It’s fdels about 2 pm ‘ish, which is bad, because I have slept maybe 4 hours, but worse because ideally I should have no sense of “when”. It should be “no-time” according to the wierd calculus of nightshift, but my body insists it is “get up time”, while my intelect looks ahead to tonights 9 o’clock start and does not see where a further solid block of sleep will fit well.
Of course my fellow 24 hour workers will know that, “how long since you last slept”, can be as important, as- how long that sleep was. I can hope to perhaps grab 10 winks from 6-8 (when I must leave), to reduce the first number, while resigning myself to an ear-splitting last few hours tomorrow(?) as I yawn through the dawn, due to the low second number.
This is only the first night, and the first in a very long time. I expect that my internal schedule will be well adjusted by Friday, when I need to change back to “day time”.
My 9-5 friends (lucky people) or at least those with a more “normal” life pattern, will fail to understand. I don’t thnk anyone who has not worked nights shifts for an extended period, will recognise the odd corners of craving and habit that our bodies dictate.
I’m eating breakfast, I may do so again later if I sleep. This is “acceptable”. However, eating dinner with the familly because I’m up, then again in my “break” (second dinner – to all you hobbits), is not, though as energy levels dip away in the night, it can seem much more attractive than you’d believe.
In my old house the street was quiet, other than the ocassional deliveries of scaffolding, and the comforting sounds of a drive by shooting in the distance (it was Pollok). Here I live on a busy main road, where people inconsiderately wish to travel and live their lives in the day light.
D#mn them all! with their shopping and driving, don’t they realise people are trying to sleep!
Next week on IaDL: zzzzzzzzz
Dalmallyfest the Asylum 