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Mar
29
2012
I Have An Excuse This Week

Shhh! Do not disturb. I’m tapering. The “taper” is the period before a race (in my case, a ten-miler this Sunday), during which a runner reduces mileage and rests in preparation for the big day.

Tapering is the only part of my training that comes naturally to me, probably because it’s my normal state of being. Resting is one of my favorite activities, but I usually feel guilty about it. But this week, I’m not being lazy. Oh no. I am tapering.

When Dave saw me lying on the chaise after my last pre-race long run, watching TV while half asleep, he said, “Oh, you’re tapering now, eh?”

All week, baby.

Runners World would likely not approve of my tapering procedures, which consist of expending as little energy, physical or mental, as possible.

You guys, I am tapering so hard, I’m skirting the edge of coma.

Have you ever noticed how heavy your eyelids are? I have. Holding them up is about all the energy expenditure I can handle right now. Since I’m expected to keep my eyes open at work, I’ve made sure to hit snooze many extra times each morning. Sure, I’ve been late every day, but it’s only because I’m doing my necessary tapering.

The taper got off to a rough start due to the dance group who has decided that the parking lot for the park near my house is a good practice site. They practice for HOURS, loudly (with whistles!), every Sunday. The noise has been slowly eroding my will to live, but this week the walk to the phone to call the police also broke my taper, damn it.

Unfortunately, work also interrupts my taper. Since I have to be lucid during meetings, I make sure I recover from the mental exertion by staring blankly at my computer screen or out the window to rest my mind and body until my next meeting or I need to use the bathroom, whichever comes first.

I’ve let some writing ideas slosh around aimlessly in my head, but can’t expend the energy to translate my thoughts into a coherent post. I’ve only been publishing a post per week recently, but this week it’s intentional, because, I think you know where I’m going with this by now…I’m tapering.

Interrupting the flow of grinding, circular thoughts and staring out the window, an overdue notice for my credit card arrived this week. Huh. I guess they didn’t get the memo about my taper. 

My pre-race taper couldn’t have come at a better time. I am exhausted and overwhelmed. I have added a lot to my life without giving anything up. I’m reaching new lows in low energy.

In the evenings after work, I have had to do some extra tapering to catch up on the tapering I missed while commuting and working. This involves falling asleep while upright and walking home after work (a bizarre new experience, really), eating dinner in front of the TV, and then mindlessly watching “30 Going on 13” while eating ice cream, all while Dave does everything else.

Tuesday night, I sacrificed my taper to get up and hug him as he got ready to walk Chuck before bed and he said with about as much frustration as he’s capable of mustering, “It’s hard to work all evening while you get to sit on the couch and watch a movie.”

No, no, no. Dave, I’m tapering.

At least that’s my excuse for this week. Sorry, sweetie. And Tom Ridge didn’t believe me when I told him I was lazy!
someecards.com - When I die, I hope I'll be doing nothing, so people could say that at least I died doing what I love.

Feb
22
2012
An Ambush of Alarms

How do you feel about getting up in the morning? Do you need an alarm…or four?

When my alarm goes off on work days, I sometimes ask God to kill me. I don’t mean it, of course, but that gives you a taste for how much I hate waking up.

Thus, I use several alarms. To steal a phrase from Elvis, circa Aloha from Hawaii, I’d like to introduce the members of my alarm clock team to you, before we go any further:

For those of you counting at home, there were three alarm clocks in my reenactment video. Some of you might also remember Tocky, my fourth alarm clock who has been on the injured reserve list for several months.

While I waited to see if the Tocky people would send me a replacement (and they did, yea!), I purchased the light alarm clock in the first video. I thought it would be a more natural, less jarring way to wake up. Less jarring is right…zzzzzzzzzz. Also, the chimes gave me tinnitus. Well, I never stop hearing them anyway.

I had hoped being exposed to that light would make it easier to get out of bed in the morning. But that hasn’t happened. That will require more sleep.

A 14-year veteran of Catholic school, I find Lent to be a tonic for my otherwise weak will. So even though I’m no longer religious, I continue to make use of the Lenten season to work on stuff. I’m pretty sure Jesus won’t mind.

Even though I failed miserably last year, I still need to work on my sleep issues, so this year is Lenten promise: Sleep Edition, Part 2.

Lenten Promise 2012

1. No screens after 11pm.

2. In bed by midnight.

So let it be written…so let it be done.

