No, Drill Sergeant! Busy sleeping!

Is it the extra hours of daylight that is making it so hard for all of us to get out of bed these days?

I say all of us because you will not leave me alone in this.

Also I have talked to several people who seem to also be struggling to get out of bed these days.

But really, isn't there something to the idea that with more daylight, that lasts later into the evening hours, our brains think that we can stay up for more hours in the day, thus we need more recovery time during our sleeping hours, yet our places of employment still require us to be at work at the same time as usual, so in essence we're getting less sleep than usual?

This theory holds some water, yes?

And it's probably not that original and if I google it I may stumble upon something like it and realize I'm not that original?

[Also, did what I explained up there make any sense?]

In any case, I think that at this point, the only thing that might motivate me to GET. UP! is some drill sergeant workout buddy who would make me get up in the morning. By yelling.

Otherwise, I'm out of ideas. I mean I've had ideas -- get up early and do yoga, take a shower, clean, pray, just simply sit and be awake but at least be up earlier than I'm getting up -- but there is no actual execution of any of these ideas in the early a.m. hours as of late.

I even prepped the coffee pot on Monday night so that it would be ready Tuesday morning, to coax me away from the futon even 15 minutes earlier than normal. (Yes, I'm freshly 29 and sleep on a futon. Move on from it.)

It should be noted that I do night-before coffee pot prep approximately twice a year. Maybe.

This week's evening coffee prep did not get me out of bed early. I knew all I had to do was plug it in (because when it's plugged in the blue light is annoying in the dark of my apartment during sleepy time, and I live in a studio so I almost-but-not-quite sleep in my kitchen) and push a button (because even though it supposedly has programmable settings to begin brewing at a scheduled time, it doesn't cooperate with me in this department of function), but I think I was so out of it Tuesday morning that by the time I actually realized/remembered the ease of this task it was already my standard roll out of bed time, so I missed the occasion I had set up for myself.

So anyway, basically, I think that either a very angry or very peppy but regardless very persistent and noisy workout coach by my bedside is about my only hope for a non-pathetic wake up time these days.

Because for crying out loud the situation is pathetic.

Log

Adult things I did today:

Exercised.

Made garlic chicken w/pineapple and couscous for dinner (right? Delicious!).

Did some dishes.

Did NOT spend money.

Cleaned snow off my car without whining.

Teenage things I did today:

Got out of bed after noon.

Ignored the rest of the dishes.

Hid out from the snow and didn't go outside until after 4 p.m.

Surfed the internet and watched TV.

Umm...watched more TV.

My next plan of attack is to paint my fingernails dark blue (closest I have to black at the moment), preparing myself for attendance at a punk rock concert tomorrow (with my former editor on vocals and tambourine!!!). Now, do I need to log that in the teenage category??

Pillow Prayers

I am listening to Foo Fighters at 6 am.

That is because I did not sleep last night. Again. I finally gave up at 5 and got out of bed. This is the second time in 1 week that I haven't slept all night. I also just realized that I haven't eaten more than 2 little pieces of pizza and half a donut since around noon yesterday. You know when my neighbors say they worry about me, I usually roll my eyes, but sometimes I think they have a point.

In other news, Michael Jackson. Go ahead and judge me if you have strong opinions on the matter, but I am super sad about this. I don't care who you are, premature death is always going to cut me straight in the heart. Heath Ledger, Natasha Richardson, I still think about them and just have to stop in my tracks for a moment to fathom God's timing, His hugeness, His control, not ours.

I said a few real hard prayers this morning before deciding to call it quits in the snooze department, telling God I don't understand why he allows me to be deprived of sleep sometimes but asking me to trust Him. I know that probably sounds ridiculous to some of you, but guys, some days that is all I know. I guess I'd just rather go through it all, the sleepless nights, the angry days following, with someone else in charge. I never have been (to my knowledge) much of a control freak. Which works to my advantage, I think, in the believing in God department.

I am what we call an ENFP, for those of you Myers Briggs fans, which means I am extroverted, intuitive, feeling, and perceiving. For those of you who are not fellow M.B. freaks like me, ENFPs (along with other personalities, I won't steal all the thunder here) have a pretty rough go of it sometimes. For instance, our minds will not. shut. off. sometimes and we can't sleep. Then, because we're extroverts and friendly and addicted to people (yet here's the catch: we need time alone), our friends see us the next day and treat us normally. [Oh good, Bubbly Bailey's here, let's chat about her earrings, or the book she's reading, she's always so excited to chat.] So we have to be friendly in return, yet I'm not going to lie to you guys--we're gritting our teeth on those days, trying to keep it together, praying for a return to bed. And you know what's funny, just hilarious? Sometimes when you are free to return to that bed, after 36 hours of awakeness, you're not gonna believe this but it's true: you still can't fall asleep. Because you have new things to think about first.

I remember being in high school Sunday School class and we were talking about silence as a spiritual discipline. I asked, "what's that like?," and my youth director gave me a look of grave concern. Which is comforting at the age of 17.

So, my point (something ENFPs don't usually have nor feel the need to have, btw). While on the surface we may seem all together and happy-go-lucky, there is a lot going on under the surface there. Constant brainstorming, meditating, rethinking, evaluating relationships, examining of self. So go easy on the ENFPs, please.

Also, I hope this brief little bit of insight into my brain helps you understand why I have conversations with God at 3 am about sleep, instead of world peace, war, politics, issues of the church. Sometimes there is enough turmoil and dialogue in my head alone that I don't have room for the rest of the world. Which is why I pray for stillness, and silence. I pray you all receive the same.

I get overwhelmed trying to understand all the nooks and crannies of the whole Bible, so I often just hang out in the Psalms, where it's poetic and musical and cushy:

"Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10)

Quoth the Bailey

I took a class in college on Poe and Baudelaire.

I turned in my first paper and got a B.

The second paper assignment was a comparison of Poe and Baudelaire. Around midnight, my roommate was going to sleep and I was jealous of her slumber. Since Baudelaire was a poet, I said, "Claire? I think I'm going to write a poem instead of an essay." She said, "Go for it," which is one of the hundred reasons why I love her.

I turned the poem in (titled "A Poe-m") the next day face down so that the professor wouldn't hand it right back to me. I expected that he might ask me to rewrite it, but I really wanted to take a nap at that very moment, and I wanted a good 24 hours of freedom before the editing would have to begin.

I never had to rewrite it. I got an A. Following professors' instructions? Nevermore.