Polyphasic Sleep and Better Thinking

I just thought of another T-shirt I want:  It would say,

$my god
loves you

…Maybe with another symbol for fun; a concatenate for the love, maybe?  >>loves you?  Bah, I have time to think on it, which is nice.

…So I'll add that to the massive list of T-shirts I want to make, then.  My husband and I are talking about taking up silk-screening as a hobby, which, considering our collective voraciousness for T-Shirts That Don't Exist, is probably a good idea.

Also, I ran across two nifty quotes today, both of which are heavily translated (which in my mind just means we're free to play with the wording as necessary):

"Desire makes humans clever"

and

"Maybe evolution is the process of getting tastier"

Also, I learned an interesting survival trick:  If you need to grow food, plant bird poop.  Seeds generally survive in it, and in much greater variety than you'll usually find locally (plus, pre-fertilized!).

(There, now if you've seen a certain, rather amazing foreign movie, you'll know what I've been up to with half my attention this morning. The other half has been answering emails and generally catching up on things…I have a ridiculously busy week coming.)

Sleep is fine; got thrown off by some work-functions in the evening towards the end of this week, but recovered fine, feel good.  Workouts are fine — also getting thrown off, or rather dialed back, due to this week's having about twice as much planned physically as usual; but that's also fine.  I feel strong, my knees are great (which is indication of the supporting muscles being nice and strong, I'm learning — it's when the musculature at the sides of my knees, backs and insides of my thighs gets weak (and you'll note that that's not what most leg-workouts target, though taiji is brilliant at it) that my knees ache and pop out easily), I have more stamina all the time, and I'm gradually looking more muscular.  Woot!  …But otherwise not much to report; I guess I could say that this is week 4 of P90 and it's still quite palatable, the moreso since I've largely memorized it and can do it to music now.

Doubtless there will be more to report later, and with any luck more time to do it in — see you, everyone!  And here, have a picture to part with:

So, I lost my phone the other day — actually kind of a fun napping story/warning itself, because apparently I woke up a little too fuzzily at work, and rolled the phone up in my blanket when I put it away, d'oh — and was looking for a good webpage alarm, when I stumbled on the Online Video Clock.  Here's what's cool about it:

• Lets you pick from a preset list of videos, or anything on YouTube, to wake up by
• Works entirely in-browser
• Nice big numbers for glancing at the screen if needed
• Easy to use once you figure it out:  Push the "Update" button to sync the clocks, and then "+15" or "+30" to automatically tune the alarm to that much later (or just adjust the numbers manually).  Don't forget to push the "SET ALARM" button on the bottom!

So, for instance, if you have the new MC Frontalot video totally stuck in your mind, you can now reward yourself with it as a wake-up call, easy as pie.  Or you could watch that awesome Space Lord / Time Lord mashup yet again; or bump up your mood with Weird Al's Anime Polka; or get inspired to craziness with some parkour.  Tons of possibilities, there — and the nice part about a video is that you won't want to just lay there and listen to it; it virtually screams get up and look at this!

So, start of Week 2 of P90 (after 4 weeks of P90X and a one week "break" while assessing other systems).  This is a big ol' update on exercise, food, sleep &etc., so if you've been thinking I'm awfully behind on such updates, you're in luck!  If you hate them, though, this is not your day.  ;)

P90 itself:  So far, so good.  I like:

• how it only takes up about half an hour's time — an hour, once you count shower etc., but still that makes it not much more time-intensive than my morning nap;
• how it makes me break a sweat, but not be all GRRRRRAAAAAAARGH! to make it to the end.  Don't get me wrong, I like being all GRRRRAAAAARGH! sometimes, but not every morning.  It's an energy-expenditure thing.  Sure, I can do an hour of plyo, just like I can shore-dive for half a day and swim home basically on my lips and sheer willpower, and sometimes those things are fun.  When I do climb those mountains, though, I have a valley on the other side to deal with:  I'll need extra sleep, and extra food, and to generally not move much for the 12-24 hours after a GRRRAAARGH!.  (Why yes, I have nounified that sound.  Take that, onomatopoeia police!)  What I want for a daily morning workout is one that burns some calories to offset my sedentarycomputerness, stretches and strengthens all the bits I need for kungfu/taiji, gets me warmed up so I don't feel like I'm dragging in the morning, and leaves me with all the energy I need for a whole day and to do it all again tomorrow (assuming that either today or tomorrow also includes swimming or taiji, and that both include a few miles of walking) on 5 or less hours of total sleep.

