THE BATTLE AGAINST SLEEPLESSNESS

Bear with me. I'm trying to keep myself awake.

I couldn't sleep last night. The house was making noises and I was trying to ignore it. Plus, whenever I closed my eyes, all I saw was enormous robots punching sea-monsters in a gigantic spray of foam. Alright, I probably should have watched something gentler than the movie Pacific Rim, but I was in the mood for daft escapism and this popcorn blockbuster seemed to fit the bill.

When the alarm went off at 6:50am this morning, my eyes were glued together and my whole body felt deeply pressed into the sheets as if weighed down into the mattress by some great immovable bulk. It all felt rather wrong, as though I'd woken in the wrong part of the sleep cycle altogether.

The consequence is of course, that now, this afternoon, I'm feeling shattered. It would be the easiest thing in the world to sink into a chair, close my eyes for a while and drift off to the sound of jaegers thumping kaiju. However, this would lead to yet another sleepless night tonight and a day of thankless toil at work tomorrow.

So, you join me on a Sunday afternoon, literally writing to stay awake.

Here's another problem with being over-tired: your brain has to reroute the signals to the most important tasks - like processing the visual input and writing it to memory, like controlling the circulation and the lungs and reminding you to breathe. However, there's not a lot of energy left for sensible conversation, turning off the oven or sometimes being vaguely normal. Emotions get tumble-dried, tempers get frayed and important things get forgotten. I wonder how different the world would be if we could all just get a good night's sleep?

I'm blaming Fridays, myself. I reckon a late night on a Friday has a knock-on effect that displaces my normal sleeping pattern right the way through until Sunday afternoon, when I often feel like collapsing into a 'well-earned' siesta. I'm pretty sure that a late night has a time-delay of 1.5 days attached to it. In other words, it always hits you the day after tomorrow.

Well, no siesta today. I'm riding it out to see what happens, I'm fighting back - it's tough though. I'm properly tired. I've got a pot of Russian Caravan on the go, which might help. I might also drive to Starbucks in a minute for a chocolate muffin and a people-watch. It's en-route to church, so it's do-able.

I've got to play the piano and speak to people tonight! Hope no-one wonders who the twinkle-fingered zombie is in the corner. Hopefully I won't drift into accidentally playing the soundtrack to Pacific Rim either.