The science of sleep

I still haven't seen that film. I've been told that I would really like it.

I was at the hospital from 5:40 a.m. Friday until 8:00 a.m. Saturday for my new orthopedics rotation. I was warned that this month would be intense. Friday night ortho call was precisely that. But there is something fulfilling in fixing something as obvious as a broken bone. There is less trust required on the part of the patient when their bone is sticking out out of their arm or when their ankle is bent at 90 degrees. Apart from 30 minutes sitting on a chair with my feet up, I didn't sleep all night. I came home and did the usual to avoid getting the much needed sleep. I watched Juno...finally. A great movie. I really enjoyed it. I would say more about it, except that I just finished Into the Wild, and it seems blasphemous to complement any other film. ITW was truly amazing. It made me feel like less of a person for spending my whole life indoors. It's an overwhelming picture. Sweeping, endearing, perspective-giving. Everyone should see it. End Coda. So, I had that crazy experience, after finally going to sleep post-Juno at 11:00 a.m., of accidentally sleeping through the rest of the day. I woke up at 1 a.m. with no real desire to stay sleeping, but for fear of getting into a really strange sleep schedule I caved, and went back to sleep. I finally got out of bed at 8:00 a.m. Sunday. That makes 21 hours of nearly uninterrupted sleep. I hurried to church without eating, which made for 26 hours without food, except for a morsel of bread and sip of water. True hunger helps to make the sacrament truly a sacrament. All that sleeping does things to my state of mind. Oh, and if you ever want to have lots of dreams, try sleeping for nearly a day. You will be compensated. I didn't dream anything truly meaningful, but I did have some wacky adventures.

More on this subject: it might have been for lack of energy from little to no nourishment, but after sleeping for so long, I still felt tired. I felt like I could lay back down and sleep the rest of the day away. There's that sleep inertia again. When I snuck those 30 minutes of snoozing during call, I had that horrible sensation of absolutely desperate fatigue upon being awakened by the ER to come down and see some dude who mangled his hand. That feeling is so incredibly overwhelming. I have it at about 60% strength just about every morning when my alarm goes off before 7:00 a.m. All I can think of is when I will next be able to sleep. While I'm in the shower I plot out the part of my day when I might be able to find a quiet corner and nod off. Of course, by the time I've been at work for 20 minutes I've forgotten how tired I felt. Fortunately the feeling is fleeting. Hell might be that sensation but of eternal duration. And maybe with a 15" tv that only gets Lifetime and Oxygen. And nothing but half-cooked chicken to eat.

Melissa and Lucie are back east for the final work trip. I eagerly await their return. "Happiness is only real when shared." So says Alexander Supertramp.

How about a selection of pics that have long deserved promotion to the blog. (Watch for one of Rob and I in front of an arcade game. During our inaugural spring break trip >10 years ago we won hundreds of tickets off this game which we named something juvenile and obscene. We then spent those tickets on 101 little green army men and proceeded to disperse them across the deserts of Nevada and Utah, some launched from the windshield wipers of a plym$&*% Voyagruven.) If I have enough energy left I just might change the shblog logo. You will know by now if I mustered up the strength.