  (IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK, haha.)  But as with most things, now that I know what I want more precisely, it's easier to get — and so far P90 seems to fit the bill.

  ONE CAVEAT this experience has taught me about:  The "fitness tests" for programs like P90 / X / Insanity / etc. only tell you if you can do that level of workout, not whether you will want to.  I haven't failed a "fitness test" yet, but P90X was too much for me, not because I couldn't physically do it (well, it wasn't kind to my knees, but that was probably surmountable by itself) but because it was more workout than I was looking for.  Be aware of this if you're looking similarly.
   

• I like how the pace is not too fast, so that if you know the instructions and whatnot already, you can get a little bit ahead.  This is useful for Real Life Considerations like needing to pee, stretch your neck, chase a cat out of somewhere it shouldn't be, etc., and it's nice not to have to pause the video for that.
   
• Takes less equipment than P90X, though to be fair neither of them are horrible on the I-need-equipment front. 
   

And my dislikes are pretty much par for workout stuff in general:

• It's cheeeeeeeesy, made worse (or better, depending on your tastes in Cheese) by lower production values than P90X.  Tony himself is also considerably less "smooth" and comfortable with his banter, though personally I find better banter even cheesier than bad banter, so again, it's about which flavors of cheese make you wince, and which make you vomit.  ;)
• Horrible background Muzak, but thankfully at low volume
• Hilariously unrealistic "students" (note: P90X actually didn't have this problem; those were real graduates of the program and nicely non-model-looking for the most part — maybe Tony put his foot down after he got some corporate traction?  But in P90 they're pretty much what you'd expect from this type of thing…)
• Generally not fun to watch at all…but really, how much does this matter, since the goal is to not really have to watch it?  At least with P90, putting it on mute and keeping half an eye on it while you blaze through it is much easier to attain than with X, which is 2-3x as long and goes twice as fast!

…Being me, I'm already wishing I could combine this activity with, I dunno, memory exercises or learning a language or something.  And maybe I can eventually, but it's not wise to stretch too far too fast.  Last thing I need is to hurt myself because I was conjugating instead of watching my form!

OH, you probably care about results too.  ;)  Well, with uneven application and fairly miserable adherence to the diet (more on that in a second), I still feel good and look noticeably more awesome than before…my leg-muscles (which have always been prominent) are approaching "oo wow" status, and my arms (which usually just look biggish when I exercise) are getting tricep cuts, which is cool.  Best of all, I've lost just enough padding-in-general that my stomach is, while not something I'd show off for money or prizes, officially technically "flat".  I'm starting to see the musculature there, too.  And this is awesome — one of the (several) reasons I work out is that I'm built short and muscle-y anyway, and I knew from long ago that if I got a more regular routine set up, it would be relatively easy for me (relative compared to naturally skinny people) to show muscle and look badass.  Stomach cuts are a sort of the meat and potatoes of that, yeah?

DIET ADHERENCE:  I did it for the first 3 weeks of P90X, mostly because I was afraid of hurting myself otherwise.  I ate 1600-1800 cal a day (1800 was supposed to be my goal, but in the end I could hardly ever hit that), with a heavy tilt towards protein and away from carbs.  I learned that a looooooot of my normal diet is carbs!  I'm still trying to keep the carbs lower and the protein higher, even though once I stopped P90X I (gratefully) stopped worrying about the exact ratio and frantically trying to get 18 million calories in me before bedtime…whew.  I'm back to my usual 1400 or so now, and I feel fine, but I do want to eventually — when I have the brainspace probably — work more on getting better food, and in better proportions.  I know my current habits, which evolved from an allergy to cooking for myself, aren't keepable in the long-term; I can do better. 

