Soul II Soul 'Club Classics Vol. One: 10th Anniversary Edition'

I’m finally back to some kind of normalcy with my sleep schedule. I only have one thing bugging me though… Sleeping 9 to 10 hours almost every day. That’s just not the way I roll out of bed, unless I’m super tired. So I must be very tired for some odd reason or perhaps it’s my body’s way of saying, “Whoa! Lets not do that early stuff anymore.”

I am a night owl by nature. I’ve always been a creature of the night staying up past midnight and I’ve been that way since I was a little punk playing with small plastic army men.

I was watching The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson while other kids were dreaming about being the next Bruce Jenner or Dorothy Hamill. I’d be watching ABC Late Night reruns of Starsky & Hutch and Baretta as the rest of my family slept and made drool spots on their pillows.

Sometimes I have to turn against my night owl ways and conform to a different sleep schedule. And let me be honest here… I’ve always been a firm believer in getting at least 8 hours every night. So to keep with my 8 hour belief, I will rearrange my schedule to keep myself rested and from taking hostages at McDonald’s if they screw up by putting pickles on my Quarter Pounder. I can get quite ill if I don’t get at least 6 hours of sleep.

While I was the interim morning host on Majic 94.1 for a month, I was doing my best by going to bed around 8pm every night.

Even though I wasn’t the happiest of mofos when my REM sleep was being interrupted by an alarm clock… I was rested. My eyes may have screamed until red when I put in my contact lenses, but the bottom line saw them with 8 hours of rest and closed lids.

I will admit to sucking down more than my fair share of hi-octane coffee until 9am because it just seemed necessary. My body kept saying, “What are you doing up at this hour?” And if that weren’t enough, the little man that lived in my guts felt it necessary to purge the contents every single early morning.

That’s just not my routine.

For years, I’ve always read articles about staying on a sleep schedule and it always made sense to me. So even on the weekends, I would stick to the same type of schedule with a few modifications. I would stay up to 9 or 10pm and get up at 5am. I felt by keeping that type of weekend schedule, I would be deprived of a few hours and ready to crash at 8pm like a bandicoot.

It worked.

I came to the realization that Elaine Bennis’ theory on old coots like Mr. Seinfeld (Elaine called for late day meetings to make Jerry’s dad quit J. Peterman because old guys are up before dawn and crash in the mid-afternoon) was dead on correct. Around 3 or 4pm every day… I found it very difficult to keep my eyes open and my mood good. On the weekends, I found that time of day a great time to take a nap in case I was going to have a late night. Like the night I went to see Johnny Winter at the Carolina Theatre.

The biggest drawback from going to bed at sunset and getting up before those fabled early birds was missing all my favorite television programs. I’m still behind on Medium (2 episodes), Burn Notice (6 episodes), Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (3 episodes), Leverage (3 episodes), and The Office (1 episode).

The only show that I damn well made a point of keeping up with… Lost. The current season may be seeing the lowest ratings of its run, but I feel compelled to write that it’s the best season and has kept me jonesing for the next week’s episode.

Thank Allah for being able to watch episodes online!