Here's the deal. When you sleep 20-1/2 hours in a drug-induced sleep to avoid unrelenting pain depriving you of rest... there are consequences.

First of all, you are not rested. Your body is chemically deadened to the sensation of pain which also can put you into a coma-like sleep (it sure does for me). But you're essentially being tortured, even when in deep sleep mode. I woke up yesterday exhausted.

The kidney stone pain was not too bad after I finally managed to get out of bed yesterday. Which is to say I am not going to be taking anything stronger than Advil to deal with it because I do not need a painkiller addiction on top of everything else.

Unfortunately Advil does nothing to quell the nausea that's plaguing me now. I was in bed most of the day (the orange dashed line is when I'm in bed but not able to sleep)...

The answer, of course, is to take sleeping pills to get my sleep mojo back. But the weekend is coming up, so I'm going to give it one more try to not go there. Being trapped in a cycle of drugs to get through the day is fine if you're sure you need it... you do what you gotta do... but I don't know if I'm there yet.

And I tend to not make decisions based on things I don't know. Hopefully tommorrow will be different.

UPDATE: The answer is, of course... NOPE!

And so... I guess now I know. Looks like I will have to take action after all. Which is not what I wanted, but it is what it is.

That's three full days of my life wasted. That bothers me more than kidney stone pain. I've got stuff to do.

I was awakened by Jenny crying in the stairwell shortly after 1:00am this morning. I called to her and she came running to hop on the bed with me. I was worried she might be sick or in pain because she was acting strange... making squeaks and moving around like she couldn’t get comfortable. I was genuinely concerned that I was going to end up with an emergency trip to the vet. But was also thinking that she might have just woke herself up with a nightmare or something. Poor thing...

A half hour later, she finally settled down and went to sleep...

That's when I noticed that Jake was still there sleeping (along with Mufasa, which I had found for him earlier)...

According to my Apple Watch, I fell asleep at 2:10am. But then got woken up again at 2:52 by Jenny puking her guts out. Jake ran off (and who could blame him?) and I resisted the urge to talk to her or pet her, because I didn't want her to vomit running and give me more to clean up. After she had puked up a gallon, she too ran off. Leaving me with having to strip the bed and clean up.

When I went downstairs to the laundry room, I saw that both cats were relaxing on their heating pads. Jenny didn't seem to be in any pain when I pressed around trying to see if there was anything wrong, but it's hard not to worry...

After grabbing a couple blankets to put on my bed, I tried to fall asleep, but didn't have any luck. I kept sneaking downstairs to check on Jenny and make sure she was still okay. After I tossed the bedding in the dryer, I gave up trying to sleep and read until it was time to feed the cats their breakfast. Jenny looked okay, but seemed a little unsteady. I was glad I could stay home the weekend to keep an eye on her.

After returning from buying lumber, I thought I'd try to take a nap. Jenny was all... What happened to the blanket? And I was all... You puked like A GALLON of vomit on it last night, so it had to be wiped off and put in the wash. 3 or 4 times. Then THIS blanket will have to be washed then the sheets then the mattress protector. So thanks for that! And Jenny was all... No problem! I know you washed everything last Wednesday, but I prefer twice a week bedding washes instead of weekly anyway!

When I fell asleep, Jenny was with me. But when I woke up, Jake was there...

When night came, I thought I had better get the bed ready...
ME: "Jenny, I know you think you're being all adorable by refusing to move off the bed while I'm trying to make it... but I assure you that you are not."
ALSO ME: "Awwww! Who am I kidding? Who cares that you were the one who puked all over the bed at 2:52am so I had to wash everything again after just three days? Who's the prettiest girl? Who's the prettiest girl?"
JENNY: "Do you want me to puke on this shit again tonight? No? Might want to hold that embarrassing (but wholly accurate) talk."

I keep bringing in bedding. She moved. But in top of the sheets. For comfort, I'd imagine...

I pulled the sheets to fit them and she jumps off. Then stares at me with murder in her eyes...

Guess I’m forgiven though...

So, yeah. Quite a night. Hopefully it won't be repeated tonight.

I've been having a terrible time sleeping lately. Last night I went to bed early at 10:00pm, but my watch shows that I didn't fall asleep until after midnight. Which means that I essentially laid awake for two hours with my mind racing. In other words, it's a day ending in "Y," and when I rolled out of bed at my usual 5:30am I felt like half my brain was missing.

