Monthly Archives: May 2010

Why We Need Sleep

God, I’m tired.  This is both a declaration and a prayer.  I need sleep.  On another unrelated – or completely related depending on how you look at it – note, my month of No Procrastination is going . . . well . . . it’s going.

And in a weird twist of fate, I haven’t really been able to sleep since I started it.  I’m starting to think that my subconscious just has a really twisted sense of humor.  Because there really isn’t any other reason why I can’t sleep.  You know, besides the weather changing and possibly developing allergies and laying around like a listless blob most of the time.  But you know, besides all of that stuff I should be able to sleep, no problem.

In the past I’ve had trouble sleeping because I’ve been unsatisfied with my life – the minute I make a decision about something, sleep returns.  Either there was some missing decision that needed to be “Valerie’s Brain Approved” (uh-oh, my cerebellum does not like the color shirt I’m wearing today), I’m fooling myself into thinking that I’m happy, or I really need to cut down on the caffeine.  Either way, I need to figure this out because there are quite a few things where being well-rested comes in handy . . .

Things You Shouldn’t Do While Sleepy

  • Walk (walls tend to jump out at you)
  • Eat (food tends to fall . . . places that are inconvenient)
  • Drive (people always say they can get to work in their sleep – they lie)
  • Send coherent emails (okay, so I knew about my tendency to misspell on Facebook but I never realized that it kicks in at other times too)
  • Understanding what your boss says to you (usually eyes open is required for this especially when they are referring to some super important paper that would have Really Really Important stamped across it if my life was a cartoon)
  • Playing Words With Friends (though, to be honest, my words usually get more points when I spell them wrong – this needs to be my new strategy with Matt)
  • Making To-Do Lists (otherwise every single line says Sleep or is written so incoherently it might as well say sleep)
  • Watching SNL (because where’s the fun of watching Betty White if you’re falling asleep?! )

Things I’ll Never Live Down

Today my friend Sarah texted me to see if I’d watched the new LOST yet.  Since I got my DVR I watch nothing live and my inability to accept that LOST is ending means I generally binge and purge on the episodes, waiting until I have a few to satisfy me for most of the day (which means short answer: no). 

When I told her I was on a media blackout until I could watch it tomorrow night she responded with:  Good idea.  I won’t say too much or I might reveal something about Dobby dying . . .   And that’s when I realized, there are just some things that you’re never going to live down.

Like most people, we loved the Harry Potter books.  I was one of those people who stood in line to buy the book at midnight (I wasn’t stupid – I didn’t go to a bookstore; I stifled my disdain for it and went to a 24-hr Wal-Mart).  I was one of those people who started reading it the minute I got it.  And yes, I was one of those people who stayed up all night until I finished it.  When the last book came out I had a few friends over and we stayed up reading together.  They all succumbed to sleep but not I.  Which is why when Sarah woke up the next morning and asked me how it was going, my deliriousness got to me and I let the Dobby death slip.  My mind sometimes does stupid things – only very rarely can I stop it.  Which brings me to . . .

Val’s Awesome List of Things She’ll Never Live Down (in no particular order) –

  • Telling Sarah that Dobby died
  • Not knowing how the jelly got into the middle of the donut
  • Pulling muscles while making my bed, combing my hair, and once (almost) by collating
  • Being horrendously bad at spelling on Facebook
  • Accidently sending MMS instead of SMS messages to my sister’s lame cell phone so she didn’t actually know Grandma died
  • People thinking I’m the evil twin
  • Liking that I don’t even have to order at IHOP anymore
  • Writing a book where a fisherman named Gordon is inspired by the fish sticks in the freezer
  • Having a dirty car that my co-workers swear gave them bird flu and SARS
  • Hating Ernest Hemingway with the fire of a thousand suns
  • Giving high-fives during my brother’s wedding ceremony
  • Winning a contest because I was the most pathetic 20-something that shared a room (and bunk bed!) with my teenage sister
  • Being stuck in the elevator at work and Totally having it be my fault
  • The highschool argument heard round the world (yeah, don’t mess with me when I’m talking about mitosis)
  • Doing the dishes – which is so rare it caused a cosmic rift that injured my roommate
  • Never revealing the lyrics to the instant smash hit “Singing In The Bathtub”
  • Falling down the stairs, all of the multiple times
  • Winning a karaoke contest in college with “I Will Survive” and the macarenna
  • Getting every song I’ve ever heard stuck in my head, including tonal cell phone rings
  • Giving up cheese for Lent the 2nd time (miserableness squared)
  • Making Long Island Ice Teas that I was only man enough to drink

But the bright side of having things that you’ll never live down?  Whenever you’re at a loss for something to happen to Jack or Jill and the tumbling down the hill is getting old, you’ve got multiple ideas at your disposal.  Did you hear the one about Jill and the jelly donut?  Well . . .

May’s Experiment

Today is May Day.  It’s supposed to mark the end of the winter part of the year so spring and sunshine is hopefully right around the corner.  For me, I have made a bold pledge for May – No Procrastination. 

Now, I love procrastination.  If I could, I’d marry it.  It’s a throwback to my college days when I couldn’t control much but my laziness, ha, that I had covered.  But six years later it’s not so fun.  I spend way too much time doing the proverbial “nothing” and no longer feeling entertained by it.  So in May I’m going to put an end to the wasting of time – get my desk at work spotless enough to tell its a desk, get back into the gym routine so those endorphins will make me all happy and shiny, and finish the novel I’m working on right now since I’ll have all this free time.

The pancakes today were not all that helpful with my word count.  Not that its their fault – they were as golden and buttery as ever.  And the atmosphere was great, general clinking, generic white noise.  There was even a little flirting going on – of course it was with the 4-year-old boy next to me who liked my shiny iPhone but hey, I’ll take what I can get.  No, today I introduced a friend to IHOP’s power.  It was a win-win: she got into the writing grove and I got to show the waitresses that I’m not an anti-social quack.  Who could ask for anything more?