Where have I been?

I regret that I haven't posted in a while. There's been plenty to talk about: the election, the economy, work, the lady who snapped at me in the Metro station and the absurd news stories are never in short supply. I've been forming many blog entries in my head, but they never make it to the computer. I'm terrible at keeping in touch and I owe you an explanation. It's not a very flattering one.

My absence from the blog is for the same reason I do a lot of silly things: sleep. Sleep has always been my weakness; it accounts for a ridiculous number of late passes in grade school and high school, it's the reason I never saw a Saturday morning cartoon, and it's the reason I'm always running late for work. Always. I hate that sleep has interfered during every stage of my life so far.

Last week I woke up 45 minutes before work, hopped out of bed and took the quickest shower ever, threw on some clothes that have a style I call "business casual for slackers." When I looked in the mirror before I walked out the door I had pillow marks that looked like Frankenstein creases down the side of my face. I ran to the Metro stop and elbowed my way up and down the escalators and paced back and forth waiting for the train.

[note: this isn't the unusual part, so far I've pretty much described my morning ritual.]

I showed up at work about 10 minutes late and hid in my office until my pillow face went away. Around 10:30 or 11:00, my boss walked by and said, "Did you just get here?" No. I had been there for hours. But how would she know that? She graduated from MIT and she knows numbers. The number was 9:00 and I wasn't there.

I can't do this anymore. I need to get my fatigue or my laziness or my whatever-it-is under control. So, for now I have been going to bed early every night. Even if I have to take a sleeping pill (and sometimes I do) I need to do more sleeping at night and less in the morning. I get home from work, eat dinner, catch the Daily Show and Colbert Report at 8:00 and watch C-Span or the news while I get ready for bed. If I haven't gone to bed by 10:30, I take a pill and make it happen. Sound dull? It is. But I didn't come to D.C. to continue coasting through life. I find the time to do grocery shopping, do laundry, and an occasional happy hour but I haven't made time for the blog.

So, that's where I've been. The good news is, this is temporary. I'm waiting for a call-back from a sleep clinic in Bethesda so I can schedule two tests. One will be the overnight sleeping-with-wires-everywhere test, followed by waking up and taking a series of naps to find out how long it takes me to fall asleep and how deeply I sleep during a short nap. I had the overnight test a few years ago but it was inconclusive. This time we're going to do it up right.

I expect the sleep study will happen sometime in October, but the scheduler hasn't called me back since we spoke on Thursday. Perhaps I should call him and get this taken care of for once and for all. I've waited long enough. I don't know how it will work out, but I know two things for sure: I can't keep stressing every morning and I can't bear this boring ritual I'm in now. Speaking of now, it is 10:38 p.m. and past my bedtime. Good night.

[edit: finished proofreading, it's 10:45. The blog gets me in trouble.]