February 23, 2005
ZZZZZZZZZZZZ...
I love my sleep. I embrace my sleep. Stretching out on my couch or bed and catching 40 winks is the best part of my day.
True story: at my former Day Job, I'd nap fairly frequently. Often I put in 12-hour days between being at the studio and home, so I'd get very tired. As a result, I would usually eat lunch in my office while working, and spend my allotted "lunch hour" stretched out on the couch in the break room, grabbing a half-hour cat-nap.
Unfortunately, this managed to annoy many of my former co-workers. For some of them, it was because they thought I was "sleeping on the job" despite the fact that it was lunch HOUR and I was using said time to catch a HALF HOUR nap. For others, it was because I was on the couch snoring loudly as they tried to eat and watch "Family Feud".
Now that I'm "self-employed", my sleep schedule has changed a fair bit. I tend to work at night and sleep during the day. The problem being that when I'm sleeping, I can still carry on a perfectly lucid conversation...without remembering a word of it.
Last week, I went down for a blessed mid-afternoon nap. I got up, showered, watched the idiot box for a while, and then checked my email.
Waiting for me was a message from my good friend and fellow writer Johnny Pintauro. He's a freelancer like me, both of us working for the same place right now. The email said basically "Hey...thanks for covering this assignment for me..."
Guh?
After reading the email, I pieced together the fact that he had called me and asked me to cover an assignment for him, and I'd agreed. Yet, I had ABSOLUTELY NO RECOLLECTION of the conversation.
"Heh," I chuckled to myself. "It's a good thing that I checked my email, otherwise I wouldn't have known about it."
But it doesn't end there. The next day, Highwayman called me. He's my boss and editor for a project that I work on now.
"Hey Naked," he said..."Just calling to remind you that we need Project X submitted to us this afternoon."
"Are you on the pipe?" I asked. "That's not due for another four days."
"Well, we need it earlier. Orlando Bloom Lover said she told you about it."
This pissed me off.
"NO," I yelled indignantly. "She did NOT tell me. This is the first I'm hearing about it. Goddamn it..."
So the next several hours were spent hurriedly putting together a piece. Needless to say, I was pissed. It's a good thing I work well under pressure and tight deadlines, otherwise they'd have been fucked.
Midway through, I received an email from Orlando Bloom Lover. Apparently Highwayman had relayed our conversation.
"Naked: I DID call you about this yesterday. You were asleep. I made a point of asking you if you wanted me to send you a reminder email. You told me in no uncertain terms that you were wide awake and that you were going to start working on it immediately."
Whoops. SHE'D called me when I was napping too. So that made TWO last-minute assignments that I had no recollection of.
The worst part? The nap in question only lasted about 45 minutes.
Buceta has often called me when asleep, and then reminded me of it the next day. I almost never remember. He thinks it's hysterical. So, I told him this story to give him a good laugh.
NAKED: You know, if I get THAT out of it when I'm sleeping, I'm surprised that I'm not a sleepwalker.
BUCETA: Yeah...whatever. Dude, for YOUR lazy ass, sleep-WALKING is WAY too much effort.
I hate him. Because, deep down he's probably right on the money.
