Oh yeah, and I have a Sleep Disorder!

Writing that last post reminded me of the other thing I discovered recently: I have a sleep disorder! Luckily, it's not terribly serious.

About once a month or so, I experience what is called Sleep Paralysis. I didn't really know what it was until I was talking to a friend of mine at the station who experiences many sleep disorders, including narcolepsy. I guess it's very common in narcoleptics. I was always a little freaked out about it, but it was nice to know that it's reasonably common and not very serious.

Basically what happens to me is that I will kind of wake up and find myself unable to move. I know that I'm dreaming, but no matter what I do I can't wake up. It's hard to say just how long the paralysis lasts, but it can always be broken if I can get myself to move or speak. Sometimes, it is accompanied by some sort of weird, dreamlike hallucination. The last time is happened, I swore that a female ghost was climbing on top of me, which I guess is quite common. Weird!

This site offers some advice on how to cope with it. It looks like it's preventable without medication, and simply knowing what's going on seems to help to get rid of the anxiety that accompanies it. I can probably eliminate it in myself by not sleeping on my back and getting into a more regular sleep pattern. Also, I would not object to a little bit of #10.

First Trip of the New Year

With my car in working order, (and surprisingly clean) I decided to take a quick trip to Denver to check out a band (with a very cute lead singer). It's funny the things you forget about when you haven't driven a car for a long distance for a long time.

For instance, all of my tires were incredibly flat. Utterly flat. Especially the right rear one. There was so little air in that tire that I actually bought a new tire gauge because I thought the one I had wasn't working. Also, the fan in my dashboard seems to have developed a horrible whining noise that sounds quite a bit like a dentist's drill.

I don't think I've driven any truly long distance since my trip to Telluride last June. I used to drive from Fort Collins to Denver every Saturday for a low paying Irish band gig, so I know that stretch of highway quite well. Then again, any stretch of highway that straight, that flat, and in the dark is really not that hard to get to know. I was quite relieved that I didn't fall asleep on the road, which I have done a handful of times. There is nothing as scary as finding yourself nodding off for a second and finding yourself in the other lane.

In general, the trip was rather uneventful, though I did get to chat with the cute girl for a bit. I can probably count this as the highlight of my 2008 so far.