Day 1: I hate this.
I never realised how much I like sleeping. In fact, I love it. One of the things that appeals to me about Uberman is that you get to sleep 6 times per day. And once my brain wises up and starts to kick me into REM sleep immediately, I'll have amazing epic dreams that will feel like hours while only taking 20 minutes.
In the meantime, this fucking blows. I knew it was going to be tough, but it's been almost unendurable. Maybe I am just a huge wuss, but I thought after each (non-) nap today that I was going to give up.
My midnight nap didn't work at all - I just laid there for 20 minutes, breathing heavily and trying to remember what I learned in my 5 yoga classes last year. My 4 AM "sleep" was the same. By 7 AM I couldn't take any more NFL so I started my plan to watch every episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 in chronological order, beginning with episode K04 - Gamera vs. Bergaron. The early MST3k's are actualy pretty tough going - there aren't a lot of jokes in them, and the robot voices are all wrong.
By the time of my 8 AM nap, I was ready to pass out but I decided to eat something first. I made some kim chi ramen and then crawled into bed. I think eating was a mistake, cause I could feel the food digesting in my stomach the whole time, and it distracted me enough that I got no actual sleep.
I decided to go to the pool and swim for a bit, mostly to take a shower (since I don't have one here). I'm not much of a swimmer, though I'd like to entertain notions that I could one day be physically fit. i hung out in the old person's lane and went back and forth in the pool a few times doing a weird stroke that is like a cross between a butterfly and the breaststroke. I really just wanted to shower but I had to get my €2.70 worth so I swam probably more than I should have given how tired I was. I cycled back down the hill freezing with wet hair and began my work day. During which I was semi-coherent, but luckily I don't have to talk to anyone.
The 12:00 nap I finally actually slept, in fact, cheating a bit as I slept about a half hour instead of the 20 minutes. I went back to work and then at 3:30 I took a break to mop the floor in here. I got it all mopped, planning to sleep as it dried. At 4 I anxiously went to bed, though I had left the lights on because the switch was on the other side of the big wet expanse of floor. I didn't sleep until probably 18 minutes in - when I finally started to drift off, and then BAM! The alarm went off and up I am.
In fifteen minutes I'm gonna attempt to sleep which will mark my first full 24 hour cycle under this madness. I think I have slept a total of 52 minutes (20 + 30 + 2) but that is probably being optimistic.
Obviously I'm not going about this correctly, making mistakes like eating,overexerting myself in the pool, leaving the lights on, etc. ...At each point I vowed to quit, but then thought about how silly this blog would look, and how much I want to accomplish with the extra time. Already I was able to spend an hour last night studying Finnish, make pita bread, do my laundry (by hand, which takes ages), read a bit (though that makes me very sleepy), watch MST3k, work a full day's work, answer some emails, write a column for a zine, swim, cycle, make vegetarian pho, make hummus, watch 2.5 NFL games, and clean up in here - that's in 24 hours. So the potential for greatness here is going to keep me going at it even if I hate it.
The Uberman guy on everything2.com says that days 3 through 10 are the worst. I can't imagine feeling any worst than i felt at 11:30 AM this morning, but I'm sure it will come.
Tunes listened to today:
Beach Boys - SMiLE (Purple Chick bootleg)
Dennis Wilson - Pacific Ocean Blue
His Name is Alive - Mouth by Mouth
Lionel Marchetti - Knud un Nom de Serpent
Refrigerator - Glitter Jazz
Silje Nes - Ames Room
Hospitals - Hairdryer Peace
Pink Reason - By a Thread
7 minutes til naptime. Can't wait.