Ugh. What a crazy sleep day!

I'm sick. If my sleep patterns are normally abnormal, today was extra-funky. I wasn't feeling very good last night, so I went to bed around 11:30 which is a bit early for me. Of course, I still didn't fall asleep until almost 1:00am. My alarm was set for 6:30, this being a non-meeting kind of day.

At 5:55, either hail or super hard rain woke me up. I glanced at the clock, wondered if it really was hail (it sure sounded like it), but was too tired to even reach the window next to my bed to check. I fell back asleep.

At 6:30, my alarm dutifully went off. Even though it's the best alarm clock on the planet - and I should know, I've tried them all - it's still the most annoying noise in the universe when it happens at 6:30am.

By the way, these are my alarm clocks.



The Hammacher-Schlemmer one isn't so great. I like the light, but if the light and birds chirping or whatever don't wake you up after 20 minutes or so, you still get a loud, nasty buzzer.

On the other hand, I honestly could not live without my Sharper Image Travel Soother. This thing goes everywhere with me, and wakes me up with a gentle chime that doesn't jolt me into reality. Don't get me wrong, waking up still sucks and I still hit snooze 15 times. It's just a bit less jarring.

So back to the morning. When my alarm went off at 6:30, I turned it off. I wasn't feeling well, and I wasn't thinking clearly, and quite frankly, I pretty much forgot that I had to go to work. Luckily, the studio apartment behind me is vacant and the walls are thin. Right about 9:15, I woke up to the management company showing the place. "You can see that the kitchen is small, so you can reach everything easily." I wanted to wake up enough to say, "And you can hear that the walls are so thin that you'll never have a private conversation. And please, don't move in if you have a microwave and plan to use it before noon. Your neighbors would like to sleep." Unfortunately, I was too tired to get the words out.

I did, however, drag myself out of bed at 9:30 and e-mail in sick for the day. I struggled to stay awake, but the illness got the better of me and I crashed on my couch at 1:30. When I woke up, it was already dark, and the DVR was glowing 6:22pm.

I worried for a minute about what that meant for my sleeptime at night, but I shouldn't have bothered. Despite the daytime crashout, I was tired at my usual time and fell asleep somewhere between 1:30 and 2:00am, waking up at 9:30 on Friday. Oops. Guess I'm working at home again today. What are they gonna do? Fire me?

Thank god it's the weekend soon.