Yawnification

Some people can function on very little sleep. I am not one of these people and am very jealous of those who get through life on 6 hours a night or so. I have always wished I didn’t need Zs so much. My mom tells me I was sleeping through the night by 3 weeks of age. Even the lure of a warm bottle couldn’t wake me. I believe some people can naturally do with less sleep than others. Like they are born that way. Take my brother for instance. He is two years younger than me and from pretty much the time he could vault out of his crib he would stay awake and play in the toy box in the dark. My mom would hear him and get up and try to return him to his baby jail but he would just jump out again. Finally she would leave him to his own devises only to place him in bed once he had finally fallen asleep amongst his GI Joes in the wee hours. In fact, as we shared a room, his playing would wake me up and I would go into my parent’s room and whine that he was keeping me up. I was kranki even then. And I liked my sleep. My brother still fights to get to sleep at a reasonable hour. His body naturally wants to stay up late. He will probably always be that way.

When I don’t get enough sleep I feel crappy. Like I have drunk about 15 cups of coffee. My stomach gets gnarly and I get headaches that can easily turn into migraines. What is normal sleep for me? I would say 10 hours a night. Honestly, I need that much sleep to feel human. I can make do occassionaly with 8 hours. When I say there are not enough hours in the day to get stuff done I am not kidding. My days are short.

When I was working in the film industry doing 12-18 hour days I was miserable. I did not function well and spent my entire weekends trying to catch up on my sleep. I would sleep for 24-hour periods trying to get ready for the week ahead. I effectively had absolutely no life between working and trying to get enough sleep. That is the main reason why I had to quit the industry. I was getting sick. I have suffered pneumonia and severe anaemia from total exhaustion. And in the film industry you simply cannot call in sick.

So why bring up the topic of sleep right now? Well, very occasionally when I get to sleep and something wakes me up before I get really comatose I won’t be able to sleep the whole night. This happens maybe 4 times a year and it happened last night. I was up all night reading because my neighbour’s cat started wailing (she is out of town) and it woke me up right after I dropped off. Fortunately I had a great book to read of I would have been really out of sorts. Like killing people out of sorts. My cat loves it when I am up all night and compounds my frustration by licking my ear periodically. Usually just when I am starting to get drowsy. I fling her off the bed and then she roars around the house, back end skidding out on the hardwood floors, waking the dead with her stampeding. It just gets plain ugly.

Today I am so grumpy I fear for anybody who knocks at my door. I am fidgety and unable to stay still. I can’t stop yawning and my jaw is starting to ache. I don’t want to actually do anything. I should lie down and try to snooze but I hate that dozy feeling you get from sleeping a lot during the day. I have already called my mom and bitched to her. I even scared the cat with all my arm waving.

Some people get off on the surreal feeling from sleep deprivation. I wish this was fun for me. I feel crappy. I can’t even find any humour to make this post funny. I wish I could be funny right now. I think I am going to go back to bed and start the day over. Take my chances. Redo!