Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2014-10-17 02:05 am
azurelunatic) wrote2014-10-17 02:05 am
Fucking sleep schedule.
Today did not start out as the best day in the history of ever.
I tried to get to sleep. I did not get there as soon as planned.
I woke up groggy. It took an hour to get out the door.
I had to get gas before work. The line was long. (Costco.)
I needed the thing for the potluck. That line: also long. (Costco again.)
By the time I actually arrived at work, the table in the appointed place was empty as I drove past in search of a parking place, and I saw the straggling end of the parade of teammates heading back.
On the way in the door, I dropped my veggie tray on the team table, because at least I had that, and people could snag things from it all afternoon if they wanted. I checked the timestamps of the lunch ping on the computer, and realized that Purple wouldn't have been there that long. So I reset the status on my cube to "Undefined" (because "Lunch" was more than I could handle declaring just then) and walked in to the cafeteria, located the table, saw with some relief that Purple was at the end of a bench with an adjacent seat free, and sat down next to him.
"Hey, I thought we wouldn't see you today!"
I kept my voice as dead-level as I knew how. "That's what I thought too."
"Slept through the team potluck?"
"Yeah."
"Well, good thing you're in a place where they've still got some food!"
"Yeah, I'll get some in a bit."
I sat there very quietly as Purple and Lennon Glasses Guy talked about the basic steps of troubleshooting some obscure thing involving network problems until I no longer felt like any sudden shock would be the final straw causing me to utterly lose control of the oncoming tearstorm. Then I got a burrito ("How are you today young lady?" "How about a burrito.") with, by some miracle, no bell pepper in the rice, and came back and ate my burrito and listened with interest and appreciation to Purple holding forth on what to do in the face of customers claiming impossible things about their networks (things which the logs don't bear out).
I am so deeply, incredibly tired of being, well, so deeply, incredibly tired. I know a few of the factors why I've been having worse sleep lately, but the plain fact of it is, I am not office-hours diurnal and I suspect that it would take a locked-down schedule that doesn't allow any out-of-hours activities (which would include curtailing any activity which got me *home* within hours, but excited me sufficiently that I couldn't go to sleep until late, which would cut out ... a lot of things), and/or industrial-grade sleeping pills and stimulants to prop me up and knock me out. Both of those things sound like the special hell. I try to avoid thinking about the opportunities I haven't even tried for because I know how incompatible my basic sleep schedule is with normal offices. Mostly I can pretend that my schedule is by choice. (There is conscious choice involved. On the regimented schedules, I am exhausted and sleep-starved and wired and terribly unpleasant. By choosing to not subject myself to that daily, I enjoy what feels almost like I imagine "normal" might.) But days when I want to do something, plan to do something, and then just can't -- I feel the razor edges of the cage.
Purple waited until the rest of the table cleared out before saying a few quiet things to me, with a reassuring shoulder-bump. By that time, my voice had stopped threatening to wobble, but my eyes were re-lubricating faster than they could drain. When they spilled over, I shut them for a few seconds. The green wall at the end of the cafeteria -- the green stretched up above the partial drop ceiling, I noticed. Purple patted me on the back and said something funny as a distraction. (His style is somewhat like Darkside's, but distinct.)
We went our separate ways. My manager had one cupcake left. She dropped it on my desk, with some coconut bacon sprinkles on the side.
COCONUT BACON, PEOPLE.
This is basically the uncanny valley of bacon. It is coconut shreds which have been toasted, smoked, and spiced like bacon. It is not quite as unearthly salty, which is an uncanny valley point. It has that crispy/greasy crunch like bacon. It also has cell walls, which don't break apart in the same way that the muscle/fat matrix of pork bacon does, but it's so close.
The pocket projector arrived! It was about the same footprint as my phone, and only about half again as thick. My manager was impressed. The Polka-Dot Researcher was impressed.
My Overlady gave the vague impression that perhaps I had not missed all that much at the potluck, and since I'd got a cupcake, I'd be just fine. Also she had swag which could be used for the good of the team. So an eBay-branded multicharger was fitted with a label which conveniently covered up the eBay branding, and left where team members can snag it if they're having a bad battery day.
I noticed that Designer Sparkles was grabbing veggies every time she walked past the team table. Perhaps I can start bringing in less industrial-sized bits of vegetables to leave on the team table -- I'll probably eat them more reliably than if they just sit in my fridge, and this way they'll get finished before they go off. I mentioned the phenomenon to Purple (that the veggie tray was getting the same amount of attention that cookies do) and he was about to say something about pod people when he thought about it and realized that yeah, he might do the same thing -- and more so in the case of chocolate chip, as proper caramelization is key.
Purple was ready to go just a little later than I was. We put the remains of the veggie tray in the refrigerator. He grabbed the bowl of former ice. I carried the tray -- on my head as per usual, a little off-center due to the floppiness. "I'm going to laugh at you if that spills all over," Purple warned. There were no incidents.
