A few months ago I wrote a series of posts complaining about how incredibly exhausted I was in many, many ways. Right now, I’m only exhausted in one way – Julie need sleepy. But I’m doing it to myself, and the thing is, I feel great about it.
As I’ve mentioned, late nights are my forte. I do my best work between midnight and sunrise, when the rest of the world seems to be asleep and it’s just me, the quiet, and some major doses of caffeine to keep me going. Last night I stayed up ’til about 4:30am, starting some major projects and doing my first solo aquarium water changes (weeks overdue) while Adam got a few hours of sleep before leaving for work at 5am. Evey and I crashed out for a few hours, woke up once to the incessant grinding of an aquarium filter that had, for some reason, stopped sucking in water (not good, not good), then got up for the day around 10:30.
And I’ve been going ever since.
I’ve actually accomplished a lot in the past 36 hours. I bought my plane tickets to New York for a private gig I’m playing, replaced the air filter in my KIA, paid bills, sent some important mail, ordered heartworm and flea/tick meds for Evey, sent some overdue emails, etc. The list isn’t any shorter, of course, because as soon as you start working on one thing you think of 5 more that are probably more important.
But my one great weakness isn’t the list, and it isn’t my penchant for sleep deprivation.
It’s frickin’ Text Twist.
I’m a sucker for puzzle games – Dr Mario, Snood, Pop ‘n Drop, Bounce Out, Brick Breaker, Solitaire, anything that lets me set myself on auto pilot while my brain shuts down for a necessary break. But there’s a strange phenomenon with me and Text Twist, and I’ve only ever encountered it in one other mind-blanking game – Pipe Dream. And the phenomenon is that I cannot get it out of my head.
Not kidding. I actually had to quit Text Twist cold turkey last fall because I couldn’t fall asleep. 5- and 6-letter groups would form in my head of their own volition, and I’d find myself spinning them into 3-, 4-, 5- and 6-letter words before I realized what was happening. I couldn’t shut them off. And worse, the sets were never consistent – I’d start with “WANDER” and before I realized it, the letters had shifted to “FLIGHT.” Hours of lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to shut off the letters.
Pipe Dream used to do it to me, too – I’d get trapped in a cycle of ill-fitting pieces, trying to fit them together into a smooth path for the green goo seeping slowly toward the exit. It was pretty sad. It is pretty sad – some people can’t sleep because they’re trying to solve a major crisis at work, or because the state of starving children in Africa is overwhelming them. I get green goo and scrabble.
Just, um, one more game…
