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Wednesday, June 13, 2018

The Next Closest Thing to Narcolepsy

It seems that there is nothing else in the world that will so quickly put me to sleep than getting up in the morning. Go figure. I have slept all night, having usually gone to bed at about 10 pm, I wake up between 5:30 and 6:30, go outside to the backyard for a coffee and a cigarette, throw on a pair of shorts and a tank top, go for my morning walk, eat a small breakfast, take a shower, get dressed for the day, and then suddenly I think, Gee, I feel kinda tired. It's likely about 9:30 am at this time. So I decide that I'll lie down for a minute, do so, and Bam, I'm out. It is not a long nap--usually a half hour to an hour--but it is the nap of the living dead. Like turning off a light switch. The curtain descends. The next part of the next hour passes in another universe, a void. And it turns out that I have had to wait until 9:30 in the morning for the deepest sleep of the night to come around. I always wake abruptly from this sudden slumber and my first waking thought is always Damn, what happened? 

It is always difficult to get up from this second sleep. It's like the opposite of getting your second breath, you know? I am aware that though I have slept only a short time, I have slept very soundly. Profoundly so. But I force myself to my feet, feeling, essentially, that I have done something wrong. I'm a lazy bastard. A child. The rest of the world is on the move, but here I am lying in my bed, fully clothed, like a corpse. Get up! Get a move on, soldier!

In the meantime, as I generally find, the big fat brown dog has entered the house while I slept and has herself fallen asleep in the spare bedroom. Perhaps this is all her fault (though I have never seen her with a magic wand or heard her to mutter any strange spells). Like me, the big fat brown dog does not like to end her short trip to never-never land; nonetheless, the day must move forward. I have nothing at all to do, and now I've gotten a late start toward getting it done. 

First off coffee, for sure. The dog must be coaxed out of her room with a sausage treat so that I can get her out the front door and lock up behind us. She meanders back up the street to her house, and I beep the horn as I pass her on my bike. 

"See ya later," she says. "If yer awake." 

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