the insomniac's dilemma.

[baratron]

Should I go to sleep now, or stay up until this evening?

The problem with going to sleep now is that if I sleep now, I won't wake up until 10pm or later tonight. I find it really damned hard to take a nap of a couple of hours and sleep "properly" later. I might be able to manage it if I'm really motivated, but it's hard.

The problem with not waking up until 10pm or later is that we rented Crazy Taxi from Blockbuster and should really take it back tonight, but I haven't really had a chance to play it yet and I'd like to have a fiddle before it goes back. However, I'm way too tired to play a fast-moving video game like that now. Ideally, what I want to do is sleep for a couple of hours (say until 7pm), then get up, play Crazy Taxi, eat dinner, read some news and go back to bed about midnight. But I know from my bloody twisted sleep cycles that that's going to be impossible. And unfortunately, I need to go to the doctor tomorrow at 10.30am, and I'll have to be on some sort of normal time if I'm going to try doing the PhD again.

Erk. I have huge amounts of news to read.

• 2261 unread messages in alt.polyamory
  
• 522 unread messages in uk.transport.london
  
• 696 unread messages in uk.people.gothic
  
• 161 unread messages in uk.games.video.playstation
  
• 896 unread messages in soc.bi

plus hundreds of unread messages in the newsgroups that I just skim.

What to do?

The added complication is that my hair is at the stage where it doesn't just look dirty, it actually feels dirty. If I don't wash my hair for a couple of weeks, it goes all greasy around the roots, and then my scalp itches, and it's generally quite unpleasant. I need to sort that out before I do anything in public, but I simply don't have the energy to shower now. My options are, effectively: stay up, read news, and hope that I get a "second wind", or go to bed now, and hope that setting alarms and suchlike actually gets me out of bed. I'm leaning towards sleep, now, but knowing my luck, I'll get into bed and suddenly think of something I want to post here, and then not be able to sleep because my brain is whirring too hard...

Comments

[inquis.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm, I'd go for the staying up until the evening, else try napping on the sofa - it might give you a boost without you oversleeping? As for the hair, I'd say wash it now, so even if you do then nap for a while, you'll wake up with fresh hair and you might feel a bit boosted by that too?

I've cut my newsgroups down to just one - alt.polyamory - because it's the only one I got on with. soc.bi was horrible, it made me remember why I'm non-scene :o(

soc.bi and scene

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Don't take soc.bi as an example of the bi scene. soc.bi's the snarkiest newsgroup I've ever been on. I know that compared to many groups, the flaming that goes on there is minor, but I personally don't like flaming. If I say something wrong or stupid, I don't mind someone else saying "You're wrong/stupid" and then going on to explain why, but I don't see the point of saying things that are hurtful just because you're pissed off with yet another newbie coming in saying "I've just worked out that I'm bi and I don't know what to do". The only time I think it's okay to flame is if someone has demonstrated complete and utter cluelessness and a total lack of desire to learn from mistakes, and coming onto usenet with that sort of attitude is just asking for trouble...

But soc.bi has this great thing about how it's not a support group, it's a discussion group. And yet what most newbies are looking for is a support group. So newbies arrive looking for support and get flamed because "it's not a support group". And then the regulars turn around and say to each other "Why are all the newbies so over-sensitive?".

I've just decided to mostly stop reading it for the moment and keep in touch through the #soc.bi irc channel. The people on there are nice - even the people who flame like mad on the group!

Re: soc.bi and scene

[inquis.livejournal.com]

Soc.bi would have been fine if there had been an attitude of "Ooooh, what an interesting discussion about terminology" (which admittedly some of them had), rather than "Yay! Newbie-baiting is our favourite sport!"

I left. I couldn't be bothered to justify myself to a bunch of strangers.

[djm4]

This is the point at which I usually have a long, hot bath - relaxes me and takes care of the hair - but this may not work for you.