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I’m trying this new health kick thing. Sort of.

For one, I’m eating a lot more vegetables. Most of the time, I think vegetables are to be thrown at people or used sparingly to enhance dishes based primarily on meat and cheese. Chicken quesadilla? Yeah, put a little salsa in that. Salsa = vegetable serving, only four more to go. This might be why I should really go see my doctor about the way my heart does the cha-cha when I try to exercise.

But more importantly for graduation purposes, I’m trying to break out of the cycle of stay up late, have a couple beers to get sleepy, wake up too early by fighting with alarm clock, drink a pot of coffee at work, sludge through unproductive zombified day, go home late and repeat. My friend K just managed to defend her dissertation without any assistance from an alarm clock, so why not me?

I’m four days into the less-beer, more-greens, more-sleep diet, and I’m as yet unconvinced. You would think that letting the body wake up gradually and naturally wouldn’t come with this totally doped-up feeling like your system hasn’t flushed the serotonin yet, but even after a few nights of 8+ hours, I have to furrow my brow and concentrate on the kitchen cart before I can remember what I need from it.

Coffee filters. Oh. Right. Now I put this
No you idiot, throw out the old one first. I knew that. I was just testing…me. Now I put the water in here, and, voila!
Is there any coffee in the filter? Oh. Right.

And while I was so proud of myself for getting up unassisted after 8 hours of sleep yesterday, that’s just not always going to work for me. I am a very vivid dreamer, and my brain has learned to use this to thwart me. Instead of getting up and hitting the snooze button, I now just dream about it. I know I was awake at a decent hour this morning, having grown too disturbed with being stuck in the wrong hotel room taking a shower with no clean towels before a wedding in the desert. I opened my eyes and the sun was up, but something in my head told me it was still too early for work.

It’s only 7 yet. Go back to sleep. How do I know? I can’t see the clock. Sure we can. It’s over there, see? 7:05 it says. But…but…isn’t it behind the desk partition? How can I see it from here? I need to get up and look. No, that’s right — but see, all we have to do is move the curtains aside — and see? Now we see the clock! Oh, yes, that’s a neat trick. Yep, 7:05. I guess I can go back to sleep.

So, having telekinetically moved things around to see a clock that existed only in my head while quite awake mind you, I mistakenly believed I would not be late for work and got back to the business of hiding from monkeys. In the Great Smoky Mountains. Where they abound.

Monkeys that turn into Akitas.