Northeastern Massachusetts, 5:30am

All day today, I've been operating on two hours' sleep.

I was pretty good last night. I was planning on going to bed at around 1, but I decided to stay up an extra half-hour (and skip going to the gym in the morning) so I could continue a really interesting conversation with Becky. I made her remind me of what time it was, but noticed a minute before 1:30 and said goodbye. I was very sleepy, and, after checking e-mail one more time and then changing one thing in last night's entry (at Laurie's request), I turned off the computer, crawled into bed, and went directly to sleep. It was around 2:00am (despite the signature on my comments for that day showing 2:20. I don't know why it was that far ahead), so I was quite sleepy (the Klonopin effect taking hold, as well as plain old exhaustion). I drifted off to sleep quickly.

At 4:00am, I abruptly woke up, with a start that I haven't experienced since before going on the Klonopin. It's the kind of startling wakeup that used to hit me many times during the night, which resulted in restless nights, and a very difficult time getting out of bed in the morning.

I figured it was a fluke, and tried to drift back to sleep, but it was not to be. My body and my brain were fully awake. I tried watching TV from bed, but there's very little of interest on basic cable at 4:00am (I may need to get a cable box for my room. Or TiVo. Or both.). I put an Enya CD into my bedside player, and tried to relax into the music, which generally will lull me back to sleep. No dice.

After about a half-hour, I stumbled downstairs in the dark and turned the TV to a music station and surfed the web for a bit. There wasn't much of interest that I hadn't seen two hours ago, so I wandered around the house as the light slowly crept across the sky.

Of course, I saw this as an opportunity to use the digital camera. I got a fairly nice shot of the sunrise (it was too cloudy for anything decent, but I really get the feeling of a cold, depressing winter morning) from two windows.

Trooper did a little dance to go out, so I put him outside, then snuggled under a blanket on the comfy chair again. I remembered that I hadn't seen the second half of the premiere of The Amazing Race, so I popped the tape into the VCR and watched that. (I'm very pleased with all the contestants this year. They're pretty interesting without being overly obnoxious, a nice change from last season.) Sad that the heavy Southern trilingual team was eliminated, I decided it was time to take a shower and dress for the day.

I met Mom downstairs around 6am, and she said, "No gym today?" I told her that I had only had two hours' sleep, and if I tried to run, I'd probably fall over dead. I made my lunch, grabbed my backpack and headed to work.

I got into the office early, which suited me. I had a few minutes alone to get ready for the day. I was happy that I asked to leave early today (since I'm coming in tomorrow to take pictures of the new crop of consultants during orientation). I figured after the management meeting to discuss my leaving the department, I'd get home around 3:30, when I could either put together the furniture I'd bought for the family room or sack out on the couch for a couple of hours. It all depended on how I felt.

Everyone crawled into the office, looking as tired as I was. It was a slow morning, which was fine with me. I didn't really have the mental capacity to handle any task beyond checking the in-box for new messages until after 8:30 or so, which was when consultants started calling.

Once the work started trickling in, I forgot about how tired I was. I ate my new morning addiction (peanut butter on apple slices), drank a lot of water, and found that I could stave off exhaustion through sheer willpower.

A consultant who had been a "challenge" the other week (she had sent in a print job that ended up being changed so many times that we had to shred 720 pages, which wasn't too taxing, but really wasteful) came into the office with a big box of brownies, along with a note apologizing for the incident. The way she worded the note, you would have thought that the design department was the mob, and she had accidentally shot the boss' wife. I called her (after trying a brownie, which was very, very good) and told her that she didn't have to go through the trouble for a series of mishaps; we regularly get submissions in far worse shape than hers. I don't know if she felt much better (she's kind of new, and I think she believes she's "banned for life" from the design department...if we could do such a thing, she'd be pretty far down the list of the exiled), but at least I did my Consulting Company duty by letting her know that the "incident" wasn't as bad as she perceived it to be.

And then I had another brownie. The sugar helped to keep me awake. At least, that's what I told myself.

Going through some entries last night, I realized why I had such a funny feeling about taking the GREs. I'd already taken the GREs back in 2002! They're good for a couple of years, so I spent a little while researching the average GRE score of incoming English Master's Degree candidates at UMass Boston. Turns out I'm well above the average (I'm a good test-taker...I did pretty well on the LSATs when I was under the delusion that I wanted to be a lawyer), so there's no need to re-take the test. I just need to have the scores sent to the university.

I went into Dan's office and asked if he would be willing to write a letter of recommendation for me. He's seen my approach to business writing and training materials (which would come in handy if I wanted to TA part-time), and I've worked for him for more than five years, so it couldn't hurt to ask. He told me to write him an e-mail with a list of the points I wanted him to cover, as well as a deadline, and he'd be happy to write the letter. I printed out the form that has to accompany the recommendation, wrote the e-mail and handed everything to Dan. I'm pretty happy to have the letter from him. Now I just have to find two other people to write letters. My Art History advisor wrote one for me last time I applied to grad school, so I'm sure she'd be happy to do so again. I may drop in on her when I visit Amherst to pick up my official transcripts.

There are also two creative writing professors who thought very highly of my work when I took their classes. One recommended an MFA in creative writing to me, and the other let me take his graduate-level course rather than the undergraduate-level, based on a single story I'd writtten. I don't know if either would remember or even still have a record of me (I attended their classes over 17 years ago), but it's worth a shot. If that doesn't work out, I can ask another Art History professor who used one of my essays as an example of the type of work he wanted to see when I took his class during my final semester.

If all else fails, I can ask Nancy, my director aunt who has read my plays and directed one of them. She wrote a lovely letter last time, and I don't see why she wouldn't do so again. Since she's only my "aunt" in name (she was married to the brother of my uncle by marriage, so there's really no relation other than the fact that she knew me when I was very young), I wouldn't be breaking any rules.

