~You snooze, you lose.

I'm getting grumpy. I can feel it.

What I want to do today is manage to work out, shower, vacuum, make salad, talk to a couple of people on the phone, and maybe add to the whopping 4 hours of sleep I got last night / this morning.

What Cracks a Beer will ending up managing? Who knows? Cracking a beer or 6?


I don't sleep like most other people. The reason or reasons why are all theoretical. Early childhood surgery and early childhood abuse are in the lead for most likely reasons.

It's not simple Insomnia. No, I will not subject myself to being experimented on. Don't even think the word Chamomile or I'll stuff you with it and bake at 350 for a few hours. No, meds do not work. My memory isn't great, but sleep problems have been a reality for me since, at least, age 5. So no, it's not the damn caffeine.

The longest I've slept in (at least) the last 20 years, if not since I was 5, is 5 hours. It's tough to remember the time before I really took notice to my "difference", but I do remember that in '97 or '98 I passed out from a mixture of alcohol, pot, cocaine, and Benadryl, and that 5 hours was the longest I'd slept since I could remember. There was also an incident with a half a fifth of Yukon Jack, and then the ODs, but they were about the same length of time.

I used to think that this was normal. I had no reason to ask people about their sleep habits. I had no reason to share mine with anyone. Then I started sleeping with people, and it came to my attention that when people said they slept for 8 hours, they actually meant that they slept for 8 hours. No wonder people were amazed when I told them that I'd slept for 16 hours! They thought that I actually meant straight through!

In truth, the thought of sleeping 8 hours... shoot, the thought of sleeping 5 hours, scares the hell out of me. If that ever happens, I hope that someone is around to check for a pulse.

Basically, I take naps. For example, last night (technically this morning), I had 2 naps that were about an hour, then one nap that was about 2 hours. I do wake up. It's not a shift in position, or a grumble. It's a - smoke a half of a cigarette or so, drink some water, maybe check the tv, if it's on, and then go back to sleep - I'm upness.

I sleep in 45 minute to 3 hour shifts. The 3 hour ones are pretty rare. Going over 3 hours, without a lot of drugs and/or alcohol, just doesn't happen.

So...

another day in the life of Cracks a Beer, the sleep deprived wolf in sheep's clothing.


Whatever will he manage to do today?


rrrrp