I'll Sleep When I'm Dead...(Think Warren Zevon, not The Cure.)

This is not a morbid post. Nor is it a depressive, and subsequently depressing, one. Instead, it's about the inevitability and plain certainty of my circadian rhythms. I know that I wrote about this before, but I dealt mostly with the physiological side of it, and neglected to mention the strange mental effect that it has.

I've tried numerous times, and I've said this numerous times, to recalibrate my sleep pattern to a relatively normal 10am-12am schedule. I've compromised, and tried to reconcile this with a somewhat resigned, and aforementioned, nocturnality. This simplifies things way too much.

In fact, I can be quite lively in the morning, and during sporadic chunks of the afternoon, only to slump considerably at dusk. Until around midnight, when I inexplicably spring into action like I got a B-12 shot. I write, temper this with "writing" on this blog, read, watch horrible movies from the '80s, and listen to music or podcasts. By the way, I cannot understand some people's preference or love for audiobooks. This could degenerate into an extremely long rant on audiobooks in general and then I'll end up railing against the Kindle and so on, so I'll simply stop.

Eventually, I'll fall asleep around 5 am, only to wake up at 10. Then I'll be awake until about 5, when I'll crash and sleep until I'm poked awake for dinner, for which I usually have no appetite. This is more of a problem lately, because my last aparment was much too vast for me to get around efficiently, and subsequently I've been staying at my mother's house in Indiana. Wherever she or Ralph (her fiance emeritus, if you will) wants, I'll usually veto but ultimately eat. The problem is--I won't be hungry, and won't eat much. Fortunately, my sedate lifestyle precludes massive weight loss, and so I remain a respectable weight. Luckily, though, my brother Ryan, Anthony, and I recently moved into a new apartment in Logan Square that I absolutely adore, and which has a much more manageable layout. I like True Blood, though, and cable there will not be installed until Monday, so I'll stay in Indiana until then and enjoy my HBO. It'll be rough, though, because the state's nickname, "The Crossroads of America," truly validates my joke about why they call it that: because no one wants to stay, and ends up just walking all over it.

Now here is the ultimate case-in-point: it's about 3:30, and I want to watch "Barton Fink," which is on now. Around 5, I'll try to sleep, but fail, since an entire flock of birds have set up shop outside my window. (By the way, give me an ambulance or copious honking of horns, and I'm fine. This, though, throws me into a fugue state.) They start chirping around 4, and by 6 their tweeting becomes the object of my palpable ire, much like its compromised name's web phenomenon and bane of my existence, Twitter. By some unknown inclination, I'll fall asleep, until about 10am. Then I'll eat something easy, like granola or Yogurt, watch television and/or read (currently Shakespeare's "Henry IV, Part II," for the umpteenth time), and feel the Sandman, a la that Metallica song. However, I won't actually fall asleep until about 5, wake up for an unwanted dinner, or for the gym, around 7. Then I'll move, or not, like a zombie until about midnight. Then repeat.

This does have its advantages, though, because I actually read and write a tremendous amount. The only problem is that nobody knows this (except visitors, who know not what they will witness during the course of their stay), and so I'm sure I appear dilatory and just downright lazy or inactive. Not true. Like I said, I'm truthfully amazingly productive these days.

Just wanted to set the record straight, once and (hopefully) for all.

Rick