Date: 3/20/00

I'm on spring break, which means its March, which means its Summer in California and everyone with a convertible is toolin' around town, sportin' their favorite shades. 'Cept me, cuz my new car ain't arrived yet, which means I just get to stare jealously and glance a lot at the poster I got from the dealership. I've had a curious reluctance to report on my adventures recently, perhaps because they've been piling up and the task of texting them has become daunting. Still, its a beautiful morning at a California Ave. Cafe, and a feta-cheese/tomato/bacon/spinach scramble gives me enough strength to face anything. Plus I'm gonna leave out anything I feel like :).

In the beginning of february, I wrote the following:
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As usual this week, its morning, I'm awake, I'm outside, and I'm exhausted. I finally had that appointment with the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic that I'd been waiting for. It was a mixed bag. One of the funky things about being net-savvy is that its easy for a layman to know as much about a subject as an intern or a trainee. Not as much as a real expert, certainly, but standard knowledge in a field, the default questions and answers, are not impressive when you know them too.

My appointment started out with an intern or resident or similar life form. He really didn't know much more than me. Here I am, grasping at the last branch of hope I see, and this guy is babbling crap that I've already read on the internet. Sigh. Yes, I know what you are getting at. No, I don't have OSA, no I don't have RLS, yes, I do have poor sleep habits. No, two goddamned pamphlets and a 14-day sleep log are not going to fix my fucking problem!

Then, for the last 10 minutes, a real doctor came in. She r00led! She started talking about when chimpanzees build their nests and how squirrels exercise but not till after you've shined light in their eyes. Trust me, it was in context at the time. Really. She laid down the line. No sleep drugs - Stanford is really into non-drug natural solutions. I admire the elegance of such techniques, since not taking the "easy" way is generally healthier and more likely to stick in the long run, but I gotta admit to secretly wishing things were otherwise. Anyway, I need to program my body with when to sleep, and to do that, I need to get up at the same time every morning. Period. No naps, no sleeping in, no lying around in the morning. When I go to bed is less important, but should still be fairly regular. And in the morning, I need to go get sunlight, which tells your body to produce seratonin now and melatonin later.

They told me I'd be miserable & exhausted for at least weeks, if not months, before I got better. Oh well. I've been miserable for the past 5 months, a few more are well worth getting well.

Ordering at the Cafe was sort of amusing - i sit down, and the waitress says "Do you want anything to drink?" [pause], glances at my face, [pause] says with a sort of sympathetic intonation "Coffee?"
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For those who are curious, I have managed to sleep well 3 times in the past month. This is not as many as I'd like, but it is far, far more than 0. I am on break for the next couple weeks, and hopefully will continue to make progress. I wrote an essay about my experiences, which in my oh-so-objective-opinion is quite well done. You can find it at:

http://www.izzy.com/~patri/writing/prose/firstfive.html

I should mention, for those of you who haven't been to my website in a few months, that I've made a fair number of additions this year. I put up some poetry, some prose, and various other tidbits which should be interesting reading. Learn why Patri thinks liking professional sports is bad, about Ecstacy use in the 1996 film Romeo + Juliet, how he thinks last names should be structured, and why he doesn't like Disney's The Secret of Nimh, plus a special bonus feminist rant about an Eric Clapton song.

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