He's Killed The Blog... Again...

I'm covering today for our company's receptionist, who has the day off. That meant coming in an hour early, which also meant going to bed before midnight (terribly unusual). I was dragging by 11pm, though, so I sacked out unreasonably early, hoping to cash in on the extra hours and wake up entirely refreshed and revitalized.

Before we go any further, you're all no doubt aware that I have --issues-- with time. Psychological, mental, emotional... whatever. Time's sort of an obsession with me, and not just having enough of it, but appropriately using it. Most of my life is plagued trying to work out how to maximize the efficiency of my life, to use it effectively enough and to enjoy it enough. 'Nuff said.

So I went to bed early, and fell asleep reasonably soon after that. And I began to dream.

I dreamed I was getting ice cream with a bunch of kids from high school. But I didn't actually have money, and the only kids I recognized there were my ex-girlfriend and her long-time boyfriend. Apparently there was alcohol, because she and the other girls were getting a little tipsy, and (naturally) a little flirtatious. But the longer this went on, the more frustrated I got, until I suddenly made the decision that this dream was going absolutely nowhere and that it was all wasting my precious sleep-time.

So I actually forced myself awake from my dream, to cancel everything and start over again with something else. I guess I felt like I'd be hugely dissatisfied waking up after spending all night at an alcoholic ice cream shop.

The more remarkable thing is that after waking up and seeing it was still pseudo-dark out, I somehow convinced myself it was only 1AM and that I had another 7 hours of sleep. Which was fine, because I lulled myself back to sleep under the pretense that my alarm was hours from wrecking my morning.

Anyway, the truth is, whatever crappy dream I managed afterwards, it didn't work and I ultimately still woke up groggy and dissatisfied with my night's sleep a couple hours later. And the moral of the story is, don't wake up in the middle of the night trying to get a more fulfilling rest.



PS: On a more somber note, my Bible presented me this morning with a very serious passage about putting people to death who worked on the Sabbath (day of rest). The last time I read a passage like this, is was immediately before being offered a writer's PA position with Sunday hours (I declined). Keeping the Sabbath is a policy I've recently gotten somewhat lax about following (full circle to the "use of time" dilemma), so nothing's a quick kick in the butt to take one day a week and use it strictly for relaxing like a death threat. Consider Sunday my day off.