Sleep?

When I wake up after only 4 hours of sleep, I generally feel like I've been drugged, dragged into the trunk of a car, and tossed around.

Lab tests have concluded that a continuous cycle of poor sleep over a long stretch of time can create a slew of problems later in life. Namely: An increase in the chances of brain cancer, Alzheimer's, and even Schizophrenia just to name a few. The idea of getting any of these ailments sounds awful. They are definitely things we should be thinking about when we're losing a lot of sleep to help us get back on track.

On the other hand, there are a few things medical journals don't talk about. To remain statistical for just a moment, let's talk about our recommended sleep. We're recommended to get between 8 to 9 hours of sleep each night. As we get older, i.e. after 25--the age our brain, and the rest of us, is fully developed-- we can handle something like 7 hours of sleep each night without issue. If we use 8 hours of sleep as an average amount of sleep we all receive throughout our lives, then that means by the time we're 80 years old--if we get there-- we'll have slept a grand total of 27 years. (Math check: 8 hours is a third of a day. Divide 80 by 3. I rounded up.) That's a pretty large amount of life we miss. Now, theoretically, if we don't sleep the right amount of hours then we won't "live" that long due to the aforementioned ailments, but the way I see it is that if we make it to 80 and sleep 8 hours/day, then we miss 27 years of "living." If the majority of our lives we receive nearer 6 hours of sleep per night, then we pick up a good 7 years of "living" according to my suggested definition of what living really is--being awake and doing things.

I am not advocating that everyone starts sleep depriving themselves, but just try not to regret not getting the right amount of sleep for work the next day or something every so often. There's a reason we missed sleep, and I bet all those times that you did miss sleep you had a pretty damn good reason for missing it (hopefully those instances aren't totally made up of school-related all-nighters). Whether a concert, a date, a late-night sporting event, etc. all of these things gave us moments we'll never forget no matter how sleep deprived we might have become because of them. Whether those times are worth it are for you to decide, but for me, they're always worth it. Even if something doesn't necessarily go great, I enjoy experiencing these new things all the same.

A lot of people treat sleep like a 100 dollar bill. When we were kids, we never really wanted to sleep, but as we got older we realized that sleep is definitely a bit more precious. When I was a kid sleep was a 5 dollar bill. Today, it's like a 5 dollar bill and some change...mostly pennies. At some point this vantage point will catch up with me. Age will rear its ugly head, and I'll have no choice but to adapt to the legitimate struggles of adulthood where a cup of coffee in the morning hardly does a damn thing to keep me awake after an all-nighter. See, the thing is, I know it's coming whether I get more sleep or not, so it helps me enjoy things more. I'm not stressed about being tired for work in the morning, because I know that currently I'm perfectly fine. When I'm not fine anymore, I'll acclimate. You're also perfectly fine. So go enjoy it.

Everyone talks about "making" time for things. Yes, I agree that work should always be a high priority even if you're living within the shackled confines of that thing you hate called Corporate America; however, work should never be our highest priority. People who have their job as their highest priority I think vastly misunderstand the point of this life. Life is about doing things that make us as happy as possible. Some could argue that work IS that for them, and ok, fine. I would call you an exception to the rule. Perhaps you're someone who enjoys what you do so much that you could marry your work. Seriously--and I do mean this seriously--good for you! You have found that one cheat code in life that is hard for many of us to find: An excellent work experience/passion.

All I know is: If I actually abided by the 8 hours of sleep rule, there are a slew of opportunities I would have missed over the course of my life. It genuinely scares me to think what life what be like right now if I cared more about sleep than living the way that I feel is necessary to stay/be happy.

Think about it, are you happier because you get more sleep in actuality? Or do you use sleep--more than just to sleep--to conform to the norms that our society wants us to go through in order to exhibit the productivity they want us to have?



-PatInTheHat

Feel the Bern Yet?

In a miraculous turn  of events, politics--albeit in one instance in particular--is starting to make some semblance of sense. For years politicians of all kinds would spew the most profoundly intoxicating bullshit that our country's zombie population would actually follow. Yes, I realize I'm making it sound like that's not still happening--and it is *cough* Donald Trump *cough*--but unlike in previous presidential elections, someone from the dregs of the political world--an independent--has risen from the proverbial ashes like a majestic Griffin breaking from the shackles of The-one-who-shall-not-be-named's cruel wizardly control.

