Am I Addicted?

Well, NaBloPoMo is officially over, I was successful in conquering it, and yet here I am still tic-tacking away at my computer, composing another post. Before I get to the reason I felt obligated to post tonight, I wanted to share a few things I've noticed about my own blog. First, it seems to be half whimsy and half "what if". I think that defines me well. I'm not exactly the most practical of people. I'm a bit of a dreamer, actually. Second, I've discovered that I write really long sentences, about 20 words per sentence on average, but use really small words, with my average being between four and five letters per word, typically. I've got quite the complex vocabulary, but apparently I don't use it in my own writing. I read big, write small. I'm actually not sure what that says about me. The final thing I realized is that I apparently really need to keep writing. I really could be just a coincidence, but I felt much happier in general this month while writing than I have in the recent past. It's a nice change of pace to have something to look forward to every day that requires the gears between the ears to churn into something more than cruise control.

Now that the sappy crap is done with, I'm getting back to talking about sleep. One of the reasons that I really miss my old copy editing job is because of the hours. Apparently working a 4 p.m. to midnight shift is just what I was supposed to be doing. I'd get up between noon and 2 p.m. every day and go to bed between 2 and 4 a.m. I never used an alarm clock, and I consider that to be one of my more happy periods since college. I was never tired, and this seems to be my natural cycle. Of course, life wasn't perfection then. The job had some interestingly unpleasant aspects, and those hours I loved kept me from seeing my wife while she was awake for more than two days a week. That last part is the main reason I quit and moved on after two years. It doesn't mean that I didn't love the schedule, though. Now, I have to follow a drastically different schedule. My alarm goes off before 6 a.m. and I'm often in bed by 9 p.m. This is a forced schedule though. Waking up verges on being physically painful and during weekends and holidays, my schedule starts sliding back into the darkness. During the longer breaks like Christmas and especially summer break, I'll often fall back into something resembling my old newspaper schedule with awakenings occurring around noon and sleep not coming until well after midnight.

I'm thinking about all of this at the moment because here I sit on a Friday, looking at the clock on my computer telling me it's 1:30 a.m., well after my normal bed time, and yet here I still am, having just finished Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood, nursing a Unibroue Chambly Noir, and puttering around on the computer. My eyes are heavy, but I just can't take myself to bed. I'll probably do the same thing on Saturday night and then struggle to get myself asleep by 10 p.m. on Sunday night to make that alarm on Monday not be quite so painful.

Now, I know I could just consciously keep my schedule consistent throughout the week regardless of what I have to do the next day, but how miserable would that be? Getting up early and going to bed is just so depressing. I do it Monday-Friday during the school year because I'm getting paid to do so, but I just can't bring myself to keep that soul-killing schedule when I don't have to.

Now, maybe as I'll age I'll start loving sunrises more and sunsets less like everyone seems to think you're supposed to, but as I slowly begin to close in on the end of my third decade, I haven't seen evidence of that process beginning yet. I'm not certain that I ever will.