I know that a lot of people like to sleep a lot of the time. Some people, however, only like to sleep some of the time. I fall in the latter category.
I have a friend out of state who would probably make sleep a career if she could get sponsors. She genuinely gets excited about going to sleep.
Me? Not so much. I feel like the hours spent sleeping are completely wasted. I can’t read. I can’t watch TV. I can’t work. I can’t talk to people. I can’t go shopping or have a beer. I can’t do anything while I’m sleeping except … well … sleep.
As such, I don’t devote much time to it. I get an average of 4-5 hours of sleep per night. Well, technically morning. I usually go to bed somewhere between 4 and 5 a.m. and wake up somewhere between 9 and 10 a.m. Occasionally, I go to sleep as early as 2 a.m. Once in a while I sleep as late as noon. A couple weeks ago, I actually slept until about 2:30 in the afternoon, but that’s an anomaly – a very rare occurrence.
I understand that my body *needs* sleep. I just don’t like it. That said, when it’s time to sleep, it’s time to sleep.
Being a “night owl” who doesn’t get much sleep, my friends, family and colleagues all pretty much text and call whenever they damn well please. I don’t have a problem with this. I’m probably awake anyway.
For example, I got a distressed text message from a friend of mine last night at 1:58 a.m. Wide awake, I responded at 1:59 a.m. and hopefully made her feel better than she did to start out the night. We chatted for a bit but she was tired. I told her to call me at any point in the night if she needed to talk. Had she called, I would have answered.
Based on the missed text message I got at 4:21 a.m., I’m assuming I fell asleep sometime between 3 and 4. That’s early for me but not horribly out of character. The text message I got at 6:17 a.m., however, woke me up and resulted in a conversation that went on for about 38 minutes. It took me about another half an hour to an hour to fall back asleep.
It was the second night in a row that a text message woke me up. The night before it was at 3:51 a.m. Two hours and 14 minutes later that conversation ended and I went back to sleep.
I’ve always said that if a text message wakes me up, I probably wasn’t really sleeping to begin with. And I like to be reachable. I have a lot of friends who are at a point in their life where they need an ear. I like to be there for them.
So if you need me, text me. Or call. But if you just read something funny on collegehumor.com and you want to share it, I give you the chart below as to when I’m likely to be awake and when I’m not. Try to stick to when the likelihood of my being awake is 80 percent or higher, please.
Time —- likelihood I’m awake
12 a.m. – 99 percent
1 a.m. – 99 percent
2 a.m. – 90 percent
3 a.m. – 80 percent
4 a.m. – 50 percent
5 a.m. – 30 percent
6 a.m. – 5 percent
7 a.m. – 5 percent
8 a.m. – 5 percent
9 a.m. – 30 percent
10 a.m. – 80 percent
11 a.m. – 90 percent
12 p.m. – 99 percent
1 p.m. – 99 percent
2 p.m. – 99 percent
3 p.m. – 100 percent
4 p.m. – 100 percent
5 p.m. – 100 percent
6 p.m. – 100 percent
7 p.m. – 100 percent
8 p.m. – 100 percent
9 p.m. – 100 percent
10 p.m. – 100 percent
11 p.m. – 99.99 percent