In comes 74-years-young leftist Independent Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, who has started taking the country by storm. Here's a guy who, back in the 60's, was way ahead of his time. He was fighting alongside the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to promote desegregation in an effort to quell and potentially fully eradicate racism countrywide. Fifty years later, and the guy is the same guy--meaning it's pretty clear he's fighting for progression and not just some leftist agenda--trying to make sure all of that stuff he fought for years and years ago actually happens. And, get this, he fights for marriage equality, a warless world, tuition free public colleges, women's rights, and all other minority and middle class endeavors for the sole purpose of making this great country greater. He comes in with the passion of a twenty-something who has been looking around and wondering, "Where are all the things we were promised when we were kids?" Except, get this, he's in his 70s! He literally doesn't have anything to worry about. This guy--putting his age in perspective for just a hot second--is two years away from that average male life expectancy of 76, and he's going for this presidential race like Professor Farnsworth from "Futurama" with the attitude that "I don't want to live on this planet anymore," UNLESS I do something about it first. I mean, holy hell! No one has even brought this point up in the media! Even his supporters don't realize the amount of physical exertion it takes to fly all over the place, give speeches, shake hands, take questions, etc. at 20 years old let alone 74. Yet he's doing it without a single, solitary complaint.

Forgive me if it sounds like I'm gushing a bit, but think about this: The guy is basically trying to eliminate all that is bullshit. Yes, you can disagree with him about abortion, and other similar issues, but the guy is trying to get across the message that we should do to others what we would want them to do to us. It's a religious teaching, but it's what I believe to be a fundamental, compassionate, and empathetic moral guide that most of us either take for granted or forget about entirely.

People: That's not an agenda. That's being a human being.

Aside from that, he also understands that this country is inching closer and closer--if it's not already--to an oligarchy, which is the idea that a government is really owned or influenced by the wealthiest in the country, as opposed to a Democracy--that thing we all want to keep, I'd hope--where we all have equal say and vote, etc. on important issues.

I'll admit, it's hard to put a lot of hype into a presidential candidate a year away from elections, but I don't think this guy should be taken lightly. He's not a joke. Forget politician. As a person, he's the real deal. He's the kind of leader this country actually needs. A compassionate, logical, and mostly agenda-less human being. I love hearing the conflict in his voice when he talks about certain things that he supports but is on the fence on. That's...I mean, comon, that's as human as it gets.

I'm sick of hearing politicians sound like robots. We. *Beep* must control *Beep Beep* the popular vote *Beep*. Just stop.

This morning--Monday September 14th, 2015--Bernie Sanders walked into one of the most highly religious and conservative colleges in the country, aside from maybe Catholic U., and had a phenomenal speech about trying to find common ground among all people. We're the United States of America, but sometimes it feels like we're the DemoRepublic States of America. It sometimes feels like we're in a benign Civil War against ourselves, and the only time we rally together and go "America!" is when we defeat terrorism or something of the sort. Bravo to Senator Sanders for having the gall to waltz into a war zone, yet come out smelling like daisies. He received applause on a lot of different instances, some of which were issues he didn't expect to hear any applause on such as abortion and women's rights.

I'm just sincerely proud of the guy. I'm proud to know that there are still human beings out there in the world. Moreover, I'm proud that there are human beings in the world who have the courage to run for president.  I'm not a fan of The Walking Dead--please don't hate me--and I don't think anything like a zombie apocalypse will ever happen--I'm making that whole "don't hate me" thing hard, aren't I?--but I'll admit that there have been moments in the last couple years where I thought we were already in one! There were few humans left, I swear! Hell, that could still be the case, but I'm really happy to know that Bernie Sanders is not a brain-begging cold body trying to ruin everything.

Please, for the love of all that is good, start paying attention to this guy! Yes, he may be doing well in the polls right now, but I have a feeling he will really need our help in the primaries and (hopefully) the national elections in a year in order to secure a spot as the leader of our country. For me, there really isn't a lot about him that is negative. I mean, yeah, I'm a little afraid of his take on Israel. I'm a little afraid of his take on pulling a large majority of troops out of the middle East (right now) with ISIS running around. But there are so many domestic common sensical ideas that he has brought forth that I don't think we can afford to ignore.

If you guys want to see this country progress--really progress--then please give Bernie your support.

If you're a brainless zombie who wants the world to end, then by all means, vote for Donald Trump. I'll have my shotguns and chainsaws ready to go for just the occasion.

Oh, and if you're on the fence about everything I mentioned, then Hillary is a good second option. *Tips cap*

- PatInTheHat

The Spider and The Fly

Music is a potent drug. It's all about how you use it and who you use it with.

Music is great for listening, but it's really easy to lose some of musics' significance without sharing it with someone.