And of course:  SLEEP!  Oh, the wonderfulness of having my schedule back…even when it gets thrown off (which it did once this week, majorly enough that I slept 8 hours once to compensate), that only serves to remind me how much better Everyman is than monophasic.  Possibly the only thing better than a morning workout is a morning workout followed by a nap — *awesome*.  (Slight downside:  I definitely get ANGRY if I can't have my afternoon nap; the workout in the morning makes it feel quite mandatory.  But that's just motivation for me to get it, which I need, since breaking up my workday goes against my natural workaholism. ;)

OK, I think that counts as a real, full-size update…Oh, for people who care, I'm also finally reading The Four-Hour Body; I'm sure I'll have opinions on it as time goes on.

Thanks for reading, everyone!  Have a great week if I don't talk to you before the weekend. 

PD

Mine is brief, because I felt weird sharing more of my story that that.  I also feel that the details of how we're different matter less than the many broad ways in which we're the same:  We are ALL suffering because our government, in spite of claiming status as the biggest and best democracy in the world, won't provide us decent health care, reasonable safety-nets, and protection from the people who, before we had a strong socialist* government, had no problem treating the 99% as straight-up slaves, including withholding access to education and weapons as a way to control us. 

The answer is not "less government" — but it's not surprising that the supporters of the 1% want it to be.  They've lamed the horse, and now they want us to let them shoot it, so they can go back to being lords and having serfs and never having to worry that "the rabble" will have any real influence.  These are people who want to use most of humanity as their own personal cattle, to buy and sell and work and kill as they see fit.  A government they don't own gets in their way.  So first they own it, then break it, then try to get people cheering for abolishing it altogether. 

But the 1% should fear the 99%, not the other way around.  Maybe it's been too long since we reminded them why.

*Socialist = with public works, public health, public schools, public emergency services and public courts that enforce the law evenly among everyone.  All things that level the playing field, and which the 1% are of course eager to do away with (except when they can work it so the public pays for those services, but the 1% benefit most from them).

Those complaining about the Occupy protests being Class Warfare are right.  Finally, it's turning to a war, with both sides aware that they're fighting it.

Thus far, it's been Class Genocide, with one side pooling their immense resources to safely corral and eradicate the 99% from afar.  By controlling the media, they've managed to keep the people they're attacking — depriving of food, shelter, education and rights — from ever realizing or acknowledging that they're under attack.  Like "safari hunters" who shoot caged lions, with enough money the 1% can make it cheap and easy to pick off their opponents like fish in a barrel.  It's been war-without-ever-leaving-your-mansion, winning without risking so much as a profit-margin. 

Until now.  Now the jig is up, and though they've been under attack for at least a decade already, the 99% are grabbing some weapons and getting ready to make this a real, honest fight.

Of course those who've been winning effortlessly for so long don't like it when their prey starts fighting back, turning the easy massacre into a real battle in which, oh yeah, they're massively outnumbered.  Now they might lose something; now, if they want their protected status and special privileges, they may actually have to pay for them.  It's not nearly as profitable to mug a person to their face as it is to sneak into their house while they're out working two jobs and swipe everything, is it?  When someone is facing you and the deal is open on the table, they might fight back, and they might even win. 

Cowards don't like warfare.  They prefer psyops.  They like missions that involve keeping people too scared and hungry to fight back, and "battles" where you can shoot everyone while they sleep.  But the cowards are in for it, if the 99% have woken up.

I'm not a fan of battles in general.  But Class Warfare beats the heck out of Class Massacre.

I put my picture on wearethe99percent.tumblr.com … because I feel like a refugee from a pocket third-world country in the US, created by the 1% and the government's insane/corrupt need to please them.  And I'm very aware, every day, what a lucky one of the 99% I am.  The luck is nice, but it's incredibly tough to be lucky when everyone you left at home isn't.

But you probably care more about all those updates I haven't been getting around to…I'm sorry; this week has just been horrendous, really.  And it isn't really slowing down, so this will be in the form of bullet-points for now…my hope/plan is to slow down this weekend and do some real substantive writing, here and elsewhere.  ::hope hope hope::

• Sleep goes well.  This week has been ridiculous so I've missed some naps, but overall I dropped right back into my Everyman Mixed (? Can I call it that?) schedule, where my goal is 3×3, but if I get shorted on naps I do 2×4.5 or 1×6.  As long as I get some 3×3 days every week, this seems to work without issue, but I've definitely noticed that if I get stuck in 2×4.5 / 1×6 for too long, I start to get tired.  (Specifically, a week of 2×4.5, or more than a few days of 1×6, will make me tired and I'll need catch-up sleep, after which I can go back to polyphase.)  I think this is evidence that 3×3 is the most stable one overall — which has been my long-term experience — and that, more generally, the more naps you get, the more stable and restful your polyphasic schedule.  But it remains nice that missing naps doesn't have to knock me completely off-schedule; as long as I keep trying for them, I'm OK even during the most insane weeks of work / practice / errands / etc.
   