Yesterday's lunch discussion of delicious desserts recalled itself to me -- I'd brought one of the chocolates to Purple, who responded by giving me a dessert recommendation; my response included my delight that Purple was not likely to recommend me stuff which involved walnuts (as we have the same mouth-blistering adverse reaction). His exception was baklava -- he will, every rare now and then, endure the pain for the sake of deliciousness. (With vanilla ice cream, which softens the effects.) I don't make exceptions for that, but I will put up with it for the sake of Ben & Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk, which has trace enough amounts to be very minor.
It is fall, and Purple is starting to feel chilly in the parking lot in just a t-shirt (and jeans, but the proposed modification is a button-down worn as a jacket).
Weekend plans: there is an open house at Moffet Field. My crew will be there late-ish. Purple mentioned that he'd been reading the fine print, and he was amused by some bits which were being alluded to without being specifically spelled out: it is a federal facility, so federal laws apply, the thing said. Subtext: THIS MEANS YOU, YOU WEED-SMOKING CALIFORNIANS. And from thence the discussion about a semi-recent news piece about how the computer security bits of the federal government have a hard time tracking down computer security experts who are willing to work For The Man who also haven't been potheads in the near-recent past... not to say present. Heh.
I tried to get to sleep. I did not get there as soon as planned.
I woke up groggy. It took an hour to get out the door.
I had to get gas before work. The line was long. (Costco.)
I needed the thing for the potluck. That line: also long. (Costco again.)
By the time I actually arrived at work, the table in the appointed place was empty as I drove past in search of a parking place, and I saw the straggling end of the parade of teammates heading back.
On the way in the door, I dropped my veggie tray on the team table, because at least I had that, and people could snag things from it all afternoon if they wanted. I checked the timestamps of the lunch ping on the computer, and realized that Purple wouldn't have been there that long. So I reset the status on my cube to "Undefined" (because "Lunch" was more than I could handle declaring just then) and walked in to the cafeteria, located the table, saw with some relief that Purple was at the end of a bench with an adjacent seat free, and sat down next to him.
"Hey, I thought we wouldn't see you today!"
I kept my voice as dead-level as I knew how. "That's what I thought too."
"Slept through the team potluck?"
"Yeah."
"Well, good thing you're in a place where they've still got some food!"
"Yeah, I'll get some in a bit."
I sat there very quietly as Purple and Lennon Glasses Guy talked about the basic steps of troubleshooting some obscure thing involving network problems until I no longer felt like any sudden shock would be the final straw causing me to utterly lose control of the oncoming tearstorm. Then I got a burrito ("How are you today young lady?" "How about a burrito.") with, by some miracle, no bell pepper in the rice, and came back and ate my burrito and listened with interest and appreciation to Purple holding forth on what to do in the face of customers claiming impossible things about their networks (things which the logs don't bear out).
I am so deeply, incredibly tired of being, well, so deeply, incredibly tired. I know a few of the factors why I've been having worse sleep lately, but the plain fact of it is, I am not office-hours diurnal and I suspect that it would take a locked-down schedule that doesn't allow any out-of-hours activities (which would include curtailing any activity which got me *home* within hours, but excited me sufficiently that I couldn't go to sleep until late, which would cut out ... a lot of things), and/or industrial-grade sleeping pills and stimulants to prop me up and knock me out. Both of those things sound like the special hell. I try to avoid thinking about the opportunities I haven't even tried for because I know how incompatible my basic sleep schedule is with normal offices. Mostly I can pretend that my schedule is by choice. (There is conscious choice involved. On the regimented schedules, I am exhausted and sleep-starved and wired and terribly unpleasant. By choosing to not subject myself to that daily, I enjoy what feels almost like I imagine "normal" might.) But days when I want to do something, plan to do something, and then just can't -- I feel the razor edges of the cage.
Purple waited until the rest of the table cleared out before saying a few quiet things to me, with a reassuring shoulder-bump. By that time, my voice had stopped threatening to wobble, but my eyes were re-lubricating faster than they could drain. When they spilled over, I shut them for a few seconds. The green wall at the end of the cafeteria -- the green stretched up above the partial drop ceiling, I noticed. Purple patted me on the back and said something funny as a distraction. (His style is somewhat like Darkside's, but distinct.)
We went our separate ways. My manager had one cupcake left. She dropped it on my desk, with some coconut bacon sprinkles on the side.
COCONUT BACON, PEOPLE.
This is basically the uncanny valley of bacon. It is coconut shreds which have been toasted, smoked, and spiced like bacon. It is not quite as unearthly salty, which is an uncanny valley point. It has that crispy/greasy crunch like bacon. It also has cell walls, which don't break apart in the same way that the muscle/fat matrix of pork bacon does, but it's so close.
