I like sleep

I like sleep the way Brett Kavanaugh likes beer: too much for my own good. Although there are arguably less side effects to too much sleep as there are to too much beer: rarely have I woken up in someone else’s bed from sleeping. Rarely have I woken up at all, for that matter. And that is the beauty of sleep: it’s a pretty painless indulgence.

There is obviously one problem with it, though: when you don’t get enough sleep. This hadn’t happened to me in a while, thanks to my working-from-home-or-from-Starbucks lifestyle, so I had almost forgotten what it felt like. Last week, when we came back from Berlin, I sort of naturally followed my fiancée’s schedule and woke up in the morning, i.e. when she did. This had a lot to do with our rather hectic rhythm on the trip (for a vacation or otherwise): my body sort of got used to the trauma of waking before noon - on weekends.

And so I spent all of last week waking up at 7:45 (let’s not get carried away: I wouldn’t have gone with a 6am wake up call). And feeling pretty OK about it: I had great sessions in the gym, sort of worked (which is a lot by my normal standards), went out, did the laundry… You know, the life. Then came Saturday morning and my fiancée’s parachute jump: somehow, I was not prepared to wake up before 7:45 on weekends. By 15 minutes, but still: it’s the intention that counts.

I still did it (like I had a choice…) and we got to the parachute spot (almost) on time, but I needed coffee. Which I barely got: you can’t drink (coffee) and drive. At least not me: I would fear spilling it all over the jacket, or the rented car, or my fiancée (I can have wide movements). And most of our free time was spent in the car going to or from the air field, which was conveniently located in the middle of nowhere. By the time we got to have lunch in town, it was past 2pm, I had woken up at 7:30, driven for 3 hours, had had a single black coffee in the morning, obviously no time to get breakfast… To tell you the truth, I almost reverted to being carnivorous that day.

I still managed to keep it to pasta with cheese and mushrooms, and had about a pound of that, then a pecan pie, then a large coffee. But the damage was already done: my body had had enough. As I was splurging on pasta, I started getting a throbbing headache. Then my stomach sort of felt funny for a while (and by a while, I mean a couple of days). Then I didn’t know if I needed more or less coffee, more or less food, more or less sleep, more or less alarm calls…

Me: I’m not feeling too great right now…

Fiancée: Not surprising, you practically swallowed enough pasta to make a grown Italian cry…

Me: I’m not sure it’s the pasta…

Fiancée: Oh, what is it then?

Me: I think it’s the lack of coffee…

Fiancée: 2 coffees on a weekend is not enough for you?

Me: Not if we wake up at 7:30!

Fiancée: What’s so crazy about waking up at 7:30?

Me: After an entire week of waking up at 7:45? I say that’s self harm!

Fiancée: Do you realize that most people wake up at that hour every day?

Me: Nonsense. The cat doesn’t.

Fiancée: I said ‘people’. The truth is - you don’t have a problem with lack of sleep, or coffee. What you have, though, is a problem with too much of both.

Me: Not sleep I don’t!

Can’t say the same about coffee.