• Exercise goes well too.  I'm sorry I didn't get to update as I made this transition, but what I did is try out Insanity and P90 as possible alternatives to P90X (which I did for 3.5 weeks — but it was too long and too intensive and thus making my sleep schedule impossible).  P90 won.  One of the things I really liked about P90X was the focus on form — as a martial artist and someone who picked up fitness as an adult, I care a lot about economy of motion and avoiding injuries — both short- and long-term.  Insanity is definitely named correctly, because it seems to me that unless you're already capable of doing the whole thing by muscle-memory, doing it at that speed is dangerous.  P90, on the other hand, is a nicely shorter version of P90X, keeping most of what I liked about the program without killing me to the point where I need to sleep for years.  ;)  It's still challenging:  Though I've been surprised at how I can "just do" most of it without petering out, and I finish all the workouts which I couldn't always do with X, I'm still out of breath and sweaty and feeling it in the right muscles, but I can take naps and my core and still have enough energy, including for things like taiji and hockey.  I'm nearing the end of week 1 of P90, and so far I like it a lot.  (Note:  It's just as cheesy as P90X, but I'm coming to the realization that all such programs are cheesy.  I can deal.  And it won't take me as long to memorize these so I can just tune them out and listen to music, either!)
   
• My new exercise clothes are AWESOME.  Icebreakers are expensive, but if you work out regularly and hate doing piles and piles of laundry, they're completely worth it.
   
• There's other stuff, but as I keep getting distracted by work and stuff and risk not posting this at all if I don't do it now, I'm stopping here!  ;) 

Have a good Thursday the 13th**, everyone!

*Title note:  One of the most awesome songs ever!  One day I will make someone play it in karaoke or something so I can yell those amazing lyrics at the whole world…Go forth ad infinitum!

**For some reason Thursday the 13ths have always gone worse for me than Fridays.  Thursday the 12ths can be pretty brutal too.  And of course October is a mandatorily creepy month for either. 

Yes, yes, there are exercise (new plan, woot!) and sleep updates (still polyphasic, adjustment symptoms present but minimal) — but there's also something more important to talk about, so Imma do that for a minute first.

I think I've found a major piece of the difference between being a Good vs a Bad person.  Now, quick, two caveats:

• I'm totally using the words "Good" and "Bad" as shorthand — I'm referring, not to moral judgment or societal normative values, but to a subjective value of positiveness that we can all (objectively) agree with:  "Good" people have few regrets, and can sleep with the ones they have, and go through their days feeling generally light-hearted and prone to kindness.  "Bad" people are bitter, chewed by old regrets and more concerned with their own daily unhappiness than much else.  Sure there's a continuum, but most people at least perceive themselves (and others) as falling more on one side of the scale than the other. 
• There's nearly a whole branch of Philosophy devoted to what it means "to be" any kind of "person".  The common vernacular is to take it as a statement of identity — of am-ness — but I would caution against that, tempting as it is.  It almost always results in moral judgments and illogic.  Consider this construction, of "being a Good/Bad person" to be a major shorthand as well — shorthand for a complex emotional and psychological dynamic state of being that comprises a great part of our self-perceived degree of happiness, and is, if not the same thing as "me", a really major part of what it means to live "my" life.  That one is preferable goes without saying, and it's inarguable from a valid first-person perspective which abides.  That's really all we need from it for this topic.

It goes without saying that being "Good" makes it easier to continue being Good and being "Bad" makes propagation of that state more likely too.  Those who are Bad and want to be happy have to make a serious effort to change their thinking, or something must change it for them:  anger and pain create more of the same.

