I've been trying to get myself on a sleep schedule that is consistent with the rest of humanity in my timezone. This isn't easy, because my brain naturally wants to sleep between 2am and 10am, and has been that way pretty much my whole life. But in summer, especially, I like to get up early before it's close to 100°, walk the dogs, and feel like I've actually accomplished stuff before noon.
So I've been getting myself into bed around 10 or 11, as I attempt to slowly move the clock back. I read until I'm ready to close my eyes, and I set my sleep thing on my phone to wake me up 8.5 hours later.
By the way: if you like science fiction, you probably want to subscribe to Lightspeed Magazine. It's what I've been reading every night, and it's always spectacular. It's delivered to my Kindle once a month, and it's one of my favorite subscriptions that I have. Also, keep your eye on the Humble Book Bundles, and Vodo.com. They *always* have great, inexpensive, amazing books on sale.
Okay, back to ... whatever this thing is.
So last night I got into bed a little later than I wanted -- around 11:30 -- and picked up my Kindle. Which had a dead battery. Shit. No worries! I picked up the actual book I've been reading (Imbibe! is a book about cocktail history, culture, and recipes), and read for awhile. I turned off the light when my body signaled that it was ready to go to sleep, and put my head on my pillow.
You know what's coming, right? Just like the comics, my brain went from being sleepy to being WIDE AWAKE WITH LOTS OF STUFF TO THINK ABOUT in under a minute. It's okay, I thought, I can power --- err, the opposite of power, I guess, since I'm trying to go to sleep -- through this. I began doing this relaxation/breathing/self-hypnosis thing that has always worked for me... but it didn't work for me.
A side effect of one of my brain meds is that, occasionally, my left leg will twitch like crazy, and my whole body won't let me get comfortable. Last night, it set itself to eleven and went bananas.
I think it was finally 3am when I just gave up, and sat up in bed. I grabbed my phone, and looked at Twitter for a few minutes. I hoped that occupying my mind would somehow work some voodoo or whatever on my legs.
It didn't.
So I fired up Bejweled, and played a game ... that lasted to level 11. I don't know if that's as good as I think it was, but it felt pretty great to play that long (until I realized that it was nearly 4am) and I got a badge that I can turn in for nothing at a redemption counter that doesn't exist.
So at 4am, whatever the hell was going on with my leg finally stopped, and I turned off the lights again. This is when Luna, my cat, jumped up on me, snuggled into my chest, and began to purr. It turns out that the warm weight and soft purring of my cat on my chest really helped me fall and stay asleep.
Until the goddamn jackhammer started four hours later.
I got up at 9:30, because I am committed to going to sleep earlier and getting up earlier, even if it means that I didn't get as much sleep last night as I wanted or needed.
I'm fairly sure that I won't have much of a problem with that in about 10 hours.
