38 Hours

I woke up a couple hours ago after staying awake for 38 hours straight. This is the first time I’ve done anything like this for a long time. It’s the first time in an even longer time that I’ve done it clean and sober. Let’s take a journey, shall we.

I woke up at 4:30 on Thursday morning. This is standard for work, so the next several hours is just business as usual. This work shift ends at 5:00, so here are the first 12 and a half hours.

At 5:00 I go down the sushi house that is also the watering hole for the work place. Meet up with a few co-workers and enjoy a few diet cokes and listen to the drunkenness begin. It’s funny to watch people get drunk. I’m a little envious at first, because booze really speeds up the ability to loosen up. I have to find it in myself to relax and just go with the flow.

About 7:00 it is decided by someone that he won’t be able to drive home and decides to get a hotel room just down the street. Since none of us did any partying for new years because of work and basic burn out, it was decided to have a bit of a party at the hotel. Since I haven’t done this in a while I say sure, it’ll be fun to get out and act like a regular person for a while. Booze is purchased, a room reservation is made and by the time we get everything to the hotel it is 8:00. I’m now at the 15 hour mark, very normal.

At the hotel it is one other guy, two girls and me. The guy is an obnoxious shit, one of the girls is a tired drunk who seems to be pretty coherent and the third is drunk out of her skull and isn’t stopping. Over the next few hours, I’ll witness an emotional breakdown, a wrestling match that turns into something that is half a step away from becoming a potential rape and basic stupidity. This was the time that I was really happy that I no longer drink, because it was just sad and all I witnessed was a bunch of bullshit posing and self-loathing. Quite a bit of fun for a person who enjoys watching how people behave, not fun when I relies that I consider some of these people friends and realize how fucked up they really are. I decide I really can’t deal with it and whatever happens is what happens. I wont be able to stop it and maybe they just need o do what they need to do. I leave at 11:15. I’ll have to be up at 4:30 for work, so I’ll get a few hors sleep, which is good. I’ve now been awake 18 and three-quarter hours. So it’s basically reached the tipping point.

I drive home and am sitting on my bed at 11:30 when the phone rings. My first though it the voice is going to be a drunken crying woman who needs me to drive her home or listen to a monolog that is going to run in circles for an hour or two. The caller ID read “Private Number”, this means it is one o two people from work. Shit. Britney spears has gone crazy, footage coming in, can I come to work? Sure. Actually I was jacked up on caffeine and nicotine, so I knew I wasn’t going to fall asleep too easily. I stop by the 7-11 to but a couple bottle of diet Mt. dew and a pack of smokes. I know I’ll be there until morning.

I’m at work at midnight and I’m waiting on footage, cutting footage and spending the next five hours digitizing and cutting all kinds of crap surrounding Britney Spears breakdown. It goes o longer of course, but this is where the extra nighttime stuff ends and my regular work shift would begin at 5:00. 24 and one half hour, I’m still going strong.

The regular shift until 5 o’clock, everything ran smoothly. The folks from the hotel room showed up a little late, but in one piece. The day was relatively normal and there was not as much craziness as I was expecting. I think around 11:30 I entered into the land of wacky. I felt it necessary to stay because they were shutting the power down to out building at 7:00 for maintenance. We were shipping equipment and people over to a different studio for Saturday and I wanted to make sure all of the editing equipment was set up properly before they took it away. Aaron was kind enough to go to the studio to help set it up. We wrapped up work and I was done at 5:00. I hit my second wind around 4:00 so I was feeling pretty good. It was an employee’s last day so I went back down to the sushi joint for the farewell party. I’m now at 36 and 1 half hours.

While at the sushi joint, I got to practice some bar tending skills. I got to get behind the bar and make drinks for folks. It’s funny that I can serve drinks and not have the desire to drink. Part of my reasoning for this is like being a bank teller. They handle money all day, but don’t take any. I was doing a job, performing a service. We got a call that Dr. Phil wanted some footage we have for a Monday taping. This means I need to go back upstairs and locate the footage to burn to DVD. So back up I go, it’s now 6:30.

I’m home by 7:10 and going crashing in a chair watching Jeopardy with Gabe. We talk about the movies he’s been watching. The best of them being “To Live And Die In LA”. He’s amazed he’s ever watched it before. We carry on about its greatness while we watch contestants fuck up on tv.

(ANSWER THIS: On the game show Jeopardy, how is it possible for a contestant who takes third place to end up with more money than the winner of the day? I look forward to your responses.)

The Simpson’s come on at 7:30. I start to fade fast. I stay awake just long enough to hear the world’s best Sydney Greenstreet impression then haul my ass to bed. I crashed approximately 7:40.

Final toll: 39 hours 10 minutes.

My math ain't too good after staying up that long.