Watching the Writer Work, Day 5

As opposed to Wednesday night, I got plenty of sleep last night– 9 hours and 7 minutes if my watch + phone combination is to be believed.

(I wasn’t really awake in bed for an hour or so around 6 am. I haven’t quite figured out the heuristic yet, but Apple looks for data from the watch between your bedtime and your awake time, even if you don’t have an alarm set. So the hour of awake time you see on the right-hand side of the graphic was really me working on Better Every Day in my recliner while still wearing my watch.)

My circadian rhythm is following the light coming into my apartment more or less. We’re pitch black by 1730 now that we’ve fallen back. Around 8 or 8:30, my body has been ready to rejuvenate itself.

Why am I spending so much time today writing about my sleep routines?

Well, there’s two reasons:

1. Sleep is an important part of life

2. I’ve always struggled with depression

Sleep is an important part of life

We all know intuitively that sleep is an import part of life, especially as we get older. Our bodies restore and repair themselves while we sleep. Resting refreshes our mind. And the proper amount of rest greatly improves our mood.

I’ve always struggled with depression

Even in my single digit years of age, I struggled with depression. Granted, my mom died a month or so before I turned 8 and she was bedridden for two years prior to that.

Afterwards, I stayed with some friends of hers for approximately eighteen months and the was put in an orphanage for roughly the same time.

A doctor and his wife took me into their home in part, because they had history with the particular orphanage in question: five years previously, they adopted three boys that were brothers. According to “Mom”, the orphanage called them and said, “We’ve got another one for you.”

During my teens and early 20’s, I had a lot of angst and anger. Of course, when you’re that age, you can survive on 4 or 5 hours of sleep. But once puberty finally stops, you’ve put on that Freshman 50 and your metabolism is all fucked to hell, you need sleep to make up for your sedentary life as a programmer.

And now that I’m approaching my 40s, sleep is more vital than ever.

Sleep deficit

When I’m employed, I always feel that I’m at a sleep deficit. In some cases this is true: I have early (for me) morning wake up times and only have time to myself after work. Consequently, if I’m working from home and decide to take a longer lunch, it means I don’t get to me time until later in the day. Of course, I want as much me time as possible, so I stay up later and later (I’m a night owl when left to my own devices). Staying up late isn’t much a problem. It’s the having to be up early the next morning that starts all the trouble.

Now you can see why, when I’m working full time in my choose profession, I always feel like I’m at a sleep deficit. My natural rhythm hasn’t traditionally lined up with my work schedule. And there’s only so much catching up on sleep one can do on the weekends.

Getting Out More

Something I intend to do next week is get out more.

I’ve stayed home for the past week. I’m good with solitude, but I need to break my routine because I’m too sedative. And frankly, I need a change of scenery for my mental health.

Trouble is, I don’t know where to go.

I’m pretty sure the library will be closed today and tomorrow in observance of Veteran’s Day.

I could go to a coffee shop–here’s a Starbucks just down the road. However, it’s a smaller store and there aren’t that many good seats.

There are other, privately-owned coffee shops around town, but they close too early in the day for my tastes and that means travelling–even if it’s just to the other side of town.

When the library is open, it’s only open until 8 M-R, 5 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. But on Sundays, the library doesn’t even open until 1pm!

I’ve asked friends where i could go and we come up with the same answers. Then I wind up staying at home because my recliner is comfortable, my apartment is mostly quiet, there’s nobody around, I don’t have to shower or get dressed and I have full control of the thermostat.

But if you, dear reader, have a suggestion of where I could go, I will highly consider it.

One idea I’ve considered is going to a hotel or an AirBNB. But that can get expensive in a hurry–I’d need to sell a lot of annual newsletter subscriptions before I could do that on a regular basis!

Yesterday’s Work

Yesterday, I got approved to write in a Medium publication.

I went through some writing training/sales pitch. The product is out of my price range right now. I think I’m going to stick with who I’ve bought from before because there is already a business relationship there and I think it’s going to make sense in the short-term to follow his guidance. Longer term as more money is made available, I think I’ll check out some of these other courses, especially since I can write them off as a business expense. But first, I need to run a business that makes money; did I mention my need to sell a lot of annual newsletter subscriptions?

I also had a business call where I found a fellow history enthusiast. This warmed my heart and helped me realize just exactly who my kind of people are (apart from you dear reader. Of course you’re my kind of people. 😜 )

I worked on the Oppenheimer review. Didn’t get very far: that head cold really did a number on me yesterday–I wound up having to take a nap!

Today’s Work

Today, I will spend some time during the daylight reading. I haven’t gotten a good book-reading session in all week.

I miss reading. And the conversation I had with my fellow history enthusiast yesterday gave me an urge to start a particular genre of history books. More on that later if my plans for the genre succeed.

I’ve already published today’s Better Every Day, Card 314 A Good Read. I’m especially proud of this one because I was able to repurpose and old post from back in 2009 and also because I was able to talk about history, even if it was historical fiction.

This Weekend’s Work

I’m not sure if I’m going to send the newsletter out this weekend or not.

Part of me says that I should send the newsletter out daily. Part of me says I should send the newsletter out on a daily basis, just like I plan on publishing Better Every Day on a daily basis.

Since there were exactly 0 responses to yesterday’s poll, I get to make the executive decision on this.

I know that I will wind up going to see The Holdovers some time this weekend, but I haven’t decided on which day to do that yet.

And You?

What are your plans for the weekend?