The reigning theory, as presented to me by my world anyway, is that Good people have been dealt less shit in this world.  Having been mistreated, victimized, and made to suffer is considered the thing that "causes" Badness.  (Or else it's considered just a choice by judgmental people, but I'm not even entertaining that view for now.  I feel I could shoot it down easily if needed.)  People in that state of Badness, even, often claim that they're responding in the only or natural way to some victimization(s) they have suffered.

I submit that I have seen no evidence that suffering causes Badness, though certainly the more of it one has, the more opportunity for Badness is present*.  It's easier to not be bitter, regretful and to lash out at others with your pain when you're in very little pain**, sure.  But correlation, as we Americans really ought to all have tattooed on our pseudoscientific foreheads, is not causation.

*However, so is more opportunity for Goodness.  I'm not going to stop to explain why, as I think it's obvious with a little pondering, but it is cool to note that, if the below is true, people who haven't eaten shit sandwiches are neither Good nor Bad.
**I would argue that no living human being is in no pain.  It's not possible.  Loss and hurt are integral parts of our existence from day one.  And anyone who says otherwise is selling something.  ;)

But I think that, recently, I did identify something that seems the cause and root of Badness in people.  It's tough to find a perfect name for, but we could call it any of the following:  resistance; denial; unwillingness to grant the inevitability of what is; arrogance concerning reality; failure to accept the is-ness of the present; harboring a constant internal "NO".

I've talked about this thing before — as have many — but today I saw in it a core-ness that I don't think I'd recognized previously.  I don't think Acceptance (to pick a word) is a/the key to happiness anymore…I think it may be the single difference; the sufficient condition; the jumper-switch itself, the thing that means there will be Goodness or Badness in a person (and in direct proportion to their level/concentration of Acceptance).

Sadly, I learned this by watching a largely-Good person go startlingly (and hopefully temporarily) Bad* as a result of lack of Acceptance in the face of a nasty loss.  I had the opportunity (though nothing was pleasant about it) to watch as failure to accept, refusal to live with, and insistence on the wrongness of reality literally ate someone's heart alive.  I watched all the selflessness and kindness and compassion and strength (and there was so, so much of that) in someone turn to endless complaining, blaming, hatred and even greed.  Someone whose biggest flaw previously was probably a tendency to offer too much to people and give everyone the benefit of the doubt even when it was stupid became, in no more than a year, someone who grasped at everything perceived as "theirs"; someone who spewed bile and demanded that everyone take sides, and who lashed out at even people who tried to help.  Even after most of the people involved had put the unfortunate situation behind them, this person would bitterly bring it up, would nastily spread gossip, drop comments and toss out insults, at every opportunity.  And here's the thing:  This is a person who's been dealt mad shit before, who's been victimized on levels I could not imagine myself, but through honest appraisal of that reality had cultivated the aforementioned kindness and selflessness, turning victimhood into compassion and depth of understanding. 

*I want to reiterate here that this is not about moral judgment. Bad in this context != wrong or deserving of punishment; in fact it is the punishment, albeit self-inflicted.

It was the difference that really rocked me.  Being served Plate of Shit #1 and working to accept it — not to condone or celebrate it, but to fully admit that it was, independent of judgments — created (after a long healing process no doubt; I wasn't there for it) a person whose Goodness–whose happiness in adverse circumstances, and willingness to love people and enjoy life–often left me speechless.  But later in life, being served Plate of Shit #2 (which was inarguably less shitty than Plate #1, too) and absolutely refusing to accept it created a person who, while far from entirely or purely Bad, drove away many with constant accusations and bitter ill-wishing, and suffered months and months of stewing in unpleasantness.

There's a lesson here — a big one.

Plates #1 and #2 both involved being betrayed by trusted people, hurt badly in the process, and then left to recover from it largely on one's own.  It's the kind of shit sandwich that we're all, I think, served up sometimes; and we all, or certainly most of us, go through a period of F U, of being stung and unable to deal with humanity for a while.  But then, the question is, do you eventually accept it, acknowledge that it's real and in essence, moral-less?  Do you come to that place (I remember well, about 4 months after my divorce, when I came to it) of saying "Well, that sucked, but life is life and there's no sense hating all over everything just because this happened; things can be ok anyway"? 