Speaking of writing…since I do most of my blog-related crap during the late evening/night hours (as you can see by the clocks in the first video!), I expect my post frequency here to suffer. But if I get more rest, maybe I’ll make more sense when I do post. We can all look forward to that.

Do you give up anything/do something special for Lent? 

NOTE: For the title, I wanted to use an animal group name that starts with “A” for alarm or “C” for clock. Did you know a group of tigers is called an “ambush?” Seemed appropriate for my alarms. Also seemed appropriate given the mini stuffed cheetah who stars in the first video. Dave gave him to me after I finished my first half marathon and I mistook it for a tiger because I am a moron.

So I call him “chi-ger” now. By the way, a group of cheetahs is called a “coalition,” which I considered using for the title (“a coalition of clocks”), but that sounded a little too civilized for alarm clocks.

Jan
24
2012
Run to the Hills

The alarm sounded, music uploaded onto the clock interrupting their sleep.

Honest to God, she’s never going to change that music, he thought. At least “Run to the Hills” accurately reflects the annoyance of waking up this way.

I hate when she lets the alarm go on and on, it’s so inconsiderate. Doesn’t she realize how exhausted I am?

He rolled around with his anger for a bit and toyed with the idea of turning off the alarm before she got up, but that would really piss her off. He considered an escape from the room, but he didn’t have the energy to right himself. His movements always felt awkward in the morning.

He tried one last time to roll over, but felt like he waded through thick brush. After about 30 seconds, he gave up and allowed himself to roll over onto his back. Positioned just right, he could muffle the sound of the alarm and rest.

He dreaded the days she slept through the alarm. She would check the time, panic, and start spewing profanities about the alarm’s uselessness, making him wince. Yeah, blame it on the clock. Why can’t you just go to bed earlier, woman?

After about a year of this torture, he couldn’t take it anymore. He cracked. Fuck this noise, he thought.

He made sure the alarm would never sound again. It didn’t help her get out of bed anyway. Silence, blessed silence, and rest awaited. 

 

This post was inspired by the Write on Edge RemembeRED writing prompt on personification: “tell a piece of your story from the point of view of an object who bore witness.”

This post is written in memory of my Tocky, who tried to roll around (as you can see from the video, pretty half-heartedly) and play music (only three songs worth, though it held many more) to wake me up for about a year, and then decided he’d had enough of my nonsense and my thick shag carpet and died an untimely death. After much back and forth with the company, they promised to send me a new one. We’ll see how Tocky2 fares.


Write on Edge: RemembeRED

Aug
16
2011
Deprived

We sat in silence in the back of the cab. The driver wanted to share one of his poems. Oh God, I didn’t think this ride could get any worse. The driver probably thought we were flying to a funeral. No, we were going on vacation.

Six months earlier I had broached the subject of a “big trip” to celebrate our tenth anniversary. We earn a good living, we don’t have kids tying us down, why don’t we ever go anywhere, do anything exciting? We settled on Belgium. Exotic enough to mark the occasion, but comfortable since I had lived there for a semester in college.

At first, excitement fueled marathon internet research. There was so much to do. After much mental hand-ringing, I booked an apartment and a flight and was too overwhelmed to do more.

A few weeks before our departure, I started to panic. I would never be ready in time. I asked Dave for ideas. I rejected his suggestions as not sufficiently informed by our books or my inflexible idea of what it meant to be ready.

I read the travel guides cover to cover. I spent hours searching the internet, printing custom maps, creating spreadsheets with sight-seeing and restaurant ideas (sorted by location). All while worrying about being ready.

I became fixated on the perfunctory section in the travel guide about security. Somehow “be aware of your surroundings” turned into an internet search that uncovered a murder over a MP3 player on the Brussels metro.

Dave used his iPod all the time. He was trusting and not very observant. I became convinced something bad could happen to him on this trip. Rationally I knew this was extremely unlikely, but my mind kept conjuring up terrifying scenarios, including death, anyway. No trip was worth any of these scenarios. 

I started to dread my looming…vacation.

When we arrived in Brussels, I was horrified to find my French had deteriorated so badly I couldn’t communicate. I hadn’t prepared enough, I wasn’t ready. The first morning, I couldn’t finish my breakfast. Worse, I could feel my body about to reject what I’d already eaten. Even though I was exhausted, my insomnia the first night didn’t surprise me. Rick Steves had warned me about that.

Surely I would sleep the second night. I got comfortable and tried to clear my mind. After hours of lying still without sleep, I tucked deeper into the fetal position and stuck my hands under my chin. My fingers rested lightly on my neck and I felt my heart pound at double my resting heart rate. Images and thoughts raced through my mind, unintelligible but disturbing. I did not sleep for one minute.

