Sleepy Sunday

I got a decent night’s sleep last night. Why am I super tired today? I haven’t done anything unusual. I did my daily exercise BS and I’ve done a few errands around the house, but that’s all. Why am I exhausted? Is it because I am just old? Could be.

Someone on Threads asked for musical people to share some music. 99.999% of the time I ignore engagement bait posts like that but today I shared a song… and I think I accidentally shared an album. Oh well. I guess being super tired puts me into a kind of musical glutton for punishment mode. I just don’t know if the punishment I expect is in the form of bad criticisms or just the chirping of crickets as the universe ignores my shitty songs. Probably the latter. Oh well.

Did I mention that it was snowing a few minutes ago? It was just a tiny flurry but it fits the mood of the day. The mood being, Blah.

I wonder if a few seconds after publishing this post I am going to get a long comment from a user whose name and photo imply that they are female while the long comment is something that is most probably written by some sort of AI program. It’s happened on the last few posts I’ve published that had more than just a sentence or two of text. You know, something that ChatGPT could sink its virtual teeth into. We’ll see in a minute. Maybe writing about it will let them know that I am on to them and they’ll lay off. Doubtful.

Oh look at that, I just got a text from bank of america saying that my account has been disabled due to suspicious activity. I had better call them and give them all of my personal information, even though I don’t have a fucking account with fucking bank of america. Oh well.

Up Early

I was awake at about 4:30am today. I thought to myself, I can’t sleep anymore so I’ll just get up even though my alarm won’t be going off for another 30 minutes.

Then I blinked once.

Then my alarm went off. Huh. I guess I wasn’t having that much trouble sleeping after all.

I got up a few minutes later and got a slightly earlier than usual start to an in-the-office day. I was able to do my regular morning exercise. I usually lower my goal a bit for in the office days, but today I left it at the usual amount and hit it with enough time to spare to take a couple of pictures for today’s photo a day thing. Really I just wanted to switch from my 28mm to my 85mm lens and used photo a day as an excuse to make sure I didn’t somehow break something when I switched.

125/365
DSC_3178

Ain’t those pics purdy? Pointless, but purdy? No. Whatever.

I’m hoping to take the new Lomo camera out for it’s first official test drive this weekend. The forecast is calling for some sun, but it’s also calling for some cold. We’ll see. I need to go revisit some YouTube how-to videos first because I think I’ve forgotten how to use the camera already. Again, we’ll see.

Done and Done

It’s 11:10pm. Very late at night for me. I’m trying to watch Deadpool and Wolverine on Disney+. I have about 40 minutes left to go but I am not going to make it. I have to go to sleep. I’ll watch the rest while I do my exercise in the morning.

I’ve needed to laugh out loud a bunch of times, but Jen was asleep and I didn’t want to wake her, so like a good Irish American stereotype I’ve been keeping my feelings buried down deep inside of me and keeping it all bottled up. Granted the stereotype I’m talking about applies to burying painful, negative feelings rather than laughter and happiness, but like all things on this blog, I needed to mold the expectations to fit my poorly written story. You know how it is.

G’night, everyone. See you all in the morning.


PS: What the hell is up with the tags field on the blog editor? It barely works right now. It started this afternoon and I’ve seen the problems on two machines using two different browsers. The cursor and my text just vanish in the middle of typing an entry. The fuck is up with that, wordpress.com? Let’s fix that particular bug, pronto. I have spoken. This is the way.

Priorities are Jerks

Is doing the right thing overrated? Are priorities jerks?

Wednesday night I got a little less than six hours of sleep. I was really tired through most of the day on Thursday. I wanted to go to bed early last night but I ended up going to bed late. Fail. Then at about 3:30am I woke up with stomach pain. I have been doing a really shitty job over the last few days of eating three square meals. Three nights in a row I’ve had protein bars for dinner. It caught up to me. I was dealing with hunger pain a lot yesterday. I just couldn’t keep my stomach topped off for very long. I ate something before bed but it wasn’t enough and I was hurting when I woke up in the middle of the night. I had a little protein bar and felt better but I couldn’t fall back to sleep. It was annoying.

The end result? Less than five hours of sleep, and that includes over sleeping by about an hour. That lead to another question. Do I do my normal morning exercise and skip playing some guitar before work, or do I skip some or all of my exercise and play guitar. Ugh. I did the right thing. I did my exercise. I did not play guitar. I punched in to work at 8:50 with plenty of time to spare before the start of my shift, but I did not get any 50/90 challenge work done. No music for me.

