Sleep Complications

Normally, since this is Friday, I would be talking about the books I read this week. But I, er, didn't read any. Look, I've been busy, okay? Well, and lazy. Mostly lazy. Anyway, it's 3:00 am Friday morning, and I'm trying to stay awake for a couple more hours.

See, my job involves a lot of jet lag, even though I no longer go anywhere. Years ago, I used to fly around the world every month or so, going to such exotic places as Kuala Lumpur, Rome, and Long Beach, California. Now, though, other people go to those places and I stay in contact via e-mail.

Now, as you may be aware, the Earth is round (officially, it's an "oblate spheroid"). And while that may sound like a good idea when you're designing a solar system, it means that when it's noon here in Seattle, it's 3:00 pm in New York. So this weekend, when I'm in contact with people in Bangkok, Thailand, my day will start at Bangkok 9:00 am, even though it will look more like 7:00 pm to those around me. This will require a certain amount of staying awake very late.

Last weekend, I was on European time (so my day started at about 1:00 am). Then I came into the office during the week on Pacific Daylight Time, more or less. And now, as I've explained, I need to switch around to Thailand. It's a little difficult, you know. Luckily, I usually only have to be on a new time schedule for a couple of days.

Surprisingly (at least to me), I haven't drunk anything caffeinated in two months. I was a little worried that this would make my non-traveling jetlag task difficult. Because, you know, if you swig Coke after Coke for several hours, it's pretty easy to stay awake. But it's worked out the other way. It now turns out that if you don't swig Coke for hours on end, it's a lot easier to fall asleep when you're done. And the key to surviving jet lag or otherwise radically changing your time schedule is to get a whole bunch of sleep. More than you think you need.

So what I'm going to do now is: go to sleep. I've stayed up late enough to confuse my circadian whythms, so I'm going to be able to sleep kind of late. Then, I hope to nap for a couple of hours in the middle of the day on Friday. That'll be fun. I like naps! So then, when I go to work Friday evening (which will really be Saturday Morning), I should have enough sleep stored up to make it through the night. I hope.