The nausea didn’t let up. In a country we had selected in large part for the food, I ate only to avoid passing out. Walking around the city, I felt weighed down by my brand new pants dragging on the ground.

Midway through the week, we sat at the small kitchen table in the dreary apartment. I choked down tiny bites of takeout. I worried about getting sick on our trip to Bruges the next day. I felt guilty Dave wasn’t getting to eat any real food, that I was ruining this trip for him.

I wanted to tell him I’d been counting down the days until it was over and how worried I was that I couldn’t even enjoy a vacation. All I could say was “I just want to go home.” The words caught in my throat and I sobbed.

I made a deal with whoever might be listening. If I got through this vacation, I would figure out why I made everything so difficult and fix it.

—————————————————–

This post is in response to this week’s RemembeRED writing prompt.

“This week we’d like you to write about a moment in your life when you knew something had to change drastically. Really explore the moment.”

I decided the word limit should be 619 words. I managed to hit the mark exactly!

“How was your trip” was never such an unwelcome question. I do have some pleasant memories of the trip, like the way Dave held my hand. He was steady and comforting and wonderful.

Dave told me after the trip that all my rules (no iPod!) freaked him out so much he was afraid of the little old ladies who’d tried to strike up a conversation with us on the train to Bruges. I’m sure they planned to stab him for his iPod, then sell me into slavery.

This was really hard to share. I’m telling myself everyone has things they want (need) to change. And that being open about it can only help.

Jul
31
2011
I’m Still Yawning

I’m not in the best frame of mind to write a post, particularly about the sleep experiment. But I’ll start with the positives of week 1:

  • The first two nights, I turned off all screens by 11pm and was in bed before midnight.
  • My average bedtime (12:39am) was about 40 minutes earlier this week than last week.
  • I was generally more aware of the time at night.
  • I got out of bed before 8am (considerably so except for Friday) every day except today.

But:

  • I didn’t really get more sleep this week. I got up earlier for work, to run, etc… than usual. So I averaged 6 hours per night this week, the same as last week.
  • By Friday morning, my body revolted and I got up an hour late for work. So I had to stay late on Friday, which I hate doing.
  • I took a big step back last night. It’s tempting to blame it all on Dave, so I will! He was three hours late in getting home and didn’t call (bad Dave!) and I was worried. And the later it gets/more tired I get, the harder it is to stop picturing him in a ditch somewhere. So I didn’t get to bed until past 3am, after he was safely home (and I’d killed him).
  • I couldn’t drag my ass out of bed until after 10 this morning and I was starving, so Dave and I went out for breakfast, in lieu of my official “Happy Fun Time.” Going out was pleasant, but I hate the (oh so familiar) feeling of having burned so many daylight hours sleeping. And I’m upset with myself for screwing up my frigging Happy Fun Time the very first week (the irony of being so irritated over something I call Happy Fun Time is not lost on me).
  • Worst of all, my eye pressure/cluster headache isn’t gone, and I was more aware of feeling tired this week than I’ve been in a while.

Disturbingly, I also almost passed out at work on Thursday. I was standing for awhile at a retirement party (during which it took all my strength to stop from grabbing my soon to be ex-colleague’s pant leg and begging her to take me with her) and in the middle of a conversation with my boss, I got that tingly, hot (and not in a good way), light-headed feeling I’ve learned from embarrassing past experience means “sit the fuck down right now.” So I had to interrupt my boss to say I didn’t feel well and needed to sit. Smooth. Later when I tried to make light of it by saying “I’m a delicate little flower,” my boss’ response was “you look pretty sturdy.” If she’d said that 15 pounds ago, I probably would have cried.

In summary, I’d rate my sleep performance this first week as in need of improvement. I definitely think I can do better next week. I’d like to average 7 hours of sleep this week. Wish me luck.

Jul
24
2011
Emergency Sleep Experiment

Even though I am a night owl and love the evenings and late nights as they stretch out before me, I need sleep more.

Since I started getting up earlier a few months ago, I’ve lost focus. I’m scatterbrained (more than usual!) and have difficulty making decisions. A couple of weeks ago, I missed my metro stop on the way to work, which I never do. Later that same commute, I walked into traffic turning into me because I thought the green arrow meant I could walk. Oops.

So my brain is mush.

