strange-shaped face and sometimes resembles Baby Huey.
Comment by Trent — Fri, Feb 23rd, 2007 @ 7:03 pm
If I had the chance to murder her, I’d take the opportunity to torture her too, even if it meant a greater chance of getting caught.
It’s nice to see someone who won’t let anything stand in the way of his ambition.
Giada looked better before they started doing that weird thing to her hair. I can’t even describe it. Still, my dad has a crush on her. I think my mom’s okay with that because my dad cooks now.
Comment by John League — Sat, Feb 24th, 2007 @ 1:43 pm
I got a crush on Giada too. I never actually timed any of those recipes now that I think about it, but the meals tasted good. And that’s what matters in the end!
Comment by Eric — Sat, Feb 24th, 2007 @ 2:15 pm
Giada has a strange head and is so thin it makes me ill. But it’s not because she doesn’t eat and seriously enjoy food. So I’ll take her joy of food and eating over that RR person any day.
Dr. Phil
Watching shows on garlic on Food Network right now…
Comment by Dr. Phil — Sat, Feb 24th, 2007 @ 10:55 pm