Bummer. Maybe I’ll be able to sneak some work in tonight. Also, maybe I’ll have actual dinner tonight instead of just protein supplements. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I just don’t want to have hunger pains today. Let’s do the right thing, m’kay?

2.5 Hours to Go

The countdown to the end of the work day and the start of my long weekend continues. I was pulled into a meeting for the stretch of time that I was planning to have lunch so I had to delay my break for an hour. It’s 3:00pm now and I am just wrapping up my lunch. My stomach has been okay for most of the day, though I’ve twice been hit with empty stomach hunger pains. The second time was at 11:00am while I was in a (different) meeting and it was pretty uncomfortable. A protein bar and some sugar free chocolate at 11:30 put me right. I’m optimistic that I had enough lunch to hold off any further issues until I get home. Cross those fingers, kids.

For the third day in a row I am trying to get through the day while dealing with feelings of exhaustion. Why? I got a decent night’s sleep last night. I should feel better today than I did yesterday or the day before, right? Nope. I am super tired once again. Last night at about 9:00pm I could barely keep my eyes open. Then, magically, by 10:00 I was wide awake. I was able to get to sleep by 11:00 though so I thought it would be okay. Today I’ve just been wiped out all day. If this comes up again tomorrow I might actually take a nap. Wouldn’t that be fun? I mean, I am old so of course it would be fun. The older you get the more that a good solid nap is a thrill ride. Bring it on, people!

Okay. Back to work. I have a meeting in 18 minutes, and a long weekend two hours after that. Power through, Robert!

And Now We Wait and See

In reference to the post from earlier today where I discussed my silly food experiment, I have finished my lunch. I had a little bit of chicken, a protein cookie, a little sugar free chocolate, and a handful of Ritz crackers. No peanuts for me.

Now we wait and see how I feel this afternoon including if my stomach requires me to eat on the drive home, and how I feel when it’s time for dinner, probably around 6:45-7:00pm. Will there be gassy pain in my stomach like there often is when I work in the office and have peanuts with my lunch? Or will I be pain and discomfort (and brutal, violent farts) free (please excuse the TMI, but I included it for the benefit of scientific research, you understand)?

In other health-ish news, I used my CPAP machine again last night. It went well. No issues. More importantly, the SleepWatch app on my Apple Watch tells me that the ratio of restful sleep vs light sleep increased. Yesterday it was 67% restful, which wasn’t bad, I don’t think, but today it was 79% which is pretty wonderful. I like seeing that number in the 70’s, but when it pushes 80 it’s extra special. It had my sleeping heart rate dip at 21% too. Anything above 20% is excellent. Unfortunately, I failed to get six hours of sleep in total (only by a few minutes though) and the older I get the less functional I am when the total is less than six hours. Oh well.

So as far as medical experiments go, we need to see how my stomach feels by the time dinner rolls around, 4-5 hours from now, and how tonight’s sleep goes. There is just so much data to collect. The statistics nerd typing this post is giddy with antici…

…pation.

The Return of Mr. CPAP

I think it was May 22nd. The last time I used my CPAP machine before breaking it down and packing it up to take to Florida. I didn’t use it at all on the vacation. I didn’t even take it out of the case. When we got home I had a nasty head cold and the thought of sneezing into the CPAP machine’s mask was gross enough to stop me from setting it up and using it.

On the 19th of June I used it. The next four nights I tried to use it, but had to shut if off after a couple of hours. I’m not sure why. I was still coughing up phlegm quite often and I just couldn’t find a way to be comfortable with the mask on and it kept waking me up. From June 24th on, I didn’t use it at all.

Then last night, July 1st. I used it again and it went pretty well. The questions I have now are these:

Do I need to use it anymore?

Is it doing anything for me?

Sleep apnea doesn’t really seem to be an issue anymore. At least I am not snoring at 100 decibels and waking my wife up every night. I was hoping that when I checked the sleep stats my Apple Watch collected last night it would show me that my percentage of restful vs light sleep would be higher. It wasn’t. At least not compared to the previous few nights’ worth of numbers.

So… am I wasting my time with this thing? Am I putting that huge alien face hugger over my nuggin’ for nothing?

I’ll use it for a few more days and see how the numbers look. If, after a week or so, the restful sleep percentage doesn’t go up, or I just don’t feel as rested come the morning, then I’ll talk to my doctor about maybe returning the machine and moving on with my life.

Healthcare… am I right?