I’m also cranky. If you know me, you know being cranky isn’t all that unusual for me, but I’ve been especially cranky. And also sensitive–quick to turn every interaction into a rejection of me as a person. Basically, a joy to be around (if anyone ever were around which isn’t often since no one likes me–see what I did there with the example sensitiveness?!?)

I’m also just sick and tired of everything. While it’s quite possible that some things in my life need shaking up (I’m looking at you, work), I’d rather think about this with a brain that works instead of one that forgets the meaning of important traffic signals.

Add to all that a week-long bout of left eyelid twitching followed by a most unwelcome four-day (and counting!) cluster headache focused near my left eye, and you’d think my body is trying to tell me something…

I’m still functioning, doing my job, living my life, getting by quite well, considering, but I don’t want to get by. I don’t want to live in crisis mode when there’s no crisis other than I can’t get my ass into bed.

So even though I’ve had no luck dealing with my compulsion to stay up late for over 20 years, this is an emergency. Since I’m a social scientist, I thought I could make this fun by turning it into an experiment.

Introducing the Emergency Sleep Experiment!

What would happen if I could just make myself go to bed earlier for a couple of weeks? Would I feel better? Would I have more energy? Would my focus improve? Would I stop being so cranky and sensitive? Would I stop hating people? Would this fucking cluster headache and eye twitching go away? Would there be world peace and a baby red panda delivered to my door?

I don’t know. Let’s find out, shall we?

The rules of the Emergency Sleep Experiment:

1.) Go upstairs by 11pm.

2.) No screens after 11pm (not even you, O Delectable iPad!).

3.) Lights out by midnight.

4.) Get up by 8am, even on weekends (trying to “catch” up on sleep during weekends backfires on me)

5.) Institute “Happy Fun Time” to delay gratification from weeknights to a weekend morning.

Number 5 is the critical piece. Sheer willpower (it’s 11pm, just go to bed!) isn’t going to work. So the idea behind “Happy Fun Time” is to “bank” time I now spend watching TV, blogging, etc… during the wee hours of my weekday evenings and moving that time to a weekend morning. When I don’t want to go to bed, hopefully it will work to tell myself I’ll be able to spend Saturday or Sunday morning doing whatever I damn well please. Hopefully the promise of the “Happy Fun Time” will get my ass out of bed on weekend mornings.

Starts tonight. So I need to sign off and enjoy my last hour before my new big girl bedtime. Wish me luck. Please feel free to share any suggestions.

Jul
23
2011
How I Get My Lazy Ass Out Of Bed

I’m So Tired, I Haven’t Slept A Wink…

Staying up too late is the worst thing I do to myself and I apparently have no willpower to stop it, as evidenced by about 20 years of being unable to stop it. Ironically, I love sleep. I just don’t seem to want to do it at 11pm (or midnight, or 1am). 

The Sleep Equation: Bedtime

My Lenten promise of getting into bed earlier and thus getting more sleep was a complete bust. During Lent my plan was to attack the first, and probably most important, part of the sleep equation: my bedtime. The idea was to get into bed by 11pm. That happened exactly zero times. I got into bed before midnight four times. My average bedtime in the time period before Lent was 1:07am. My average bedtime during Lent was 1:17am. Oops.

The Sleep Equation: Wake Time

Not surprisingly, I never want to get out of bed in the morning. My late mornings affect getting to work on time, how much I can accomplish on days off, and what time I’m tired at night (perpetuating the vicious cycle of sleeping in and then staying up late). I’m sick of feeling like a deadbeat, of missing out on weekend mornings with Dave, of running when it’s already sticky hot in the summer, of feeling behind all the time.

I subjected my Twitter followers to a daily update on my Lenten promise failings and on a day when I lamented being late to work, someone suggested moving my alarm clock across the room.

Enter Tocky, The Alarm Clock That Runs Away

Tocky is advertised as an alarm clock that will “jump from your nightstand and roll away to get you out of bed.” Dave actually got it for me for Christmas. I was 95 percent amused and 5 percent offended. OK, I get it, I’m a deadbeat!

I used it a couple of times in January, but was not impressed. I revisited Tocky during Lent and now I find it much more useful.

The first few times I used Tocky, I placed it on my nightstand, as recommended. This is a very dumb idea. No one’s reflexes are too slow to stop Tocky from jumping (falling, if we are being honest here) off their nightstand. Tocky never made the plummet to my shag carpet, so I concluded I was considerably smarter than Tocky and put it away until failing at Lent.

