Movie Violence... In Real Life?

A coworker missed work today. She sits in the back office so we didn’t think much of it. As it turns out, her entire house was ransacked and vandalized. It happened yesterday while she was working. Not only is this upsetting, but it blows my mind. We don’t have a lot of detail, but it sounds like a plot from a movie. I imagine this large, organized gang of thugs ripping through her house. Unless this is more commonplace then I realise. Sure, your car stereo gets swiped or a window gets broken, but for everything in your house to be stolen?

To make the story sadder, she bought the house less than six months ago and spent hours putting in new flooring, windows, etc. I’m hoping the chatter I’ve heard is worse than what actually happened, but the best-case scenario is still a home burglary.

I’m not sure how I would react. A lot of things don’t bother me, but I love my stuff. I’m not ashamed to admit I’m materialistic. Plus I sleep in my house. People can mess with me when I’m asleep.

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The Eighty Dollar Nap

Last weekend was Racine’s Brewfest. It’s a fundraiser for the Kilties and my favourite event of the year. If you’ve never gone, you walk around, sample amazing microbeers, and see the Kilties perform. We go every year and drool over the VIP perks (early admission, t-shirts, beer stein, etc). This year we decided to pay extra to be VIP. (It seemed like a good idea when we bought the tickets in May.)

The first hour of Brewfest was perfect. The VIP crowd was manageable, lines were nonexistent, and the beer tasted amazing. After they opened the gates for general admission I decided I needed to slow down. I had another four hours to drink tasty beers. Long story short, after mixing as many samples as I did, slowing down didn’t help. I was done drinking after the first two hours. Not waiting to miss the Kilties perform, I decided to sit and wait for them. As brilliant as this was, it backfired. I slept through the entire performance. In a crowd of 1500 drunks, I took a nap. How cool am I?

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The Little Blue Can

There comes a point when being tired isn’t solved by caffeine. On our marathon road trip we drove 28 hours straight. My driving was minimal but there’s something about being in a car for that long. After hour 20, I decided to drink a Red Bull. (I adore that little blue can. So much so that it’s a special treat.) It didn't help. I was still seeing the back of my eyelids more than I care to admit.

Here’s where I get a bright idea. I stopped at the nearest gas station and picked up a 5-Hour Energy Shot. It guaranteed no crash and sounded like a good idea. Obviously there were two flaws with this idea. The first was I had never had one before and didn’t know how I would react. The second was I had forgotten about the Red Bull. All I knew was the bottle was tiny and I was tired. What I didn’t know is instead of being awake and productive, I would be jittery and suffering chest pain. The next few hours were interesting if nothing else. I’m happy I only spent $3 to simulate a heart attack.

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Sandman, I'm So Alone

This last month has been exhausting. I find myself starring at my monitor and seeing nothing. Last night I tried to repay my debt to the Sandman, but he’s not an easy man to please. I treated myself to a two-hour nap and it turned into a nap of the dead. I call it that because you wake up with no cognitive skills. I only knew that I had been asleep. The time, day, location, and month were a blurry question mark. While the nap was amazing, it terrifies me to wake up so disorientated. (On the positive side I was 100 percent sober and in my own bed. I wonder how I would cope waking up in a stranger’s bed. It was hard enough to reassure myself that it was Tuesday night.)

With my nap plus seven additional hours of sleep, I started today with my fingers crossed. Too often I’ve been waking up tired, drifting off all morning, and napping during lunch. It gets old. It turns out my debt was not repaid. I spent the morning sipping coffee and pacing. Plan B is to learn how to work while asleep.

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Faulty Wiring

I often get into arguments about sleep. Morning and night people have no common ground. We'll never understand each other. I've been accused of being lazy and undisciplined (I’d like to see a morning person stay awake as late as I do). When I started working first shift, my mom thought I'd never last. Be awake and functional before noon? It was unheard of. I was told that the mornings would get easier (not true).

I know why I’m tired during the day (it’s because I don’t sleep at night), but I cherish the nighttime. It's the highlight of my day. I generally can make it to work close to my start time. It then takes a few hours before I’m fully awake. When I get home, I’m wide-awake.

Thursday night for one reason or another was a long one. I had a nap around dinnertime and was awake again until 3 a.m. On Friday morning I was woken up at 10 a.m. (AKA two hours after my shift at work starts). Oh hell. My alarms across the room were both set properly.

I'm glad things are easier now.

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