Remember: no Saturday Steals this week. I have decided that we will schedule the steals on the first weekend of every month (until January, when we will reassess). That means the next SS will be next weekend, opening on Friday, October 1 and closing Sunday, October 3.
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A few days ago, I had a grueling day at University:
In my first class, I learned about the Romantic art movement in Western Civilization; an hour later, I was reading Aristotle and offering very non-philosophical comments amidst a classroom full of annoyingly intellectual undergraduates; ten minutes after the end of that class, I found myself defending an unpopular opinion of the villainous Bill Sykes to a professor who earned two degrees in Charles Dickens; and after a too-brief lunch (a dry ham and cheese sandwich with a side of leftover funeral potatoes at room-temperature), I was sharing a vulnerable piece of writing with my fellow Creative Writing classmates.
They had some nice things to say, but also some criticisms. And even though I know “critical” is not the opposite of “nice,” for about twenty minutes on Wednesday afternoon, it felt like exactly that to me.
After six hours on campus, I had run a marathon—or rather, I tried to run a marathon, but I got air evacced at mile twenty-five to the nearest ICU for treatment of collapsed lungs, fried brains, and one very broken heart.
On my drive home, all I could think about was the best way to unwind (after teaching three piano lessons, of course).
I could drink a chilled DDP.
I could read some blogs.
I could check the mail.
I could eat a cookie (an idea immediately nixed on the grounds of Would Require First Making a Cookie).
I could pick at my ingrown hairs with nice sharp tweezers.
I could phone my mom.
I could give myself a back rub.
I could paint my toenails.
Finally, it came to me. I knew what I had to do.
At 6:33 p.m., after washing my face and taking out my contacts, I crawled into bed.
And stayed there.
For thirteen hours.
Our bed isn’t even very comfortable if you want to know the truth. But it healed me—I woke up at 7:30 the next morning feeling like none of it had ever happened.
And even though I know it all did happen, and I am fully aware that there are three more months where that day came from, I nevertheless believe that with enough sleep, I will survive.
And you? You can, too.
Please send yourself to bed early this week.
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