My first Lenten attempt involved putting Tocky on the floor on the side of the bed I use to get up, but far enough away that I wouldn’t be able to grab it. When Tocky went off the next morning, it rolled right to me. Dumb ass.

So then I put Tocky on the other side of the room. Success! Having to get out of bed, walk around the bed, and reach down to turn Tocky off turned out to be sufficient most mornings to stay out of bed.

Tocky Details

Tocky is expensive, he is $69 (yes, Tocky is a “he”). And quite frankly, given the way I use him, his $69 rolling capabilities are completely unnecessary. But the novelty of it adds some fun to the horror of getting out of bed in the morning.

One fun thing is you can upload MP3s to use as your alarm. You can also record a message, or you can just stick with the cute little electronic gurgling noises Tocky makes.

On the annoying side, the button used to set up Tocky is hard to press and it doesn’t always respond the first time. The dial used to change the clock and alarm times is very touchy. It either spins around uncontrollably fast or won’t respond at all.

If you really feel you need the rolling aspect of Tocky, keep in mind he doesn’t roll around very long, only for about 30 seconds. Lazy ass.

Also, the music option is misleading. While you can upload up to two hours worth of MP3s, Tocky shuts off after 10 minutes. So I suggest selecting two to three songs that will make you want to get out of bed.

Here is a video of my Tocky in action. “Run to the Hills” was an inspired choice, it seemed appropriate for a clock that’s supposed to run away from you and it’s pretty jarring first thing in the morning. As you can see, try as Tocky might, he’s no match for my shag carpet. I barely had to move my camera. He can move quite a bit more on a solid surface.

Results?

Tocky has definitely helped me get out of bed earlier. I’m no longer hitting snooze 800 times.

But I’m also getting less sleep now. I had hoped getting up earlier would eventually, naturally, push my bedtime back. That something would have to give if I were more tired. Unfortunately I’m even more stubborn than I thought. My bedtime hasn’t changed. So now instead of averaging about 7 hours of sleep per night (due mostly to hitting snooze on weekends), I’m down to an average of about 6 hours of sleep.

I miss my executive functioning.

Mar
21
2011
Playlist Week 10: Never Let Me Slip, Cause If I Slip, Then I’m Slippin

I’m challenging myself to get through a whole shuffle of my music collection on my iPod without skipping. Then I write about what I heard each week.

I didn’t get through many songs this past week since I only worked three days. I took some vacation time for a visit with my Mom and to go to the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament (CBS and the NCAA want me to call these the “second and third” rounds now that there are more play-in games, but I hate change) at the Verizon Center. The two Butler games that we saw were very exciting. And I’m not going to mention how adorable Brad Stevens is because that gets on Dave’s nerves.

The title of the post this week comes from “Nuthin But A G Thang” by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. As a metro commuter, I don’t get a chance to drive much. But recently I had to drive to a friend’s house and got to rock out with Sirius on the way. I heard several great songs during that drive including “Nuthin’ But A G Thang.” I also heard Bobby Brown’s “My Prerogative” from the very beginning and was overly excited about it. That song came out during my sophomore year of high school and over 20 years later I still remembered most of the words, right down to “Yo Teddy, kick it like this.” Maybe I’ll download that song after the shuffle is over, you know, if I feel like it (I mean, I made this money, you didn’t, right Ted?). Hopefully I sounded a little better than this guy singing…

One of my favorite lines in “Nuthin But A G Thang” is the one from the post title, you know, about the slipping. When I googled the lyrics to make sure I had the line right, I found someone who called this line one of the worst in rap. I disagree, I think Dre has deeply and profoundly captured what happens to me when I allow myself to slip on something difficult. One slip, then I’m slipping, so I can’t let myself slip. This is deep, know what I’m saying? OK, I’m just very amused by this line.

So how is my sleep challenge to be in bed by 11pm going? It’s a good thing I don’t believe that doing this as a Lenten promise will get me closer to God because I’m failing (I guess I should say slippin). Almost two weeks in and I haven’t been in bed by 11 once. The first two nights I was in bed before midnight, which is a vast improvement over my usual bedtime, but lights out was basically my usual time because I messed around on my iPad for awhile. I had hoped that physically being in the bed would make it easier for me to give in to the exhaustion and go to sleep, but apparently not. The siren call of the brightly screened electronics is very seductive. Then I had to work late a lot to prepare for the vacation time and reverted right back to carving an evening for myself out of my sleep time, so I’m back to 1am again.

