answering a question

Drew wisely asks, in a roundabout way, “If you’re so starved for sleep, why are you posting to your blog so much?”

My answer: Because I do have some down time between a lot of these checks, but it’s often only an estimated 20 minutes. I’ve learned that 20 minutes can usually mean an hour, but sometimes it turns out to actually mean 20 minutes. Not long enough to go back to the hotel and grab any meaningful shut-eye. There’s a very comfortable sofa at the printing plant, but the overhead intercom is very active and not conducive to napping. Also, I reach a point of being punch-drunk, and it can become difficult to actually fall asleep. Knowing that the phone is about to ring doesn’t make it any easier. So I stay awake during the shorter breaks. (On the other side of this coin, a one-hour break that I tried to nap through yesterday turned out to only be half an hour. It’s an uphill battle.) There’s a computer set up in the printing company’s client lounge, so I check my mail and I write bits and pieces of blog posts while I’m waiting for one press or another to be ready for me. Because WordPress auto saves, I can start a post on my laptop and finish it up in the lounge, or vice versa. This post, for instance, has taken (so far) three different rounds of attention over the course of a few hours.

And now it’s time to hit the button that says “Publish.”