What Happened the Next Day

It wasn't the alcohol, though I had plenty of that, but the lack of sleep that did me in yesterday. I can take a lot, but I need at least six or seven hours of sleep to be able to function properly and I only got four hours of sleep the night before.

My eyes had that strange sticky, glassy feeling you get from lack of sleep and looking at certain things, especially brightly coloured things, hurt. Even a twelve ounce Americano only barely staved off complete collapse. When i got into work and got started with the day, physical activity was the only things that saved me. That and copious amounts of water and electrolyte replacement powders. But it all caught up to me at lunch time when I nodded off after placing my order. Down in the warm, dim, cozy atmosphere of Michael's I drifted off to sleep. The next thing I knew, Ashley was gently shaking my shoulder and saying "Wake up, Paul. Your lunch is here." Eating and resuming more activity at work kept me awake through the afternoon.

Now, you'd think after my experience of the day and the night before, that once I got off work, I'd go straight home. No, I went downstairs and had two paisley martinis and played Perquacky with Mitch the bicycle repairman. Perquacky is a nifty game involving thirteen lettered cubes. You shake up the cubes in a plastic cup and scatter them on the table, creating words out of the resulting letter jumble. Mitch and I abandoned the use of the timer in order to see just how many words we could come up with in each throw. That was rather fun.

Mitch left and I chatted with Gina and Angie. It was a pretty quiet night and Gina said to Angie "We're keeping Paul captive tonight, aren't we?" and Angie replied "You're our martini-drinker for the night, Paul." "Well," I replied. "I can't imagine two more lovelier captors ... but I really do have to leave." And, alas, I did. I went home and went to sleep.

I realize that I've neglected to tell you the cause of all this alcohol consumption and sleeplessness. First of all, I had a scotch on the rocks before heading off to Jace's acting class. The class was quite good. Rose and I were given a variation on our scene from Hapgood which flows much better than the previous version. Then Rose worked on her monologue from The Miracle Worker and I chose two small monologues from George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. Then we went over to Michael's to have dinner and celebrate his birthday. Over a shared pizza, I had two V.O. manhattans. Then, once the birthday party got going, I had two glasses of champagne. There you have it. And, from what I hear, I missed the best part of the party, where people were rolling around on the floor at two a.m. listening to house and trance on the stereo system. Drat!

As if all this were not sufficient for one night or one week, tonight I am meeting up with Mike, Darcy and Teresa from the Bag Manufacturers for drinks and possibly... bowling?