Hello. You are welcome to a cup of what I’m having, which is called MAX Boost.

It’s a Maxwell House product – medium roast k-cup pods with “1.75x more caffeine!”

“…specifically crafted to give you more of what you want to help you be your best…”

I am a severe caffeine junkie (as evidenced by a recent post called “chainsaw mule kick“) – an addiction stemming most likely from the fact that I suffer sleep apnea… which leads me to the first of Eclectic Alli’s questions:

What’s been going on in your life?

I underwent a sleep study early last month, and man was it ever bizarre.

I haven’t blogged about this experience yet… been waiting for the right time… which is maybe now?

Okay, so, starting at the beginning…

I was halfway to work (I’m a hotel front desk guy) when my truck broke down. Stranded on the side of the highway fifteen minutes from the city, my first move was to call a cab. The dispatch seemed genuinely concerned and said she’d have someone out to pick me up in about twenty minutes. A half-hour later, I called back, but got no answer. Fifteen minutes later, I tried again, and it picked up, but all I heard was my own voice echoing back at me.  So I called another cab company, only to be informed that they did not go outside the city. My third attempt was a little fly-by-night transportation provider. Within fifteen minutes of that call, a beat-up Bronco arrived. I clambered into the back, because the driver’s wife was in the front, and rode to work. Shelling out forty bucks for the ride, I went inside and proceeded with my shift.

I told you that to tell you this: that night, I stayed over in a room at the hotel where I work. I got very little sleep in those strange circumstances and especially with a loudly clanking heating unit, so the next day (the day of my sleep study), I was even more fatigued than usual. I whiled away that long morning and afternoon on the Business Center computers. When evening rolled around, a co-worker gave me a lift to the Sleep Clinic.

The Sleep Clinic appeared deserted. No cars in the lot, no lights on at ground level, just a lamp in a window on the second floor… but I had received instructions on how to proceed. I walked up to the dark entrance and pressed an intercom buzzer there.

“Bzzz. … State your name.”

“Dan Julian.”

CLICK – the door unlocked.

I went to the elevator and took it to the second floor. Nobody was in evidence, so I walked over to the lamp in the window and just stood by it like a hobo by a trashcan fire. After a few minutes, a man in white scrubs wearing blue latex gloves appeared.

I’ll not give a play-by-play of the gluing of the many electrodes to my head and face. Suffice it to say that it was freaky, and that by the time the lights went out, I was more than ready to conk out. Which, after obeying the disembodied female voice telling me to move my eyes left to right five times, flex my jaw, wiggle my toes, etc… I finally did.

Fast forward to a few days ago, at an appointment where the results of the study were explained to me. Many many brief wake-ups in the course of the night, due to oxygen levels dropping, only a few of which I even remembered. Only a few moments of truly deep, restful sleep, and just one dream – right before waking. A clear case of apnea.

So. Soon I will have a CPAP machine. I am very excited. Maybe it will change my life!

What are your weekend plans?

Well, I worked yesterday, so my weekend will be today and tomorrow. I’m planning on spending some time with family and getting a little writing done.

Is there a topic you’ve just been ruminating on that you want to talk about?

Yes. Just this morning, I wrote a post called “frogsong” – using prompt words provided by other bloggers. Without going into undue detail about the content of the piece, I arrived at its end and found myself reaching for a kind of moral or coherent message… which I was unable to put my finger on quite, to my own satisfaction, so I wound up sort of leaving it up to the reader. My question is, do you consider this fairplay? Like, is it fine and dandy to leave it up to readers to make ultimate sense of a piece of writing, or is it better to spell it out for them? Just something I’m thinking about at the moment…

 

#weekendcoffeeshare