8 PM or 1 AM

Recently I've been going to bed either at eight in the evening or one in the morning.  On one hand, there is no reason to be doing anything, so I might as well just go to sleep as soon as I'm no longer required to be working or parenting.  On the other hand, the things that I have to do are intolerable, so I want to put them off as long as possible, and going to bed is liking making it morning right away, so there is an argument for staying up as long as I can possibly manage.just to delay the inevitable.

The thing is, either way I can hardly stay awake at work during the day.  The sleepiness takes on a different texture.  In one case it's this sort of creeping lethargy that as soon as I stop moving it's just hard to get up the will to start again.  In the other case it's an assault of sleep attacks where the muscles around my eyes stop obeying my command and I have dreams that merge with my waking awareness of my environment.

Neither of those things are all that unpleasant, and when there is actually a reason for me to be at my job I seem to manage to get things done.  I've been keeping a spreadsheet of all of the stupid screw-ups I make at work and so far all of them have been emotional or just plain stupidity, none have been didn't-get-it-done-because-I-fell-asleep.

I wonder if I wouldn't be quite so tired if I aimed for about nine hours a night, but I suspect that right now how tired I am doesn't have a lot to do with sleep.  Well, except when I'm not sleeping - then I assume it has a lot to do with sleep.