SLEEP CYCLES, NIGERIAN POLITICS AND MR. STEVIE KING [Is that all?– Ed.]

I’m searching for the right words to start this. But I know if I spend too long on it, I’ll probably forget exactly how I planned to say it (or as it has been known to happen to better men- what I wanted to flipping say in the first place). So here it goes: I HAVE REALLY F’ED UP MY SLEEP PATTERN. That wasn’t so hard, and I think I even nailed my point exactly. I didn’t think before this that there was any way to make it worse that it originally was: Bed at 3 a.m. up by 9 (or 10-ish). It’s not as if I have a set period of functioning. But now I’m the only person I know that goes to bed at 11 a.m and wakes up at 3 in the afternoon.

To imagine that the title “insomniac” once sounded pleasing to my ears. Maybe it had something to do with the genius [mostly mentally unstable – Ed.] types, usually associated with this honourable affliction, sipping coffee, up all night - creating a classic, hammering away at their typewriter/keyboard…Or maybe it was just because Sherlock Holmes was one and I always thought he was the ish. But the problem is that, this isn’t insomnia, it’s just me sleeping at the wrong time of the day. Elementary my Dear Watson!

If I need a good example of an insomniac, I don’t have to look any further than this very house. My old earth [mother! – Ed.] is a prime example. She is the only being, human or extra-terrestrial, I know, that can function for 24 hours with only 2 hours of sleep.

To be honest she is one of the reasons I’ve found myself in this particular condition. How? Lets just say while she’s awake (during those hours most women her age have now forgotten exist) I’m her secretary. [Male secretaries, like female bus conductors (in Lagos) are not the invention of this writer’s overactive imagination. - Ed.] . Without pay of course, unless I want to be reminded of the pain of carrying me for nine months and the extreme agony of dozing off during that caesarean operation. My work duties vary from day to day, but can always be found safely in-between proofreading and changing printer ink. It isn’t always the work that keeps her up though. She spends the rest of the night/morning sharpening her spider solitaire skills. Enough about the superwoman that birthed me and whom I recently saw put together a 3page speech an hour before she had to deliver it. And back to her mortal seed [son! – Ed.] that can’t sleep at the right time of the day.

After enduring this nocturnal behaviour for as long as I could (2 weeks and a few days – but who’s counting?), I decided to put a stop to it. On Thursday night/Friday morning (days tend to blur into each other these days…yawn!) I formulated a plan to stay awake all through the day. This involves a dosage of as much caffeine as is humanly consumable (without being fatal) and an appointment with the only person capable of keeping me awake for the stipulated time (without asking for money).

A couple buses and one dangerous bike ride later I’m the home/cybercafé of my man Anu (alias Chucky webmaster of www.gbedu.com). We hadn’t seen each other in a minute so obviously we had a lot to discuss (fact: women gossip – men discuss). We ran the gamut of our usual convos. Starting with our disenchantment with the music industry and ending with the (usual) joke of how we’re the only people we went to secondary school with that are still in the country. The latter part of this discussion seemed a lot funnier two years ago – I wonder why? My realization at the time (of our current discussion) was that Nigeria as a whole is in Diaspora. Those of us who are not (yet) physically on the wider end of the Western Union Money Transfer funnel are actually in mental Diaspora. Thus explaining why nothing here ever works – “no one’s home! Who needs electricity?”

I’m not sure if he shared this opinion with me (I’m not sure of too many of Fridays events – given my coffee induced zombie-ish state). But one thing we both agreed on with the “joy of finding a friend amongst a sea of strange faces” is that we’re both strongly anti-anti-third term! Don’t get me wrong this doesn’t mean that were not anti-third term, we most definitely are. It’s just that we both realize how myopic the average Nigerian can be on simple (political) matters of enemies and friends. In plainer words: the enemy of your enemy is not always your friend. Try this on for size, culled from Monday’s Punch newspaper:

THIRD TERM: POLL BACKS ATIKU’S OPPOSITION

85% of Nigerians against third term agenda, support(s) Atiku.

(Punch opinion poll, Tuesday April 18, pg. 7)

“Blah, Blah, Blah…and more propaganda”

Signed

THE NEW NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC COALITION

Now this was an advert paid for by the NDDC (?) that quotes an article from the same newspaper in which it appears. You may or may not have a problem with that. My problem here is with the choice of words and the ingenious use of that comma in the second line. And these raise a lot of questions for me. Firstly, when did the opposition of OBJ’s third term bid become the property of Atiku? Because the keyword (or key phrase) here isn’t Opposition, its Atiku’s Opposition. On to the comma, I think it’s actually a beautiful thing because it makes it possible for you to interpret the information from the (rather dubious) poll in 2 different ways:

Are 85% of Nigerians against the third term agenda? “Believable”. And do they all support Atiku? “Hmmm?” Or is this master of punctuation manipulation actually saying that 85% of the Nigerians who are against the “Third term agenda” [approximately 84.99% of Nigeria – Ed.] (should?) also support Atiku…now is that 3 or 4 different ways? WTF?

