Sleep Deprivation for a Better Tomorrow

Lately, I’ve been really annoyed that I never seem to have any time to do all the things I wanted to do on this trip. Make jewelry, read books, work on my own sites, draw, do crafts, etc. I haven’t actually had the time to do any of those things. I’ve read part of one book, War of the Worlds, while the rest of the time I work from waking till about 10 pm, when we eat, watch a movie, and sleep. I’m not very good about being strict with my time, so it’s no one else’s fault but my own. I don’t like to walk away from unfinished work and save it for the next workday. By the time I’m half done with one thing, I have 10 more things to do in most cases, and my brain just gets the idea that I can finish them all in one go rather than pace them out – even though it would probably take the same amount of time.

My solution, as of last night when we didn’t go to sleep, is to sleep less by trying out a polyphasic sleep pattern. I read about this in Cracked magazine online: “How To Hack Your Brain Into Awesomeness.” Yes, Cracked is a satirical magazine, but I actually trust their facts and love their lists of 10 quite a lot. Plus, we read more about it, including a sleep study by a man who did it for 120 days, and it sounds mostly great. Polyphasic sleep is basically scheduling your body to follow an irregular sleep pattern, and there are different kinds, like Uberman and Everyman. Everyman is 3 naps a day and one longer period of sleep, while Uberman is 6 20-30 minute naps a day, every 4 hours. We are going to try Uberman and have our first scheduled nap at 10 pm tonight.

At about 6 am this morning, after a long night of working and drinking Coke, we looked out the window and saw some really amazing fog and light playing havoc on the lake, so we walked on over and stared at it for a while.

I don’t actually remember the last sunrise I’ve seen, but I’m sure it was because I stayed up all night, not because I got up early. When the light started to really come in, it glared through the fog like an omnipotent atom bomb, like nothing I’ve ever seen, and in the case of an actual atom bomb, I wouldn’t live to tell about it anyway.

After sunset, we got ready and went to the Casino to see what they had to eat at the restaurant. We ended up getting Pancakes and sitting amongst the regulars, several old Cajun men sipping coffee, many in hunting clothes, and some stared at a happy bald man taking notes intently from a bible. When we got back from there, I started to notice how annoyed with me Chena was becoming. She sleeps when we sleep, and she had been up just as long as we. As soon as I sat on the bed, she huffed and puffed and circled till I lay down with her, where she dug her nose into my armpit and immediately crashed out. I wasn’t tired yet, and I ended up lying there with her for about an hour before my arm was completely asleep. It was sad and cute, but mostly sad. She still isn’t getting any sleep because we aren’t being very quiet while we’re awake on this schedule. I don’t exactly want her on this schedule, so I’m hoping she’ll try to sleep regardless of the noise soon.

The last day of Mardi Gras is Tuesday, and since we’ll be working weekdays, we probably won’t be going anywhere. The parade today in Morgan City that we missed ended in a pretty big tragedy when an 18-wheeler float went off the road, throwing 3 people off, two of whom had to be air-lifted to Lafayette (one with a broken neck, according to witnesses eating at the Mexican restaurant). I should have been there with my camera – though I might have lost interest were I really there to see something that horrible.

On Tuesday, Morgan City has one last parade before it’s over, something locals don’t seem too ecstatic about. If we can’t walk to it or cross the river somehow, we probably won’t go. I bought a book on the history and traditions of Mardi Gras and find that I like its history and traditions more than the holiday itself. I may get a last-minute itch to join in the fun, and I may not. I’m really too tired now to think about anything that takes so much energy.