There are two schools of thought on the subject of sleep. One camp regards sleep as a necessary evil, a biologically mandated waste of time that should be relentlessly rationed. To those people, sleep, awful sleep, is a black hole that sucks up the precious, finite light of one’s consciousness. Everyone else thinks sleep is the best thing ever and those other people are jerks for using up all the hot water in the morning.
    At the last publication kind enough to employ me, the publisher, Ken, was an anti-sleep guy, as was evidenced by the fact that he wrote a “no unauthorized napping” rule into the company handbook. I’m quite sure the napping regulation was drafted not to encourage me to seek sanctioning for my regular lunchtime snoozes, but to stem them entirely. After all, who’s going to approach his or her boss and say, “Excuse me, I know it’s the middle of the day, but I’d really love to put my head down on my desk and drool all over myself for about an hour. Look, I even brought my own pillow.” I never did take an authorized nap.
    Now I get enough sleep during the week to stay awake at work (with a little help from the caffeine monkey), but I’ve got other problems. The first is that I can no longer sleep in. Every day I wake up at 7:30am. That’s fine on workdays, but on Sunday morning, when I’m trying to sleep through the repercussions of playing “pass the Courvoisier” the night before, waking up at 7:30 feels like getting blindsided by Lawyer Milloy. I’ll lie there for at least another hour, breathing slowly and trying to force myself back to sleep. But inevitably, left to my thoughts, I’ll start to feel unbearably guilty about some old crime. One favorite is how, when I was 4 years old, I told my great-grandmother I didn’t want to kiss her because she was too wrinkly, and then she died a month later. I end up tossing and turning, dwelling on what a terrible person I am until I concede defeat, get up and make coffee.
    My other problem is falling asleep when I actually want to be awake. This was an issue during my last vacation, when I joined several ski-enthusiast friends on a trip to Whistler. One would think that getting all the sleep you want would be a large component of any vacation, but apparently that’s not how a ski vacation works. On a ski trip, you wake up early and spend the day locked into footwear that relegates you to a permanent, quad-melting crouch while trying not to ski off cliffs or into lift poles or buildings. Then, when you’re done for the day, you “aprés ski,” which involves replenishing your woefully dehydrated body with beer and buffalo wings. After that’s accomplished, you return to your room, take a shower, drink three Red Bulls, and then go to a club until the wee hours.
    I believe I was on Day 3 at Whistler when this schedule became untenable. Everyone was preparing to venture out to a club, and I went into my room and fell asleep at 8pm. I had every intention of napping for an hour and staging a triumphant return, but by 9 the sweet lure of REM shut me down. I vaguely remember shouted admonitions that I was weak, I was the opposite of a fun person to hang out with, I had less fire than a wet match, and so on. But I couldn’t rally. My love of sleep overcame my love of beer, loud music and scantily clad Australian go-go dancers. And I am ashamed even to write that.
    I’ve decided that the only way to avoid missing out on nighttime hijinks is to fight through the drowsiness and forgo the nap. Because, realistically, taking a nap is the death knell for my night. I’m just not one of those people who can nod off and awaken feeling fresh and rejuvenated. I accept that, and to the various people who left me disparaging messages on my voice-mail after I bailed out of Brewstock at 7pm a couple of weeks ago: You’re right. I was, in fact, the softest guy in the whole city. But no longer. Mark my words.
    As for waking up at 7:30am and not being able to get back to sleep, that’s a more complicated problem because I have an endless supply of things to feel guilty about. And while too much time has passed to make amends for kicking dirt into Lissa Vermulen’s ice cream in kindergarten, I still do have one surviving great-grandmother. Next time I see you, Nana, pucker up. *