With all that out of the way, all I have to concentrate on is deciding what stories to send with my application (if I don't write something entirely new) and writing the critical essay. Laurie had suggestions for works to critique, including a lot of Irish literature, which she says is full of subtext. With a name like Patrick Cleary, I don't see how it could hurt to write about Irish literature.

As midday approached, I started to get a little punchy. It didn't help that everyone in the department seemed to have an attitude with me (that could just be the tiredness talking). When I asked one of my employees to send a two-page print job to the color printer, she replied with, "Is it urgent?" as if I was bothering her for no reason. Another just wouldn't leave me alone with questions she had asked me at least a million times before. I generally have patience with her, but today, I was simply not in the mood.

Dan brought in the candidate that Lara and I had highly recommended at 2, and they spent more than a half-hour interviewing (Dan's interviews are generally short and to the point, so we took that as a good sign). At 2:45, he walked Juan (the candidate) out of the office, then came back and said, "He's perfect." Lara and I applauded each other for being such astute interviewers.

The supervisors' meeting followed directly afterwards. Dan said that he made an offer to Juan (which is why he has a name now in the journal), and intends on having him start next Tuesday. That's terrific news for me, since at least one new hire was required before I could move into my new position.

We discussed a few department issues (if we should change the department's hours to maximize the people we have; employee development), then Dan said, "Patrick, do you want to tell your co-supervisors your news?"

Terry and Lara both laughed, since I told them before I even told Dan (just because he wasn't available after I'd accepted the position), so we discussed how to best transition me out of the department. It looks as if I'll be leaving design in early April, rather than close to May, which I assumed would be the case earlier.

Dan asked me if I was still going to run the company party sponsored by design, and I told him I had every intention of doing so. He said that was good, since the president of the company had cornered him and asked when design was going to "step up to the plate" in terms of morale activities. Dan was able to say, "We're holding the next challenge party in April." Anything that makes your boss look good is good for you, I guess. Besides, this stand-up comedy idea was all mine; I'm not about to give it to someone else.

After the meeting, Employee ManyQuestions came over to my desk and frantically told me about an issue with the document she had worked on, but then was turned in again with edits made to the older version. I don't know what freaked her out so much; we've had version control issues before, and the document wasn't all that complicated. I told her I was leaving for the day, so she should write up what happened in an e-mail and send it to the supervisors' distribution list. She said, "I'll just send you the document I got," which would do her no good, as I was packing up to go home.

Just before I logged off, I found the forwarded message in my in-box. I sent her a rather terse reply, telling her once again that she needed to inform someone other than me about this issue, as I wouldn't be back until Friday.

That isn't entirely true, since I'll be back Tuesday morning, but that's just to take pictures of the new hires for the "facebook." I won't be doing any supervisory activities then, though.

During all this, Dan sent me an instant message which read, "You're going to miss [the freaked-out employee] the most, aren't you?" He's rather jolly about my leaving, I have to say. Not quite as jolly as me, but I don't know if such a state of joy is possible to attain.

I got home about 10 minutes before Mom, finding my new Target Visa card in the mail, as well as two "pre-approved" credit card offers. I guess my credit isn't as bad as I thought it was. To make sure I'm headed on the right track, I'm going to the Suze Orman book signing and Q&A at the Apple store in the mall on Wednesday. Laurie saw her on PBS and she interpreted one of Ms. Orman's pieces of advice in a certain way as it relates to my financial situation, and I want to make sure I have it right before going forward.

Mom talked some about where we'd put an in-law apartment on the house, so I guess she's swung back to the idea that my purchasing it from her is a Good Thing. This makes me happy. We discussed repairs to the house that need to happen soon (she's replacing the back deck with Trex or some material like it, while I'm going to strip the wallpaper and paint the small bathroom), and how my brothers reacted to the news that I'm considering buying the house (Chris is really happy to keep the house in the family; Sean is slightly confused as to why I'm not still planning on buying his house).

I went upstairs and changed into my comfy clothes, then chatted on the phone with Laurie for a good half-hour. Mom made a roast beef dinner which was just the thing for today (comfort food is a good remedy for overtiredness), and I was about to settle in for the night when I remembered that I had planned on borrowing Laurie's tripod to take the photos tomorrow, so I called her and arranged to pick it up. I told Mom I'd be right back, since I wasn't going to stay long at Laurie's.

Well, I didn't sit down, but I stayed about an hour. Being this tired makes me extremely punchy, which means that I get extremely talkative. We covered every subject under the sun, including sex, which we don't discuss too often (it's odd...neither one of us is anything near a prude, but when we're together, we don't talk about sex all that much. I think it's because we're so close that it's uncomfortable to discuss such intimate things. Laurie is somewhat of a cross between best friend and coolest sister ever to me). I related a story I'm going to use for Eight Stories I'll Never Tell My Mother, about my first experience with bondage. She thought I would be giving TMI, but it's really a funny story, not terribly sexy at all. (And y'all will have to wait to hear it when I perform it...somewhere. Someday. I have all eight stories outlined, and three of them I had as journal entries, in one form or another.)

At 10:40, I finally extracated myself from her apartment and drove home. I played my version of "CD shuffle" by reaching into the back seat and picking a CD out of my case without looking. I turned out choosing Greg's music, which was nice and relaxing.

And now I'm going to attempt to get some sleep tonight. I don't have any reality shows taped to watch if I can't sleep through the night again, but I do have the entire season of Firefly that Laurie lent me, so I'll have entertainment if this "no sleeping" trend continues.

If you're awake between 1:30am and 7:30am Eastern Time, send some good-sleep vibes my way.