I for one am above the much ado about nothingness of this message and see it for what it really is, subliminal programming. My ideal country is a utopia and we all know politicians would never chose that over a democracy (And let God take their jobs away? I don’t think so).

[At this point the writer notices how far he has deviated from his original story and finds it hard to return to it. This is mostly due to whatever it is that afflicts writers – don’t ask me! Such thought is beneath me. I am, after all, “The Editor”. I also suspect his 10-20 minute pause here makes him reflect on the possibility that no one reading would ever get this far – Ed.]

Politics aside, our next major topic of discussion was blogging. His initial attitude towards the whole issue after giving me the to the dark side you have turned young Anikin look was: “Why I go dey wan’ read, ‘today I woke up…I’m depressed…Life is hard… I don’t like my boss’?” (You should hear his frustrated young female impersonation – Oscar worthy!). I think I changed his mind by showing him a few of my favourite blogs, making sure I stayed clear of the numerous blogs that would have fit his description. I also got to see my own blog in internet explorer. A shocking site [I’m sure he means “sight” – Ed.]…must remember to add to be viewed in Firefox somewhere.

As if stimulating conversation (why does that sound wrong?), free food and internet access weren’t enough, I also got invaluable information on how to fix my P.C. Apparently those beeping sounds aren’t polyphonic versions of the last trumpet. They are actually the only way this little white box can say compatibility error (i.e. pull out ram, tap, stick back in – voila – working computer.) I even got a free web cam but sadly lost the installation disc (nodding off in a bus) on my way back home, prematurely ending my career as a…

Yes I did make it home in one piece and after feeding my blog addiction I went to bed around 2 a.m (reasonable time for me). I had one of those epic dreams, which go on for so long you realize that you’re actually dreaming (and decide to take advantage of that ish J). I woke up at 5 o’clock in the afternoon (minus a couple moments of clarity between the more important parts of my dream) on Saturday.

In search of something to blame I took my anger out on the internet and promised myself I would stay off it for a while. If not to get some sleep at least it would be to prove to myself that I’m not addicted. But as evidenced by my perfect score in the 8^th grade science quiz, I failed myself in that regard and was back to my old ways in record time.

So on Sunday I made up my mind [Again – Ed] not to touch any computers and went in search of a good boring book. I picked up Yes Minister: The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister by the RT. Hon. James Hacker MP – Volume 2. Edited by Jonathan Lynn and Anthony Jay [This is most likely where he picked up the idea of involving me in his writing, even though you score him a zero for execution you must at least acknowledge his attempts at emulating the masters. This would probably add up to a nice well rounded negative scaore in total – Ed.] I should have settled for Has-Jes of those dirty green encyclopaedias because to my surprise this book was mad funny (strange considering how boring the T.V show was – although looking back, when it was on NTA I was at the right age to be bored). Once again it was morning.

It was a small victory, of sorts; since I managed to stay blog free for a whole day! – proving my I wasn’t an addict to start with. So now I’m back to *sniff* reading *sniff* blogs again. Thanks to a PDF book forwarded by fellow blogger Jonah Dienyi my sleep condition has worsened and progressed to what I call pseudo-insomnia. Mr. Stephen “Stevie to my good friends” King’s On writing has thought me a lot of things (including the fact that I can read 278 pages off a screen).

Things Stevie thought me about writing that I wasn’t thought in school:

- writers aren’t made they are formed.

- Writing is more craft than art. Knowledge which I most definitely lacked. I had always fancied my self more artist than crafts man. [This is the literary equivalent of a carpenter that can chisel his name in the most elegant script, on the leg of a table, but can’t make one (a table) to save his life – Ed.]

- Don’t Lie(?)

- -Stop watching the devils box! In Stephen’s own words (ignoring how many of his books have been converted to suit this demonic medium):

“…it’s time for you to question how serious you really are about becoming a writer. You must be prepared to do some serious turning inward toward the life of the imagination, and that means, I’m afraid, that Geraldo, Keith Obermann, and Jay Leno must go. Reading takes time, and the glass teat takes too much of it.

Once weaned from the ephemeral craving for TV…”

- “Omit needless words” (maybe I’m still learning this bit)

So that’s it I just finished my 1000+ words a day (as advised by Mr. King – Now who’s the SUCKA! I’m not even going to read it over!!!) Arsenal is going to the finals. I’ll be up all night/morning, reading your blog. In typical blog fashion…I’m depressed…Life is hard…I hate my boss…Wait a minute! I’m unemployed…I don’t have a boss…This is the politics free utopia I once dreamt of…YIPEE!!!

THE END [Rejoice…I have to live with him. Help – Ed.]