Weekend Assignment #199: When Do You Sleep?

Well, this is the 199th Weekend Assignment; it's the second from Karen Funk Blocher at Outpost Mavarin, who took it over from John Scalzi when he left AOL. And it's the first one I've done, I think, since 2005. Nothing like coming a bit late to the party, eh? Anyway, here goes.

Weekend Assignment #199: What is your usual sleep schedule on weeknights? Are you an "early to bed, early to rise" sort of person, or do you stay awake far into the night (voluntarily or otherwise), and get up as late as your work schedule permits? Do you give priority to getting adequate sleep? If so, how is that working out for you?

Extra Credit: If you had no work or family scheduling obligations, would your sleeping pattern change substantially?

We have a love/hate relationship, sleep and I. There is no greater pleasure than slipping between cool, heavy sheets under a down comforter on a winter night. I shrug off, like a heavy cloak, the duties and burdens of the day, and watch dreams sift down on the starlight. It's a little glimpse of Heaven.

Then again, late evening is the only time there is for all the many things I really enjoy, and I hate having to leave the fun to go to bed.

I'm up at 6:30 in the morning to get a kid off to school, and I leave for the office at 8:30. I get home around 5:30 PM and then do dinner and chores. By the time I'm finished it's at least 8:30 in the evening. My actual sleep is interrupted several times a night now, so to have any hope of getting enough rest I'd need to be in bed by 10:30 PM. That would give me two hours a day, tops, for everything else in life that I want to accomplish and do and be.

Getting to bed is always a struggle -- not between what is good for me and what is not, but between physical needs and emotional ones. So, for the extra credit, Yes: If not for obligations, things would be different. I would live my own life every minute while awake and sleep a gloriously long time whenever I felt tired. I would not own an alarm clock.

To Snooze or Not to Snooze: That is the Question

*Now, here's a question for you: In one hand you have a pink pill that will magically let you sleep well whenever, wherever, and for as long as you want. In the other hand, you have a purple one that will allow you to live without ever needing to sleep again. Which do you choose?