I'm probably about to contradict myself from a previous post, but the truth is: The music you listen to IS you. I learned this the hard way--and then experienced the easy way.  Life is all about perspective after all, isn't it? So, how do we find this untapped, seemingly unable to be found perspective? It sounds like a hard question, but the answer is actually quite simple: You let it be found. Perspective can come from other people, but in actuality you have to allow that perspective to be seen/heard/experienced. Otherwise, it could be right in front of you the whole time, but if you don't grant a new perspective access into your consciousness, then it'll never mean anything.

First, it's all about taking the right Chances. Truth be told, there was a Tear in my Heart, and for the longest time I thought it was going to be All that I've Got. I was Waiting for the End to come, but at some point I Vindicated myself and realized I can't fight this Feeling of the Mercy I deserved to give myself. Sometimes you just have to Shut up and Dance through the Butterflies AND Hurricanes. Stop Chasing Cars that only plan to hit you, and start realizing that the Same Love that got you here is the same love that will get you out. Somewhere only we Know lies a land of So much Love. Don't know where that is, yet? No problem. Because if there's one thing that's for sure: Love alone is worth the Fight.

Good luck.

- PatInTheHat

Her Perfume

The morning of December 6th, 2013 was especially terrible. Woke up. Felt nauseous. Ate breakfast anyway. Threw up. Drove to work anyway.

Thankfully, work wasn't all that terrible. And it was a Friday. As bad as the last few days have been, sometimes a good weekend could cure all of that.

It's a tale as old as time: Guy meets girl. Guy or girl swoons the other. They fall in love. Tough times happen. One or the other can't handle it. One or the other leaves. One or the other feels the wrath of love's ugly side--despair. Repeat.

Sometimes the best way to proceed through life is with the idea in mind that: "Life sucks, and then you die." Sometimes life sucks more than usual. Sometimes we find people, or we find activities in our lives, that make life suck a little less. With Renee, life didn't suck at all.

Though it's hard to conceptualize heartbreak for anyone, for me it looked like 5'7" dark brown hair, blue-eyed Renee Winter. It's been about 3 months since she cut ties with what she once deemed "our everlasting bond," but each morning I woke up it still felt like a rhino was sitting on my chest. Sometimes I legitimately wondered if I was having a heart attack, but no, it was just Jake. Jake is what I call the rhino. Sometimes Jake found someone else to sit on in the morning, but over the previous three months he had grown quite fond of my chest. At 6-feet, 145lbs, I'm not quite sure why he found it so damn comfortable to sit on me.

Big boss-man took the day off, so leaving work a little early wasn't an issue. The road roared on the way home. Everyone tries to leave a little early on Fridays, and with school in session there were a lot of kids getting picked up at around the 4 o'clock hour. My favorite radio station played my favorite songs, but sometimes those songs made me think too much. I slammed my steering wheel with my right hand, and then shook off the urge to keep thinking all of those "what-ifs." I took one giant deep breath and kept driving. Sometimes long drives to and from work, which mine was the hour-plus variety, are good and bad. They're really good when things are going well, and really awful when things are going awful. The saving grace of long drives while I'm feeling upset is that I'm alone. No one in those moments, who I care about, has to see the debacle that is my sadness.

My friends wanted to head down to a bar in downtown Buffalo called Hot Mama's Canteen. Winter--the season--if you're not familiar with Buffalo during the long, dark months that prelude and subsequent the Winter Solstice, then I can tell you: Is. Fuck. Cold. And with the moisture coming off of lake Erie its probably not hard to imagine how awful the snow gets, too. In case it is, think feet. Ever since Ms. Winter threw me into the cold dark cavern of depression, my friends--DJ, Todd, and Reese--did their best to give me fun nights out.

It was historically dry that year. Cold. Dreadfully frigid like every year, but without the snow the beginning of winter was tolerable. When you're from Buffalo, it's important to make it abundantly clear that you can handle the cold. If you can't handle the cold, it might be hard to find friends in Buffalo, because other than the summer months, Buffalo loves being colder than what any normal person is used to. So how do you prove you can handle the cold? Walk places.

Hot Mama's Canteen was walking distance from all of us so everyone met at my place, and we went from there.

"Can't wait to see girls in jackets! I like a girl in a jacket," DJ proclaimed.
"Well, that's not exactly narrowing it down, Deej. It's late fall," teased Reese. "Plus, this isn't about you, this is about our fragile little Colin. Awh, just look at hiiiiim."
"Yo, really, Reese?" Todd chimes in annoyed. "Wouldn't want to bring up your mopey self after what happened with Janine. And we even warned you that things didn't seem right with her!"
"Alright, ladies, that's enough," I say. Sometimes their bickering is exhausting. "I'm not dealing with your shit tonight."