I hoped to get back on track during my vacation time, but with Mom visiting and late nights watching basketball, and the ability to sleep in since I didn’t have to work, I’ve been staying up just as late as before vacation and I’ve been getting out of bed later. I go back to work tomorrow and I’m going to try moving my alarm clock so that I can’t turn it off without getting out of bed.

Here is the weekly playlist summary:

* Songs listened to this week: 71

* Completed: 47%

* Number of double or triple shots: zippo

* Percentage of songs that came up during running that were so totally not helpful in motivating my running: 14%

The song “Starship Edelweiss” was very motivating to my running, except for when it made me start laughing.

Speaking of laughing while running, there was also Ween’s “Fat Lenny.” I almost used the line “Fat Lenny knows what it is to be Fat Lenny,? ’cause he’s Fat Lenny” as the post title this week.

* Song that disproves my assertion that I don’t like Peter Gabriel-era Genesis songs that I haven’t heard Phil Collins sing: “Dancing With the Moonlit Knight” At least I don’t have any memory of ever hearing Phil sing this.

* Number of songs that I’m so totally deleting:  at least 1 (LL Cool J “Cheesy Rat Blues,” I did NOT have to rip all of Mama Said Knock You Out)

* Random memory:  The Judybats “All Day Afternoon”

I don’t exactly remember when I first tried running, but I know I ran off and on in college. The Judybats’ Pain Makes You Beautiful CD fueled many a happy run and walk along the river from campus to Genesee Valley Park.  Occasionally there would be a sunny pleasant day and listening to this while being outside would make me happy. The weather on Friday this week was so lovely and running that morning reminded me of those sunny days in fall and spring during college.

Mar
9
2011
I Gets No Sleep*

Getting more sleep was my key goal for 2011. Here’s an update…not so much.

If anything, my sleep deprivation might be worse so far in 2011 because there’s just so much that I want to do. Like I said in my year-end post, I resent the small amount of free time I have so I just steal hours from my sleep. Recently, what’s been worse than the stubborn drive of mine to stay up is the sheer inertia of my exhaustion. I’m not even actively choosing to still be awake anymore, I am just too tired to move from the couch downstairs to the bed upstairs. Listen to how messed up that is–too tired to go to bed.

Part of the problem is the winter running group I joined to help keep me motivated to train for a 10 mile race in April. I did this last year too and I forgot about how much it messed with my sleep schedule. Every Saturday since mid-January, I’ve had to get up earlier than I want to–about as early as I get up for work. Getting up early six days in a row means that I sleep like the dead on Saturday night. Like snooze 4 or 5 times without being aware of it deep.  I get up really late on Sundays and then have trouble getting to sleep on Sunday night and thus start off each week already sleep deprived. You would think after 9 weeks of this (and 16 weeks last year) I would have figured out a way to get a handle on this, but apparently not.

I’m pulling out the big guns on this sleep issue…LENT. While I’m sure the Pope would excommunicate me if he was even aware I existed (I am Satan, you know!), there are certain things that stay with a person after 14 years of Catholic school. One of those things for me is the Lenten promise. I’ve long since passed the time that the fear of God made me do this, but for some reason I have better willpower to do difficult things during Lent.

So a few years ago I decided to take advantage of this situational willpower of mine. Since then I have given up fried foods, TV (!), and dessert (twice!) for Lent, all successfully. Two years ago, I tried sleep for my Lenten promise and not once did I go to bed by the appointed hour of 11pm (or even by midnight). My sleep problem is a pesky little bitch.

But I’ve had enough. I’m so tired lately that my executive functioning is noticeably off. I’m exhausted yet wired all at the same time. I give my best hours to work, so that means it’s really my personal life that is suffering the most and that’s not acceptable.

Given the recent difficulty I have had physically getting myself to the bed from the couch where I’m entrenched with my entertainment, my Lenten plan this year is simple. Each day during Lent my goal is to be in bed at 11pm. I’m not saying lights out, I’m saying physically in the bed. So as long as I am in bed, I can read, screw around on the iPad, or do anything else that can be done in bed (!) after 11pm. If I start getting groggy like I have been, rather than having to forklift my ass off of the couch and go all the way upstairs, I can just close my eyes and drift off to dreamland.

NOTE: I’m finishing this post around 11:10pm, so already you can see how fantastically this is going. Love the irony of breaking my Lenten promise on day one because I was writing a blog post about my Lenten promise. Oy vey!

*title comes from ‘Insomnia’ by Faithless, which ironically came up on my iPod shuffle last night during my run