Yes. I think so. It's not getting enough sleep even when there is literally no reason to be awake.
Boo had to get up at four o'clock this morning to go to work (this unusual), so we tried to go to bed early last night. The problem was I could not sleep. Maybe it was because I'd slept in. Maybe it was because I had a mocha and one of those yerba mate tea drinks during the day. When we went to bed at 10:30, I was not tired.
So I decided to read a book. I had gotten an email from Amazon asking me to leave a review for the novel Star Sand by Roger Pulvers, which I started a while ago when it was offered to me free the month before it released since I'm a Prime member (this is, honestly, one of my favorite things about my Prime membership). When I picked it up last night, I was at 16% complete. So I read for a while, and finally got to sleep.
But you know those nights when you don't quite get a good sleep? When you notice every sound and motion and movement? Last night was one of those nights. So when Boo's alarm went off at 4:00 this morning, I was not surprised to wake up. I was not even surprised to feel like I couldn't go back to sleep. So I picked up Star Sand again. And I finished it.
Now, to be fair, the paperback version of this is apparently 206 pages long, which means finishing it in a few hours isn't really that crazy. I didn't love the book, but I also didn't hate it. Written in three parts, it feels oddly fragmented. Part I is a diary, Part II is a military report on the events in Part I, and Part III is a reflection of someone who studied the diary in Part I. Part I is excellent: suspenseful and intriguing, a bit of a thrill. Part III sort of annoyed me, even though I ultimately enjoyed the resolution of the overall plot. (Don't know what star sand is? Check out Ella Morton's 2015 article "The Star-Shaped Sand of Okinawa" from Slate's Atlas Obscura.)
I also finally watched Star Trek: The Motion Picture. We tried to watch this a while ago, but both Boo and I feel asleep in the middle of it. To be honest, I turned it on thinking "eh, I might fall asleep again. But oh well!" I'm kind of surprised I didn't, though. There were certainly some moments where I thought I was going out, but I somehow managed to stay awake through the whole thing this time. I'm glad I watched it, but I don't know that I'll be watching again any time soon. At least I have plenty of other Star Trek to keep me occupied.
There's one more "star" I haven't mentioned, and that's Stardew Valley. I've been passing a lot of time playing this the last couple of days: time that perhaps could have been better served planning for my fall classes. Whoops. Most of my friends now I have a slight obsession with The Sims. I've been playing them for years, and I even invest my money in the fourth iteration even though I don't find it nearly as fun as the third. I keep playing it because my laptop doesn't have the power to run Sims 3.
Anyway, Boo sent me Stardew Valley on Steam this weekend, billing it as part Sims, part Animal Crossing (another game I love), and part Harvest Moon (which I'm totally unfamiliar with). I now can't stop playing this game. The goal is to re-start a farm that's been let go by cleaning up your land, building new buildings, planting and harvesting crops, tending animals. Holy crap is it addictive! In fact, I'm probably going to rack up a few more hours on this game as soon as I hit "publish" on this post.
Now that I'm out of "fun" reading, I'm open to suggestions. Let me know a good read in the comments!