Now you may well say, "Well yes, but obviously more time, more healing, is needed" — and I completely agree.  But what is that healing?  What makes healing possible; how does it progress for some and stall for others?  I argue that the healing process, while it certainly must take different lengths of time* for different people eating different shit sandwiches, is inseparable from Acceptance.

*Though by my theory, in a person capable of "perfect" Acceptance, this period would be very very short.

I can't do anything (that I'm aware of) about what happened in the case that has provided such an education for me.  But I can take that lesson to heart, because it's also inarguable that I carry some bitterness and non-Acceptance with me, specifically about a shit sandwich the Universe served up for me last year.  I'm past the worst of it, but it still causes me a regular, pretty horrible kind of pain, and when it does I feel myself pulled back towards anger and railing against the unfairness of it all, plus hatred of the numerous people who did me wrong during that time.  And that absolutely affects how I act towards everyone, including myself.  I'm grateful for the clarity with which I can now see that those emotions and lack of Acceptance are, in fact, the same thing; and I'm grateful to be able to feel (i.e. know more than intellectually) the correlation between those things and Badness in me.  Lack of Acceptance makes me draw in, curl up, and snarl; makes me turn away from others, tending to offer nothing more than a middle finger no matter what their needs.  Even when I want to be kind and understanding, the pull inside me is towards coldness, avoidance, and if confronted, lashing out.

Bad people* have not, by and large, decided to be Bad*.  I bet that most of them strive daily to be Good.  But many don't understand — and it's not like this is advertised on billboards — that being Good is easy when the pull inside you is for it; and that pull is directly resultant from the level of Acceptance of What Is that you've cultivated.  (For a more detailed understanding of Acceptance of What Is, see all of Eastern philosophy…or as a shortcut see the definitions of hexagram #17, SUI  / FOLLOWING.)

*time to reiterate that caveat again…

No matter how bad what's happened is, by accepting it fully, we can keep it from making we ourselves Bad.

Wow, I apologize for the wording there…this stuff just makes julienned fries out of pronouns.  I hope the point survives, and if not, let me know; I'm happy to keep trying.  It's, well, what I do.  ;)

Day two:  Will there be an adjustment period?  After a month off?  I have no idea!

So that's exciting.  ;)

Today I feel fine.  Didn't want to get up at 4am, but it's chilly and raining, and I was more "enjoying snuggling and listening to a thunderstorm" than sleepy…felt fine once I was up.  I also definitely wanted my morning nap, and slept awesome for it, though I do have that lingering "hmm could I go for a few hours of unconsciousness" feeling.  No other symptoms of sleep-dep though.

Maybe tomorrow, or tonight, things get really hard and I have to go through the whole gamut of adjustment funhouseness over again!  Or maybe nothing happens and I get to just sail through, just happily being on my old schedule again.  (I do feel mentally about a thousand times better…and it's hilarious how many people grabbed me yesterday to say THANK GOD YOU LOOK *SO* MUCH BETTER DON'T EVER TRY THAT MONO CRAP AGAIN!)  And man, once again, 4am was wonderful.  Writing (new story submitted!) and new Chen Taiji exercises, plus time to do an entire ground-up config on my main machine, which had to be rebuilt yesterday and is now in prime fully-installed condition in time for work.  Woot!

As to adaptation, whether or not there'll be one this time, I can only wait to find out…and let's face it, I don't really care.  It could be a full-on Uberman zombiefest and you'd find me sitting here humming like a happy kid.  (In fact my only regret remains that I can't do Uberman…but I've got my eye on you, full-time job, and the second you slip, watch out!)

Hope everyone's Tuesday is even half as awesome as mine!  I'm going to go spend a ton of it at work now, but hey, I had 4h of "playtime" before that, and I'll have nearly 4h of not-working afterwards too…so I can't argue with that.  ;)

Peace and Polyphase!
PD

Not writing this in the WordPress editor like a smart person…yes, yes, we can imitate smart people well…good for us…

So, speaking of smart people, WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?

You all need to do me a favor, seriously. The next time I make some silly remark about how I'm going to go monophasic for some reason or another, come to my house and slap me. Remind me that I've hated every day I've been monophasic since the year 2000! If needed, force me to read all my old blog posts that unequivocally prove this, and then make me do forms or drink tea or something until my semblance of sanity returns. An extra slap or two, or some forced administration of coffee, may be needed. Don't be shy.

