That is how long it has been since I fell asleep before midnight (April 19, 1997.) What started out as a result of the Flood of '97 and the 11:05 pm episodes of The Simpsons, turned into my regular sleeping habit, briefly became one of my lifestyle choices (freshman year of college, I started getting all Aristotle-like and philosophizing along the lines of "going to sleep before midnight is like quitting on a day before it's over"- really, it was just an excuse to justify to Paul my refusal to turn down the music and turn the lights off in our dorm room until midnight.....and before you hop on your 'Jump to Conclusions' mat and decide that I was a bad roommate, read this.) Then somewhere along the way, maybe around five or six years ago, it turned into a stupid prideful streak that only I cared about. And if there's one thing I love, it's a good meaningless streak.
A couple years ago, basically once I started my big kids' job and couldn't sleep in until 11 on a random Wednesday anymore, was when the Streak began to get slightly uncomfortable from time to time. Until then, I really didn't ever have the urge to go to sleep early, besides the random Springfest/tubing/March Madness/day where we started aggressively drinking before 10 in the morning and were hammersmithed by 7 pm. Since them there have been a few close calls, especially during the exhausting tax seasons. Days like the Kentucky Derby became an exercise in mental toughness. I remember I had my first Danny Glover-in-Lethal Weapon-"I'm too old for this shit" moment at last year's Derby, when after two days and three nights of heavy drinking, everyone was crashing out on Saturday night, it was about 11:15 pm, and I was sitting awake on Schne's blow-up air mattress in the dark, literally counting down the minutes until I could let myself pass out. And all for what? Long, long ago, I passed the point where anyone cares about this streak besides me.
Here were my main concerns about breaking the Streak and going to bed early:
1. The Streak itself.
2. Not having as much time "to do me", i.e. fulfilling my multiple hobbies, almost all of which involve a Sega Genesis, listening to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack with the lights off, and Google images of Selena Gomez.
3. Hopping off the chair lift and starting down the slippery slope of going to bed early, which if nearly all my friends are accurate barometers, quickly leads to going to bed earlier and earlier as time goes on. The Streak was my way of delaying the beginning of that slide.
But I've reached the point where those concerns have been mitigated somewhat:
1. Nobody cares but me. It's not like I'm Cal Ripken Jr., and I'm gonna be getting a ceremony for my accomplishment. And even he sat out a game, eventually.
Although my biggest regret through all of this is that I didn't start some huge wall banner like the Orioles did for Ripken's consecutive games streak. How great would this have looked on the side of Culligan? That is, until some boozehound came stumbling out of Charlie Brown's at 4 pm after 26 Busch Light drafts (a steal at 85 cents/glass during their eight-hour-long Happy Hour!) and tore it off the building.
2. Admittedly still a little bit of a concern. Maybe I'll have to start multi-tasking, like playing NBA Live '95 while listening to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, and just googling pictures of Selena Gomez while I'm driving or something.
3. Simply put, I'm not going to let this happen. I think if I'm mentally tough enough to not go to sleep before midnight for half of my life so far, I think I can keep myself from going to bed at 10 pm every night. I'll still spend the majority of my nights staying up late; I'll just be able to have some other nights where I can catch up on sleep now.
An important clarification (or really, really unimportant, depending on your point of view) here: I'm not saying I'm gonna break the Streak tonight. I'm just saying I'm finally ready to. The next time it's 10:30 pm and I feel a little bit tired, I'm going to bed. It may happen tonight, after pickup basketball tires me out. A prime opportunity may be next weekend at the Derby, when a weekend of mint juleps, beer, multiple tins of chew, a cigar or two, and a bunch of Mexican food leaves me feeling a little Eight Belles. However it happens is unimportant. The point is, it's happening soon.
Good night and God bless.
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