Wednesday, May 14, 2008

The night is made for infomercials

If each of us has some kind of internal clock that tells us when to wake up and go to sleep, then the warranty on mine must've expired. Either that, or it was manufactured in Turkey by illiterate toothless hillpeople who were hired to make it when the factory relocated from Vietnam because the hillpeople were willing to work for ten cents an hour less than the barefoot former vietcong in southeast asia. Damn you outsourcing!!!

Yesterday, I was supposed to call someone at 10pm. I put my head down for a nap at 6 and woke up at 2:30 am. Sadly, this has been happening a lot lately. I wish I could blame the drugs, but I haven't been taking any. If I had, I would have an excuse that would eventually become an interesting anecdote that I could tell my future grandchildren. "Stay away from drugs, kids. Lots of people die from using drugs, and some of them, like me, sleep for inordinately long periods of time and wake up feeling no aftereffects, except for a feeling of restedness followed by feelings of Catholic guilt, which are completely undestandable since I've been haunted with them since my traumatic parochial school years."

I think I should stop with the Catholic jokes since I haven't been to church in a good long while. I did attend Catholic schools when I was younger. The tuition covered unlimited helpings of guilt and an exceptional education in math, english and science. Before anyone makes an inappropriate joke, I should mention that alhtough I attended Catholic school, I was never molested by a priest...they charged extra for that. Moving on...

I have a list of things to do around the house and I keep meaning to get around to them, but lately I've been falling asleep and waking up at really odd hours and I don't think my neighbors will apreciate me running my table saw at 4am. So I've been doing what everyone does at 4 am. Watching infomercials. I've decided that I'm thinking about doing the p90X exercise program. Because the first step to actually doing something is to think about it; so for a while I've been thinking about thinking about it, and yesterday I decided to think about it. There are only a couple of metaphysical steps in between that and actually doing the exercises. Some of those before/after pics are pretty impressive. But it probably requires a lot of effort. We'll see how I feel after today's nap.

12 comments:

Jamie said...

I occasionally have this problem. One of the great flaws with DC (well, really, most civilized societies) is that it's illegal to have a drinking establishment open at this hour. New Orleans and Las Vegas may be the only places in this country one can go out and find a drinking buddy at 4 AM. But obviously those are not civilized places.

Anyway, I usually end up doing some menial task that I've been putting off that only seems interesting when compared to the alternative: infomercials. Like, going though boxes of shit I haven't unpacked since I moved a year ago, or trying to organize the pile of tools in my basement, or cleaning out the refrigerator. This can actually be a very productive time.

I hate infomercials.

Lemmonex said...

I suffer from raging insomnia, which can sometimes be a blessing, as I am perpetually overbooked and my inability to sleep means I can get shit done at obscene times. Very important things that I never can do during the time normal people can get them done. The amount of times I have cleaned my bathroom at 1 am is a tad embarrassing.

Luckily, this means I miss most infomercials.

Anonymous said...

I'm with those 2. I have insomnia too, but I clean and organize at those times. It doesn't wake my wife and I get stuff done.

lacochran's evil twin said...

I fell pray to Tony Horton's charms. Years ago I ordered the precursor to P90X: P90notsoextreme, or P90slackass or something. I did it for a few weeks. It wasn't as much fun as you'd think.

Lemon Gloria said...

Exhausting. I wonder what you've changed in your life to make your body shift like this?

Why S? said...

Maybe it's not you. Maybe it's our ridiculous culture that says everybody should be at their best between the hours of 8 am and 9 pm. I am at my best between 11 pm and 3 am.

Most infomercials are hellish but I did once fall hard for the Tobi garment steamer.

Anonymous said...

I organize and throw out bags of junk when I can't sleep.

After the Katrina disaster I couldn't sleep at all - just thinking about those people kept me up. My Fiance woke up the next morning and I had boxed up 10 large boxes of "stuff" for him to ship to them. I wonder if he misses his shirts...

Anonymous said...

Those are some strange sleeping-hours, for sure. But then again, you're strange. Ha! :)

HomeImprovementNinja said...

Jamie: good suggestions.

Lemmonex: ditto

Anonymous: am I the only one watching informercials?

lacochran: D'oh!

Lisa: yeah, me too.

Why S?: yes, let's blame society.

renovationtherapy: hmmm...

zandria: et tu, zandria?

Anonymous said...

i often..(read alll the time)...fall asleep with the tv on..which means the infomercials wiggle into my dreams...like the time i dreamed i was doing arobics with a bow and arrow....and woke up to a bowflex infomercial..

xoxo

Anonymous said...

I'm trying to figure out if there are veiled insults against Vietnamese in this post. And if so, whether I care.

p90x said...
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