I went to see Jarhead tonight. When I got out, around 11:45pm, I thought to myself happily, "Perfect, just in time to go in to work at midnight." And then I remembered that it was Sunday, and I didn't have work tonight, and I said, "Ah, crap."

Weekends suck when you work night shift. Unless you stay awake through Saturday and screw up your sleep schedule, you are doomed to being awake all through the lonely night and trying to find things to do to pass the dark, endless hours. It's kind of sad that I would actually rather be at work with things to do than sitting here without a care in the world.

Yesterday was an odd mix of crap and awesome.

A few days ago the air conditioner for the entire back half of the house broke. Which is particularly inconvenient since the entire front half of the house is currently unlivable. So there's currently no habitable place in the house that has air conditioning, and sleeping with no air conditioning in Puerto Rico is not pleasant. It's the fitful, sweaty sleep that makes you mad.

Yesterday morning I got home from work and was watching stuff on Tivo when suddenly around noon I remembered that the Béla Fleck, Jean-Luc Ponty, and Stanley Clarke concert I had paid $70 for was that night at 8pm. That meant I had about six hours to get some sleep before the concert (and after the concert I'd have to go straight to work, so that was all the sleep I was getting for the day).

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I've been trying to put together a small trip to St. Thomas to go see Rose for a few months now, but we've had trouble working it out. The original idea was to go when Andrés was here too, but time was short and conditions unfavorable. Finally this weekend I'll be able to make it over there. I have to work tonight (Saturday), but in exchange I get Monday off. I'm flying out tomorrow around noon (heading straight to the airport once I get out of work), and I return on Tuesday evening, just in time to come right back to work.

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Bah, I managed to stay up until 11pm last night, but I'm still up at 5am and can't get back to sleep. I hate the feeling of impending doom, knowing that if I can't get back to sleep I'm going to be falling asleep towards the end of work, yet there's nothing I can do about it. The more you want to go to sleep, the harder it is. Oh well, I guess I should have known it wouldn't be that easy.

In the past few years, LEDs have become more efficient and thus gradually transformed from indicators to illuminators. It’s nice that flashlights and stoplights and taillights can be made with low-power-consumption LEDs, but it seems like the change is universal and there is now no such thing as low power LEDs anymore. Last night was the first time in a long time that I went to sleep in the dark, which allowed me to discover that the amber LED on the front of my computer is bright enough to illuminate the room.

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Luis told me today that he's moving me back to the daytime shift starting next Monday. I'll be working 10am-8pm. It's weird, it's like this fundamental shift in my life. Everything I know will change again. And I'm not sure I like it. Sadly enough, I think I actually prefer the shift I have now. Right now, if I need to go to a store or get some work done on my car or whatever during the day, I can. When you're working during the day, you can't get anything done.

There's pros and cons, of course. Now it won't be a challenge to wake up early enough to go flying on Saturdays, so I can start doing that again. And hopefully I'll no longer be quite so familiar with the feeling of desperately trying to stave off sleep, which was what initially started my long descent into regular Starbucks patronage. It will be nice to have evenings free; now I can go to movies more often. It'll also be nice when friends come to visit, because friends statistically hang out much more often during the evenings than early mornings. I guess we'll see how it goes.

Man. You know how when you sleep too much, it just makes you tired? I think I did that last night, and woke up and felt sleepy, so I slept some more until I was rested again. I went to bed at 8pm for a short nap, and ended up waking up at 10am, 14 hours later. I'd better not get sleepy at work today, or I'll be pissed :)

I think I need this, although it sort of scares me. The guys at MIT came up with Clocky, which is a little clock for people who have trouble waking up. When the alarm clock goes off and the snooze button is pressed, clocky will roll off the bedside table, run away, and hide. Minutes later when the alarm goes off again, the sleeper must get up and look for Clocky. Clocky is kind of like a troublesome pet that you love anyway. Everyday he finds a new hiding spot.

Yes, ingenious, but I don't think I could sleep comfortably with that creepy, furry creature lying in wait next to me, ready to scurry off into a dark corner. It would certainly help to break up the morning routine though.

Today I hung out with Michelle, and went with her to pick up an old friend of hers named David Hernandez from the airport. He is a guy she sort of dated back in 6th grade, at which point he moved to Arizona, and they hadn't seen each other since. He was actually really cool, and I got along great with him. I was sold when we were discussing musical tastes and he asked Michelle, "Have you heard of Dream Theater?" and she smiled and pointed at me. He's a drummer, so he was surprised and impressed when I mentioned that Mike Portnoy did a drum clinic here a few years ago.

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Remember how I was looking forward to this weekend, and finally getting to sleep, catch up on a week's worth of Stargate, etc? I've found an even better way to spend the weekend: working! Luis asked me to cover his shift on Sunday, from 10am to 10pm. Sweet. I like how it's a day shift too, so I get to adjust to daytime and then back to nighttime for Monday night. I mean, I certainly don't begrudge it, since he's got a family emergency, and I'm just glad I can help. I just found it amusing to have the request come on the one weekend I was most looking forward to sleeping :) Ah well, maybe this will all help me get used to sleeping less. Right now, I'm not very functional if I get much less than 8 hours of sleep, and I view that as a handicap.

Ugh, this has been a difficult week. Andy, Donny, and Violet are down here for the week for their spring break, and as usual, I'm spending my nights working and my days hanging out with them, and carefully ignoring the missing third component, sleep. However, I've never been very good at this, so it just means that sleep encroaches upon all the other activities of my day like wine soaking through a tablecloth.

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