I honestly don't think it's too must to ask that I get eight hours of sleep each night. Or even seven. Heck, over the past four months I'd settle for six. Instead it's been between four and five hours, which is simply not enough. I feel like a zombie all day long. Though I'm surprisingly able to function just fine and get all my work completed without issue. But it's like I'm on auto-pilot instead of being invested. And it's tough to enjoy life that way.

I thought I might be able to supplement my sleepy-time with naps, but that's proven equally impossible. For whatever reason I can't sleep during the day no matter how tired I am.

I guess it's time that I have a sleep study done again?

I dunno. The last time I paid for one and nothing really came out of it.

But at least I could say that I tried something.

I know somebody.

Who feels better about themselves.

By making others feel worse about themselves.

I don't know how they can sleep at night after causing such suffering, pain, and sadness to their fellow humans.

So today I asked.

Their answer is "Lunesta."

I really need to get me some of that.

The TWO HOURS of sleep I managed to get last night made for an agonizing day. By the time I got home I was so exhausted that I decided to have a cheese sandwich and take a short nap.

I woke up four hours later at 10:00.

Since I don't sleep but four or five hours a night, this has completely screwed up my sleep cycle. I'm still exhausted, but my body thinks that it has already slept for the day, so now I am going to be awake the rest of the night.

I am tempted to go buy a fifth of Jägermeister and drink until I pass out to get me back on track. But something tells me that trying to work with a hangover would be slightly worse than trying to work while sleep deprived, so I think I'll take a pass.

Instead I'll just look for a very big hammer.

My last day in Chicago.

A pity I had to spend my entire morning working.

Well, not my entire morning. I was able to take a minute to meet with the Hot Coffee Girl herself for a meet-up at Hancock Tower. They have a new attraction called TILT! where you get to stand against a window, then be tilted at a 45° angled off the side of the building...

Not so scary as if they laid you out at a 90° angle, but still very cool.

They don't let you use a camera or a phone to take pictures... apparently they are worried about the safety of the glass (WTF?!?), but this is kinda what you see if you look straight down...

A little heart-stopping but, again, still very cool.

After checking out of my hotel and returning to work for a while, it was time to head home (with The Spirit of St. Lewis working my flight!) on a new Alaska Airlines livery for me... the Portland Timbers plane!

Layover in Portland. Layover in Seattle. A quick flight to my local airport. Then a half-hour drive home. Well, it would have been a half-hour... if not for having to wait for a stupid train.

I hate trains.

HATE them.

They always end up blocking my route no matter what time I'm trying to get somewhere... even past midnight, like tonight...

And as if that wasn't bad enough, you have to listen to their stupid-ass train whistles at all hours of the day and night.

Oh well. At least I'm home in my own bed at last.

Wish I was tired enough to fall asleep.

Ever since the time change, I've been sleeping worse than ever. I never thought I'd look back on insomnia with longing, but at least then I was getting 4-5 hours rest a night. Now? I don't sleep at all. Even sleeping pills fail completely. I nap for maybe 20-30 minutes, two or three times a night. That's it. To be honest, I don't know how I'm conscious... let alone how I'm managing to type coherent sentences.

At least I'm guessing they are coherent.

I'd check, but there's a chocolate alligator blocking my keyboard and I won't be able to get rid of him until this bag of potato chips lands in my toothbrush. Or the taco bar beams me up again. Which would be great, because I'm really craving carpet tape. The kind with extra 2400 baud modem... not the kind that swims with toilet paper.

If you happen to have a monkey with a sledgehammer available, I highly recommend them as the perfect solution for insomnia...

Of course, a handful of Nytol will do the trick too...

I remember what it was like to sleep. Good times. Good times.

Except I rarely sleep anymore. I just don't seem to get tired...

...until the minute it's time to get up and go to work, then I'm totally tired.

But then the night comes and the cycle repeats all over again...

I really don't like taking drugs if I can help it, but this is getting ridiculous. You know it's ridiculous when you fondly remember the good ol' days when you were only complaining about getting four hours of sleep instead of no sleep at all.

Four hours seems like something from a dream now.

If I could fall asleep to have it.

Getting a whole six hours sleep last night (pharmaceutically-induced, alas) was everything I dreamed it would be.

Anyway, just a few things I keep forgetting to review...

   
• Chilly Pad! A while back I was shopping for a soldier at AnySoldier.com (which I talk about here and here) when I was told about a product by Frogg Toggs called "Chilly Pad." It was billed as some kind of "cooling towel" that sucks the heat away via evaporation. That sounded like a load of crap to me, but who am I to deny a soldier something to make his life easier... especially if it only costs $12? Just for kicks, I ordered one for myself too.

