Tuesdays are my early days, when I have to be awake at 4 AM and out the door at 4:40 at the VERY latest, so I make sure that I get as much done as possible before bed. Lately, because I have rehearsals Monday night and we often don't get done until after 10 PM, I've been turning the bed down, laying out my pajamas and clothes for the next day, making breakfast, and setting alarms before I go to rehearsal so all I have to do when I get home is take off my makeup, brush my teeth, and crawl into pjs and bed and pray for deep oblivion for the next 5 hours.
Last night, I set my two regular alarms and slowly fell asleep, anxious that I wouldn't get enough of it. My radio went off at 3:45, as set, but I was confused because I had set my beeping alarm to go off just before the radio did. My beeping alarm clock is 25 minutes fast, so I always have to do a little groggy math before setting it so it goes off a few minutes before or after my radio. When the beeping alarm goes off, I check the time on the radio to see how much time I really have left, and either turn over for five more minutes or get out of bed. This morning, however, when I checked Mr. Radio against Mr. Beepy at about 4, Mr. Beepy was suddenly 35 minutes slow--it said 3:25 AM, and my confused brain thought "how odd that it's suddenly 35 minutes fast the other way". I looked over to Blue Clock on the dresser, which said it was 3 AM. It took a few seconds to register that something was wrong. Very wrong. How in the world could Mr. Radio be going off at 4, but Mr. Beepy hadn't gone off yet and Blue Clock was still at 3 AM?
It made no sense to me. None. Until I got up and checked my cell phone. Yup. 3 AM. A full hour before I had planned to get up, and only 4 hours of sleep in my brain. I checked my phone twice, just to be sure. Somehow, I had set Mr. Radio an hour ahead. I have no idea how that happened, but I had the alertness to set it back to its normal time, reset the alarm on both Mr. Radio and Mr. Beepy, and go back to a fitful sleep until 4. I was still confused and worried that maybe Mr. Radio was right and the other three were wrong. I almost turned on my computer as well, just to be on the safe side, but I'm glad I didn't because that would have meant another 10 minutes of being awake. I'm barely functional on 6 hours of sleep, let alone less than 5. That extra restless sleep made a difference today, but not much.
I am anxiously awaiting leaving work and hitting the hay as soon as possible, and annoyed with myself for not being able to figure out what was wrong this morning. Let's be honest, I'm also annoyed that I couldn't leave rehearsal early last night...it'll pass. It practically has. But as long as I'm tired and my stupid eye keeps twitching and stinging, I may break out into tears at any given moment today.
Let that be a lesson to you! Always make sure you clocks ALL have the same time! Too bad setting Mr. Beepy to the right time will just be confusing... *sigh*
I'm dead tired.
3 comments:
Even if your clocks are all set to the right time, that's no guarantee that your brain is. I've woken up on more than one occasion in the middle of the night convinced that it is in fact day time already and all my clocks are wrong and the sun is up even though it is pitch black outside. Only after stumbling around my place for several minutes and looking at every clock I own have I been able to convince myself that I haven't missed work and I should go back to sleep.
Those are weird nights.
After reading a million books on sleep for Malia back in the good ol' days, I read that if a baby gets less then 10 hours or an adult gets less then 5, that it's pointless to even go to sleep... I'm not saying this just out of experience... apparently it's been scientifically proven.... well, and I have experience.
You know, Tiff, you're totally right (of course you are). There have been days when I've thought to myself "idiot. You might just as well have stayed awake for all the good you are!"
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