It Doesn't Matter If It's Good, It Only Matters If It Rocks

I went to bed early last night, diligently. I felt so smug as I carefully cleansed, toned and moisturised before reading for a while then switching off the tall lamp next to my bed. I had taken a bath and relaxed, knowing that after that there was nothing left to do but go to bed and sleep. Tonight, tomorrow night, the night after that and the night after that one and I think the night after that I am booked up, and I decided to rest in preparation. Off I went to sleep, dreaming elegantly of pretty flowers, adorable kittens with bows around their necks and strawberry-flavoured lipglosses that repell hair even in the whippiest of winds.

I woke up this morning absolutely bloody knackered. My head was pounding and my eyes felt like someone dastardly had snuck through the window in the night with some superglue-laced mascara and performed some kind of avant-garde makeover. To add to the simply marvellous fun, the builders next door had decided that this moment was absolutely ideal for banging hard on the wall just above my head with what I can only assume was some kind of fucking industrial-sized hammer. "Right" I thought through gritted eyelids, "I am going to write a letter. Of complaint. Perhaps in capital letters. That'll bloody learn'em."
I'm sure they could have found other things to do on the building site at five-to-fucking-seven in the morning. Maybe building some shelves quietly, attaching a door handle or having some Silent Reading Time with their still-crisp copies of The Sun. Maybe things that invole quiet implements like screwdrivers rather than loud ones like hammers. Then I giggled childishly at the thought of the relative merits of a quiet screwing and a loud nailing for a while until I got up.

To sum up, though, the 'going to bed at a reasonable hour' tactic clearly doesn't work for me. Apparently the only sleep that works for me is sleep in the mornings, which is just about exactly the time I am not allowed to stretch out under my duvet, where my consciousness can ebb away gently and I can feel myself being lifted by the Hugh Jackman-esque arms of sleep. Instead I am forced to get up and squeeze onto the Northern Line to be sweated on by ten thousand advertising executives before sitting in an office all day, dreaming and avoiding work.

Soon I will escape. I will run, free and penniless, with the other artists, sitting in cafés and writing meaningful poetry about Life. Well, the chances are that I won't be running, but I shall certainly adopt a satisfied (if tortured) swagger.

For now I must endure, and accept that really my body is used to late nights. It likes them, even if it makes me tetchy and difficult to be around. This is lucky, because secretly I was bored last night, amid all that relaxation. I wanted to be partying, to be talking animatedly with someone about how much corporate life sucks and how much I like their hair. I wanted to be debating the judiciousness of accepting another glass of wine and then screwing judiciousness and accepting two. Going to bed early is overrated and, if I am to judge by the way I feel today, not at all good for you.

Nope. Tonight I shall continue the experiment and go out and get resonated, and see whether tomorrow I feel more chirpy. All in the name of science, you see. I am quite the modern day Marie Curie.