The pocket projector arrived! It was about the same footprint as my phone, and only about half again as thick. My manager was impressed. The Polka-Dot Researcher was impressed.
My Overlady gave the vague impression that perhaps I had not missed all that much at the potluck, and since I'd got a cupcake, I'd be just fine. Also she had swag which could be used for the good of the team. So an eBay-branded multicharger was fitted with a label which conveniently covered up the eBay branding, and left where team members can snag it if they're having a bad battery day.
I noticed that Designer Sparkles was grabbing veggies every time she walked past the team table. Perhaps I can start bringing in less industrial-sized bits of vegetables to leave on the team table -- I'll probably eat them more reliably than if they just sit in my fridge, and this way they'll get finished before they go off. I mentioned the phenomenon to Purple (that the veggie tray was getting the same amount of attention that cookies do) and he was about to say something about pod people when he thought about it and realized that yeah, he might do the same thing -- and more so in the case of chocolate chip, as proper caramelization is key.
Purple was ready to go just a little later than I was. We put the remains of the veggie tray in the refrigerator. He grabbed the bowl of former ice. I carried the tray -- on my head as per usual, a little off-center due to the floppiness. "I'm going to laugh at you if that spills all over," Purple warned. There were no incidents.
Yesterday's lunch discussion of delicious desserts recalled itself to me -- I'd brought one of the chocolates to Purple, who responded by giving me a dessert recommendation; my response included my delight that Purple was not likely to recommend me stuff which involved walnuts (as we have the same mouth-blistering adverse reaction). His exception was baklava -- he will, every rare now and then, endure the pain for the sake of deliciousness. (With vanilla ice cream, which softens the effects.) I don't make exceptions for that, but I will put up with it for the sake of Ben & Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk, which has trace enough amounts to be very minor.
It is fall, and Purple is starting to feel chilly in the parking lot in just a t-shirt (and jeans, but the proposed modification is a button-down worn as a jacket).
Weekend plans: there is an open house at Moffet Field. My crew will be there late-ish. Purple mentioned that he'd been reading the fine print, and he was amused by some bits which were being alluded to without being specifically spelled out: it is a federal facility, so federal laws apply, the thing said. Subtext: THIS MEANS YOU, YOU WEED-SMOKING CALIFORNIANS. And from thence the discussion about a semi-recent news piece about how the computer security bits of the federal government have a hard time tracking down computer security experts who are willing to work For The Man who also haven't been potheads in the near-recent past... not to say present. Heh.
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I've been taking modafinil since then - not on prescription because I can't be arsed with sleep studies and nonsense. It works effectively to keep you awake and alert, even though you still feel tired.
I sometimes moan that it's not working because I still feel tired, but then I consider today where I skipped it since I'm working from home, got up at 10am (normal), fell asleep at my desk at 11am (not normal), had a 90 minute lunch nap, and it's now nearly 4pm and I've still not done anything super productive yet.
College kids take this shit to make them super-productive and blah blah blah. I don't see any of the 'nootropic' effects. I reckon that given my size and sleep problems, 200mg doses are doing all they can to keep me functional, nevermind upgrades.
The actual on-label uses for it are things like 'shift worker syndrome' and 'delayed sleep phase disorder'. Sound familiar? That's why I started taking it.
Anyway, if you want I'll pass on the details of the shady internet sites I'm ordering from. :o)
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I've found that it's best if I eat something first, but that could just be me.
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I've not needed to do this much, but one trick I read about is to set an alarm an hour before you need to get up and have modafinil (/whatever) and some water ready. Take the magic pills, go back to sleep, alarm goes off again an hour later and you're actually awake this time. I should probably do that more often, actually. It'd probably result in a less pissed-off wife. :o/
FWIW, at my bodyweight, a 200mg modafinil pill is not enough to keep me awake if I'm very tired - or at least, not enough to keep me awake much beyond a normal working day. I've definitely had days when I've been okay during the working day, but fallen asleep at 8pm in my chair in the living room, despite having taken the magic pills. They're not speedy, like your 'diet pills' will be, you don't feel 'kept awake'.
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A year on from my comment, I'm taking modafinil about twice a week, usually on Mondays + days when I go into the office in the morning. Yesterday I got up after ~6 hours sleep (well, ~6 hours in bed), took modafinil, and still had an hour's nap at lunchtime. Mondays are rough.
I've definitely noticed a resistance building if I use it multiple days in a row - I try to avoid more than two in a row.
On the day I ran my Linux workshop, I had 2 hours sleep, and had to take another one at lunchtime, which worked for keeping me awake enough to deliver the course and drive home safely. Well, safe enough. Well, no one died.
I've yet to find an answer to the 'don't want to get out of bed problem', which is why I'm ~30 minutes late as I type this. Oops.
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(Today I'm just exhausted from coughing all night. But hello from the DSPS nation.)
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