I <3 sleep, apparently
Back when I was copy editing starting at 6 a.m., I figured out that as long as I either napped in the afternoon or went to bed at a decently early hour, waking up in the morning wouldn't be a problem.
I figured the same would hold true now that I'm again starting work at 6 a.m., but there were a few X-factors I didn't quite anticipate.
Even though I get off of work at 3 p.m., I live so close to Mount San Jacinto that the sun slips behind the mountain in my neighborhood at 3:15 these days. By 5 p.m., it's pretty legitimately dark at my place.
Well, I'm never quite in the mood for a nap until close to 5, so lately, I've attempted to do some after-dark napping — with disastrous results.
Last Thursday night, I tried to take a nap at 7:30 p.m. Knowing that this was a dangerous prospect, I made sure all my clothes were ironed for the next day, but I set an alarm for a few minutes before 9 so that I could get up and watch Grey's Anatomy. Well, I quickly shut off that alarm and slept right on through to my 4:53 a.m. alarm.
Then, this Wednesday night, I got sleepy around 7:30 again and decided to try taking a one-hour nap on my couch as opposed to in my bed since it was already dark. I also turned on a light in the kitchen in hopes that it would help me wake up in time to see Glee.
Well, despite my use of an alarm, I woke up almost exactly seven hours later, at 2:30 a.m. Oops. Since I had had a full night's sleep, I considered staying awake but in the end decided to get two more hours of slightly more comfortable sleep in my bed.
Since I had to iron some clothes before I wore them to work on Thursday, I got up at 4:30, showered before the news and then had time after seeing the top stories to watch a whole episode of Degrassi while ironing. That was pretty sweet, as was not being all rushed in the morning.
But I was still somewhat dismayed over all this oversleeping. So Thursday afternoon, I vowed to take a nap right when I got home. Well, I actually got sleepy around 5. Seeing that it was pretty dark outside, I took all sorts of precautions: I slept on the couch and turned lights on all over the non-bedroom half of my apartment. And of course, I set an alarm... but I also made sure an early 4:30 one was set too.
Still, I was pretty serious about this one only being a short nap. I even held off on eating dinner until after nap time. Well, I slept through the "no más nap" alarm (and another week of Grey's) and woke up at 10:45 p.m.
I ate some string cheese and a chocolate Pop-Tart and then went back to bed until 4:30, at which point I awoke for another wonderfully leisurely morning. I even had time to cook an egg for breakfast during — you guessed it — some post-news Degrassi.
Now, waking up at 4:30 is something that I could potentially get used to, but not if I have to sleep through every other one of my non-working hours in order to do so.
As for tonight, it's almost that fateful hour of the never-ending nap, and I am feelin' tired. But I'm going to resist by staying up to watch some of the shows I missed during the past two nights' sleep fests — Modern Family, Cougar Town, Glee, The Office and Grey's Anatomy.
After this week's sleepapalooza, I know that if I go down now, there's no way I'm getting back up in time to celebrate Colin's birthday at 9 p.m.