Friday, April 11, 2014

You're Not Getting Older, You're Getting Tireder

Val is tired tonight, my friends. Tired, like a marathon runner named Jean-Paul whose alarm was thwarted by a fuse blown by a hot tub.

Getting to school today was a bit like crossing the wide prairie with my lover Ike, two yoke of oxen, one spotted hog, a tall Shanghai rooster, and an old yeller dog. There was road resurfacing on two of the three ways I can get there. The third way is really not an option, miles out of my way, through territory of which I am unfamiliar. I guess I could do it if it meant losing my job. But it didn't, so I took the second of the two work zones. Val does not like disorder and change. It's draining.

Just walking from T-Hoe on the school parking lot into the building proper was a Herculean task. Halfway up the sidewalk, I wanted to lay down in the newly-sprouted blades of grass around the downspout. Who would know? Besides everybody watching me on the camera, and those faculty who pulled up after I sank into a Rip Van Winkle slumber. I was as drowsy as Dorothy in a field of poppies. It was as if Morpheus himself had hopped onto my back and wrapped his arms around me. Commercial Lunesta moths circled my head like stars around the noggin of a poorly-skilled cartoon boxer.

Now that I'm getting on in years, perhaps five hours of sleep per night is not quite enough.

7 comments:

  1. Five hours of sleep a night is definitely not enough.

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  2. That's how much sleep I get every night. Often, if I go to bed early, I wake up in the middle of the night...5 hours after I hit the sheets.

    (I'm worried I would too-closely resemble a super model if I got oodles of sleep, since they all tout as one of their beauty secrets that they get lots of sleep. That kind of gorgeousness would be a burden I could not handle.

    Oh, no. The frumpy, the droopy life for me.)

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  3. I seldom get much more than 5 hours of sleep at night. That's why I enjoy those 2 hour naps during the day.

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  4. Stephen,
    I'm starting to think so, too. It's hard to fend off the world as it conspires against me when I'm yawning and dragging myself through the day.

    *****
    Sioux,
    Thank you for saving the world from your gorgeousness. You are as selfless as my sweet, sweet Juno. If you lived nearer, I would give you a handful of cat kibble.

    *****
    joeh,
    I would enjoy two-hour naps during the day, but I might wake up with inappropriate pictures drawn on my face with a Sharpie from my own desk drawer. Some of my students fancy themselves to be future tattooists.

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  5. I feel it, too. Long ago, when I was a mere child, this longing for sleep during the day was referred to as "Spring Fever". I could never figure it out, I didn't have a fever .......

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  6. No way, you need at least 8-10 hours for sure!

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  7. Kathy,
    So curious. Why would we want to sleep during the day when spring is busting out all over?

    *****
    Lynn,
    Can you write a doctor's note for me so I can take time off for sleeping?

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