Sleep deprivation and you

Or, to be more accurate, me.

Thursday night was the beginning of this week’s numerous festivities. Apparently someone had recently recovered from a case of mono, and so a Mono[-color] Party was held. Getting a top and a bottom to match precisely that are not black and white is rather more difficult than I thought it would be. I wasn’t spot on, but it was close enough for a house full of mostly-drunk individuals. This night was also interesting because of the B.Y.O.Bottle option; my self-mixed bottle ran dry fairly early, but there were no shortage of girls walking around with full bottles of Bacardi and Malibu to give me donations, which were promptly mixed with elixir from the party’s rootbeer keg (yes, rootbeer) and consequently imbibed. Needless to say, the charity of Josh did rather well that evening, and my roommates and I ended up arriving back at the apartment at 3:30AM. Bed ensued.

And then work at the bright and early hour of 8AM! Well, more like 9AM (I was a bit late), but I did wake up at 8AM, a feat I thought most impressive. The rest of day was fun but characterized by a general haziness. Work was done, I had a too long but thoroughly fun lunch with Claire, I ingested caffeinated beverages left and right, I hung out with Claire a bit more after work (oh craigslist personal ads, what entertainment you provide), and by this point the week’s trend of five-hours-a-night of rest coupled with the previous night’s debaucherous conduct and lack of sleep hit me like a string of Irish Car Bombs. I rode slowly home, stayed up even later (about 1AM), and at long last enjoyed the delicious comfort of my bed until 2PM saturday afternoon.

So I did get a little sleep, but sleep loss is supposedly cumulative, and I still felt the grasp of lethargy about my person after waking up and showering. I had to get passed this, however, as more partying was forthcoming! Got a call around 11:30PM and was invited over to an apartment party on Southside. I threw on some pants, grabbed a willing roommate, and headed over; actually had a really good time, too. There were a crowd of Irish summer visitors about who provided for most interesting conversation and colloquialisms (I’ll have to make sure to get “pissed off my tits” at some point), and we hung around until around 3:30AM at which point we walked home nuestros amigas and then went home ourselves. And then I had to wake up at 7AM to go skydiving.

It’s amazing how wakeful one can feel after a mere 2.5 hours of sleep. It’s almost as if your body was never given the chance to go into a state of complete rest in the first place, and so you wake up feeling about the same (or perhaps slightly more awake) than when you went to bed. Anyway, I woke up, showered, gave a courtesy human alarm clock call to the aforementioned amigas, and got some coffee. They picked me up at 8:15 and we began our drive into one of the hottest days I’ve ever experienced in northern California. This could have been exacerbated by the halfway-potent air conditioning or the black Cadillac’s black leather interior, but mostly I think the weather was just fucking hot! A few more degrees and I would have melted into the seat.

But we made it and skydiving was awesome. It was my second time tandem jumping (though I was accompanying a car full of virgins, if you will), and I got to try some new things, such as spins during free fall. Also got an altimeter and was charged with keeping track of the various altitudinal points of import, which was fun. No video or pictures for this one (so expensive!) but oh so worth it. If you’ve never jumped out of a perfectly good airplane, I suggest you try it, as it’s not something you’ll regret.

And now I’m sitting here on my wondrous two hours of sleep and writing this post. Unfortunately I’ve never been much of a napper so I doubt that’s in the cards, but I think I’ll have no trouble swinging a very early bedtime tonight, most likely dictated by the downward movement of the mercury as night approaches. Enjoy the end of your weekend, folks, and get more sleep than I do, for all our sakes.