In other words, ::face.palm::.

So I had the weekend to plan, to figure out what to do with the month of exercise that ate my every morning, and the pile of writing I wasn't getting done instead. And the answer was pretty freaking obvious: I need my sleep-schedule back. I love a regular workout and yes, as this experiment proved, a high-intensity one is great and I enjoy that, but if it can't fit into my schedule then I don't need it that badly, period. (Especially not when I'm already fit and look and feel fine; I just want more endurance and possibly some abs to show off. This is not grounds for losing hours (1.5 – 3hrs at night + 2h in the morning for extra sleep, and then 1.5 in the a.m. to work out) per day. I guess I can see how I made the decision to try it, but wow did I underestimate what those hours were worth to me.

So, this weekend was actually rather hectic, in its way, and in the end I realized that this is the one change I need to make, and the rest will have to be ironed out afterwards, once I have time to cogitate, read some more, and make better plans. I got a loaner copy of "Insanity", the recommended lesser/shorter version of P90X, to check out; and I'm also reading The 4-Hour Body finally. My new exercise routine will probably come from one of those (and possibly some P90X too…I did like that, as a workout) and I imagine that it'll take me just a few days, now that I have my 19-hour days back, to figure out which and how. I've set aside 6am daily as my exercise time. That's when I was getting up, before – 6am, so that I could roll out of bed, work out, hit the shower and run to work, with barely time for a cup of coffee. Now at 6am I'll be coming off about 1.5 hours of writing, and not feel like my whole morning vanished in a puff of gasping and sweat. Much. Better.

So, after a month of sleeping 10p – 6a like a good little standard human critter, I'm writing this at 4a.m.

And god it feels good.

As for adjustment, I took, but didn't really sleep for either of my naps yesterday – to be expected – so I went to bed at 23:30 figuring it made sense to start with E4.5, and I popped up easy as you like at 04:00. (I have appointments several evenings this week, including tonight, that will keep me from getting my evening nap, so Everyman 4.5 seemed to make more sense to adjust to. I suspect turning the dial to E3 once there's a free-ish block of time to do it in will be easy, at least for me.) The hard part will be making sure I get my afternoon naps at work, which were plenty challenging before I got myself and the rest of the office used to just plowing through that period. I shall have to be strict about it.

My mornings (I could sing that phrase! ;) look like this now:

4am – Wake up
4:30 – 6am – No-effing-around writing time
6am – Workout time; workouts should be short enough to get me out of the shower by 7:30
8am – Head to work; except on Mondays when early taiji means I have to leave by 7:30

Woot! That's more like it.

The evenings…well, I've always struggled with making my evenings productive; I run out of mental steam during the day and often spend the evenings reading, surfing, making chainmail and watching TV, or playing video games…not my best uses of time, there. But even if that stays the same for now, I will feel much less stressed having until 23:30 or 01:00 to stay awake and "relax" than I did having to turn in by ten p.m.

OK, I have other writing to do this morning too so I'd better hustle…but YAY for Everyman and seriously, don't ever let me do that Monophasic crap again! (My husband agrees, by the way…the look of relief on his face when he saw me up at 4a.m. was epic. ;)

This, I think, falls under "Blogging nobody wants to read" — Sometimes I wake up and I'm not sure what to think, what to do, and then I sit down and write for a while and EUREKA, I HAVE IT!.  That's what happened today, and though I'm sure no-one probably cares about the process, I can't just throw that writing away…that would be like painstakingly determining your exact favorite color and then forgetting the whole process so you could go back to wearing read.  (BLACK, my favorite color has been black since I first could recognize the shades of it, and my favorite shade of it is the one I can stare at a moment and lose all sense of surface; it's a color that conveys depth, that makes it seem as though everything you paint it with can dissolve into infinity at a moment's notice.  What's yours?)

Anyway, overt honesty below the cut.  Perhaps if you need some of your own, mine will rub off?  Or perhaps you'll waste ten minutes reading about someone else's insecurities and life-pathness.  Time will tell!  ;)

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