I am, as in my current state, the exception and not the rule. I, as of right now, am TIRED as balls.
Last night I stayed up all night without going to bed. So to counteract that foolishness, I rode up to Champaign this morning for breakfast and was back in time for lunch. I deferred eating, but only because I had previously stuffed my face full of the most delicious pancakes ever. So now, you can catch me at a near-death level of lethargy and exhaustion, and, take a picture, because this, doesn't happen often.
I have this thing. It's like insomnia, but it's different. People with insomnia can't sleep. They hate it. All they want to do is close their eyes, have a dream about something, and wake up where they were before. At least that's what Fight Club tells me. I just... don't really sleep at night. I don't know whether it's a sub-conscious conception that staying up makes me badass or me making up for all the times I lost the battle to stay up past bed time as a child that keeps me from maintaining and striving for a regular sleep schedule. The fact is, I stay up later than you, I sleep in later than you. That makes me cooler than you, but it also makes you more successful than me. Fair? I'd say that's a fair trade off.
I love one-upping people just as much as the next guy, don't get me wrong. But you'll often hear me abstain from conversations of how little sleep people get or how late they stay up. Why? Because it's honestly a little bit embarrassing. Like, seriously? You stayed up until 5 A.M? You stayed in bed until 4 P.M.? What the hell is wrong with you. I don't brag about that. That's embarrassing. That's the disease. What I do is simply give you a moderate middle-ground between what time you stayed up until and what time I actually stayed up until.
What? I don't want you to think I'm weird or something.
I don't know where my nights go. I don't know how I spend my time until at 4:30 in the morning. I know where my days go though, they slip away right through my fingers. As I lie down enjoying whatever fucked up dream is brewing in my head. Speaking of which, Inception looks awesome. Let's go see that together. (Ridiculously off-topic but you were thinking of the wrong kind of fucked up dreams and I know it. Get your mind out of the fucking gutter.)
My inability to go to bed early and wake up accordingly is a MAJOR contributor to my chronic anti-punctuality. It fueled my MLTBL (Most Likely to Be Late) stats and earned me detentions and other problems coupled with the annoying but enjoyable infamy. The late shit has to be cut out for college. However I feel like staying up late is just part of the game by that point. And I am sure I will be an expert on the subject. I no longer need coffee or Monster or a mass Coca-Cola binge to keep me up through til dawn, I just need a reason.
I don't know what it is about the night, but I just like it better. Essentially, the earth is how it would look if the sun were to not exist. It's pacifying. There's nobody on the streets, nobody to bother you, and there's nothing like standing in the middle of a normally busy street at 3:15 and looking both ways, finding no cars in sight. It's just cool to me. I appreciate nature more at night. It's not so unbearably hot. Most of all, I feel like it's time alone in the purest sense we can achieve. Everyone is sleeping, with no time to see me take a 2:30 jog by their house. That moment is when I own this city. I feel like I'm on top of it and seeing and thinking clearly, able to shed all the stressful tumults that will return with the sunrise every day. To me it's therapeutic, like Rob's walking addiction. I just don't sleep. My job doesn't often require me to get up early, so why waste my time? All you can do during the day is whatever everyone else is already doing. At night, when I'm the only one to choose, I can truly do what I want.
There's not often reason for my staying up late. In fact, there's often reason for me to get some sleep. But I just don't like letting the late night hours slip by in fruitless slumber. So I take the night shift upon myself, and I earn the right to fall asleep to avian lullabies. It feels pretty good to turn the clock upside down once in a while, that is, until you have to face the rest of society. Oh well, I can sleep when I'm dead.
So next time you're up unreasonably late, and you feel like complaining to everybody about it the next day, just remember that I undoubtedly stayed up later than you. Bitch.
--Eliot Sill
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