"Not cool, man. Not cool."

Holy bananas.  I thought, four hours or so ago, I would be in for a weird day.  I had no idea.  It isn't even seven yet, and I already feel like I've crossed into some weird Twilight Zone equivalent of actual reality.

But first, a brief preface.  Over the years, I have complained a lot about my body on this blog.  But this is a two way street, and I have to admit, as much as my body has failed me, I have not treated it that well either.  Lungwise, having never smoked, I think things are pretty good; the worst thing I've done to my body in that regard is move to southern Ontario, to which it responding by becoming asthmatic at the tender age of 26.  Liver-wise, I would like to think we're on reasonably good terms as well, as I never picked up the drinking habit till about 25 or so, and even then, I rarely drink to excess (twice a month, tops).  Eating--eating is not so good.  I am pretty bad with the eating part.  But the real kicker, more often than not, is bio-rhythm.  I cannot, for the life of me, keep a good sleep schedule.  I'll go to bed at midnight and wake up at 7 a few days, then I'll stay up till 4 am and wake up at noon.

 Long weekends are particularly bad, as I always fall into a habit that just isn't sustainable for normal weekday conditions.  So when I tried to lurch myself straight from a few days of the late night-noon to 11 pm to six am, my body responded with a "not cook, man.  Not cool," and kept me tossing and turning the rest of the night.  Then, when six am rolled around, it went to another tactic.  "You want to be awake?" my body asked.  "Fine.  You will be the most awake ever."  I shot up instantly, packed up my bag, and headed off for school, every synapse snapping, every muscle twinging.  My brain is going a mile a minute now, and even while writing this blog post, I had to stop every few sentences, and stare wildly into space while my hands catch up to wherever my head is. 

And while I don't feel tired, I can feel tired stalking me.  It's as if Exhaustion is some giant prehistoric beast, and I'm in the woods armed with a rather unpointy stick.  I'm gazing into the future right now, and all I see is that today holds a lot of coffee, a collapsing at my desk, or both.  The worst thing about being in academics--for me, at least--is that I can never entirely turn it off.  At one point last evening, for example, I reasoned that if I couldn't sleep, I might as well be doing something useful.  So I spent an hour reading a blog on game design.  Then, surprise, I had a series of very bizarre dreams on game design.  I can't escape it.  But the best thing about being in academics, from a grad student's point of view, is that while you're never not working, the work is flexible.  I've got nothing scheduled today but a meeting at 2:30, so a collapse is possible, if necessary.

I'm kind of hoping it isn't necessary.  If I fell asleep in the office today, there's no telling what dreams my body will set upon me.  Because if there's one thing the last few hours has taught me, it's that it's a vengeful creature.

Later days.