Everyone remained silent for the rest of the walk. As we passed the hipster-themed bar that looks a lot more like a coffee house--Hydrolic Hearth--I stopped in my tracks.

"Whaaaat just happened?" DJ confusedly inquires.
"Do you smell that?!? I know that smell!"

I sprinted to the front doors of the Hearth. Easy to see everywhere inside the place because of the numerous glass windows, I looked for Renee. She had to be in here. I knew that smell better than anything. At this point, the guys were behind me unsure of what they were looking for.

"Ugh, is this about Renee?" Todd says in disgust.
"Dude, shut up. Do you see her or not?"
"No." Todd responds without even looking through the window.
"Oh, thanks." I retort apathetically. "I'm going in."

Just before I took my first step inside, a rush of memories flooded my mind as though my brain turned into a View Master. The perfume, its creator. Click, memory. Click, memory. Click, memory. With each memory carried an emotion. With each emotion, a smile, a laugh, a cry, a kiss, anger, resentment, the woods, the park, the lake, the pizza shop, the wedding. Click, memory. Click, memory. Click, memory. I didn't know it, but my eyes were closed, and all of the sudden my head felt light. Under my coat, sweat beaded across my body, but not because I was warm.

I hear Dashboard Confessional's song "Vindicated," but I don't remember being near a radio.

Flat on my back outside of the Hearth, I woke up to numerous people surrounding me.

"Colin's back!" someone shouted. I forget where I was for a moment, but the cold helped my senses catch the right gear. I started to form questions.

"What happened?" As I asked, I sat up really quickly looking around, and I started to recognize faces. I saw DJ. Saw Reese. Saw other people who must of come out of the Hearth to wonder if I died. Saw...Winter.

"Where's Todd?" I asked with a sense of frustrated purpose. I heard Todd laugh right behind my ear. At this point he was holding me up behind me so I didn't go face first back onto the cold concrete.

"Dude, you totally faded. What happened?" Todd inquired.
"Sonova fuck, don't worry about it. Can we get that drink?" I couldn't believe it. The smell of the perfume flooded me with so many memories that I must have passed out. I had never passed out before by that point, but at least I got to hear good music on the way down. The good news was that I felt a sense of apathy. When I came to I had noticed that the smell did indeed come from Renee. She had a blank, semi-concerned look on her face when I looked in her direction, but she quickly hid her face and tried to reel her friends back inside.

There was so much I wanted to say. I wanted to tell her that she was beautiful. I wanted to tell her how much I still cared about her despite the heart-wrenching pain she put me through. I wanted to talk to her about that time we sat by the lake over the summer, and how I loved the way the sun ricocheted off the water and hit her face--her skin shimmering with the slight undulation of the water as if for a brief moment they were intertwined. I wanted to say so many things.

When I finally got up, Todd and DJ each took an arm of mine to make sure I wasn't going to timber for a second time. Everyone who came out of the Hearth to create a kind of semi-circle seen at funerals asked if I was OK before going back inside. I was fine. My friends all had a decent idea of what happened, so they all tried to keep me from looking into the Hydrolic Hearth as we meandered onward towards Hot Mama's.

"Wow," DJ half-whispers under his breath, "Her scent is your Kryptonite."
Todd and Reese quickly shot looks at DJ to non-verbally signal, "Really? Right now?"

With subtlety, I start laughing. Then my laughter became increasingly more audible. At some point I was hunched over with my hands on my knees belting laughter. No one else knew what was going on.

"Her scent is my Kryptonite!" I proclaimed. And that's when I realized I was insane. That's when I realized that not saying anything was the best thing for me. She has her life. She chose her path. She wants little to do with me, and there was nothing I was going to do to help either of our situations. Plus, I loved her. Sometimes letting go is the best gesture of love that one can offer for the sake of the other's happiness. Her scent wasn't my Kryptonite, although it was definitely funny to think about: I was. I was my own Kryptonite.

We went on to Hot Mama's and had a terrific evening. It was exactly what I needed.

I learned a couple things that night. 1. Stop passing out, just get weed. I hear it emulates the moments right after passing out, and if there's one thing passing out did for me it was that it helped me realize that happiness was up to me. Although I never ended up having much weed, I still probably should have, and 2.

Some things are better left unsaid.

A lot easier said now that--three years later--autumn is over and Winter is back.

-PatInTheHat