There was an awkward moment when I first walked into my bedroom as my roommate Anthony was walking out. Although our moments together are usually quite awkward, this one particular moment was differentiated from the others by the fact that it was occurring at six in the morning. I was heading to bed as he was heading out to work.

I realized I had a problem, and it was sleep. Specifically, I never got any of it.

Suddenly work became a constant struggle. Every class became a challenge. The carpeted floors in the corner of every room would sing their siren song. “Come Zachary!” They would softly sing, “Come curl up in the fetal position and pass-out with me for the next six hours!” I was tempted.

In the midst of a lecture my mind would abruptly pull back and along with it several minutes of time would disappear in a prolonged blink.

This is how I found out I snore. The transparent stains on my papers also served as evidence of my drooling problem, although admittedly that was probably unrelated to my sleeping habits.

It’s not that I can’t sleep. I very much want to and am fully capable of doing so. The problem is that there is always so much more I’d like to accomplish with my time, such as playing Call of Duty 4 or watching numerous episodes of “How It’s Made.” Such tasks are always on my mind and if they aren’t fulfilled I find myself lying down, staring at the ceiling and simply wondering how a calculator factory in Canada is capable of assembling such a product in mass quantities.

My roommate Micah, who busies himself playing prolonged games of online chess for 12 hours straight, once experimented by staying awake for 72 hours. Later, when Anthony found him passed-out face first on a keyboard, we came to the conclusion that sleep is an essential part of life. It needs to happen.

My main problem is that my balance between work and “How It’s Made” episodes was recently complicated with the addition of a girlfriend to my life.

She’s good at sleeping. In fact, it appears she can do it at just about any time. She can even fall asleep while I’m talking to her, even in the midst of my non-sleep-related drooling problem. Unfortunately, I’m terrible at sleeping. I get distracted easily. I blame her eyes, along with my attraction to any shiny or moving objects.
This past week, midterms arrived and I found myself in a situation where sleep just wasn’t an option. My neglect of sleep was even blanketed over my neglect for a variety of other activities.

“This my life now!” I yelled to Beth as I read my textbook for theology, gave a survey for my L.A. literature class and blasted a song I had to memorize for New Testament History, all at the same time. I quickly grabbed my rake and scraped it against my keyboard across the room, signifying to my fellow co-workers that I was also at “work,” “web designing.”

I found myself wondering if there was an episode of “How it’s Made” for how dreams are assembled. I imagined the intro, as a miniature model of my bed was rotated on a small platform while bland electronic music filled the air. Even this was hard for me to concentrate on and I realized that if I didn’t get some sleep, then everything I constructed would be assembled in a haze of confusion until it abruptly fell apart.

And that’s how I discovered coffee.