Imagine my shock when, holy crap, it actually works!

Just pour some water on it and be amazed as the super-evaporation cells go to work, causing the darn thing to become cool to the touch! Amazing! For the ultimate test, I wore one around my neck on my trip to Waverly Hills where there was a heat index of 105° and was pretty darn comfortable the entire time. I now keep one in the trunk of my car and will always have them on hand to send with my AnySoldier care packages. Worth checking out! I got mine at Sports Authority, but I'm sure they're available other places too.

   
• Spotify! Europeans have been enjoying the music mega-service Spotify for years, but Americans have been left out. Until now. For those unfamiliar, Spotify has a massively huge database of music available for streaming. In order to get at it, you have to sign up for an account. Free accounts are ad-supported and have a song limit. Unlimited accounts ($4.99/mo.) are ad-free, allow unlimited songs to be streamed, and have added sharing and organizational features. Premium accounts ($9.99/mo.) have even more features (like the ability to listen offline and stream to your mobile phone) and better sound quality. Free accounts weren't available yet, so I went for the $4.99/mo. Unlimited package.

The biggest selling point of Spotify is that they have a plain crazy-huge collection of songs. They pretty much boast that they have any track you want...

Except they really don't. There are many songs both obscure and popular I wanted to listen to which aren't available. That alone is a bummer, but what makes it unbearable is that a big chunk of their library is karaoke versions of songs, and every frickin' search you make is literally overwhelmed with karaoke crap I have absolutely no interest in.

Here's an example. Today I wanted to listen to Miley Cyrus's The Time of Our Lives (don't judge until you listen to it... it's a nice song!). Spotify doesn't have it available. What they do have is four karaoke versions...

WTF? And it gets worse when you do more generic searches like "Hall & Oates" where you get all kinds of karaoke shit mixed in. After a while, I figured out that you can do restrictive searches to cut out karaoke. Well, most karaoke... not all karaoke songs are described properly...

This should be an option in preferences to get rid of karaoke tracks if you don't want to see them, but I couldn't find one so I have to instead add "-karaoke" to every search, which is a pain in the ass. Other irritations? The Spotify app is clutzy and unintuitive compared to the iTunes interface I'm used to. I've also experienced "outages" of a sort, where certain artists simply will not play. Today I tried for quite a while to listen to Weird Al's new Alpocalypse album without success.

As you might guess, my final verdict is more negative than positive. I will be happy to keep my free account for occasional ad-supported listening, but I'm going to cancel my $4.99 "Unlimited" membership. Perhaps eventually they'll address my issues and I'll find it worthwhile, but for now I'm giving it a pass.

   
• Suits! Burn Notice. White Collar. Covert Affairs. Fairly Legal. Psych. When it comes to successes, USA Network has a pretty good track record for airing some really good television shows. Because of this, I'm willing to give any new show they come up with a shot. Their latest, Suits, sounded good on paper... but I wasn't sure how it was going to play out on the screen...

The story premise is that of a very smart guy with a photographic memory, Mike Ross (played by Patrick J. Adams) who tries to escape his dicey past by going to work at a prestigious law firm. He passed the bar on a dare, but doesn't have a law degree. His new boss (played by Gabriel Macht) is impressed enough to hire him anyway. The result is an uneasy partnership that is beneficial to both of them, even if they have to hide Mike's true nature from everybody at the firm.

And it works.

It works very well.

The cast is fantastic (Gina Torres!), the writing is sharp, the stories are smart, and the show as a whole is entertaining. My only concern is how long they can keep the premise interesting. Will people eventually find out about Mike? Will his scary past catch up with him? In all honesty, it doesn't really matter, and I hope they don't keep hanging the show on them when there's no need to do so.

Right now? Highly recommended. Only time will tell if they can keep it that way.

   
• Fotopedia! If you're a fan of travel photography and have an iOS device, run... don't walk... to the iTunes Store and grab everything you can from Fotonauts. Their Fotopedia apps have always been great, but the new stuff they've been cranking out has been amazing. North Korea (free) and Dreams of Burma (free) are well worth your time... but their latest collaboration with National Geographic, Above France ($2.99) is stunning...

They work on iPhone but, obviously, have a better presentation on iPad. Highest possible recommendation.

   
And now... bed. And hopefully another night of half-way decent sleep.