Alright Matt, we're going to go over this again. This is the sixth time in the last 15 minutes, but that's fine. We're used to reminding you about things, so say it with us this time:
You are not going to fall asleep."" You're going to brew another cup of tea, finish your work, maybe change into a new set of clothes and start your day as if you haven't already been awake for 24 hours. We know this for a fact. And we would know it, because we're your cerebral cortex.
That's right, your centers for memory, spatial perception, language and consciousness are all present and reporting for duty. We know you're tired and that staying awake to watch the sunrise isn't such a romantic notion when you've spent the past nine hours drafting an argument about the First Amendment. But we're here to make sure you finish this task and then head off to work an hour from now, just the same. And we'll keep focusing your weakening cognitive powers on these ungodly dry legal analyses for as long as necessary.
See Matt, we're like your body's computer, handling all of your calculations and word processing. But you're starting to get sluggish. You're like that old desktop PC at home, the one that worked great when it was new, but then you filled the hard drive with Pavement albums and your youngest sister downloaded a bunch of viruses onto it and -
Oh! See right there! Your attention is starting to wander. Why don't you go fix another cup of tea and take a brisk walk around the perimeter of the living room? Maybe do some jumping jacks or take a nice, refreshing, shower with the knob turned all the way to the right. Yes, that pounding noise in your temples is your heartbeat, but don't worry -
it's beating with enthusiasm!
Unhealthy to stay up this late too often? Why, plenty of successful people have gotten by with strange sleep schedules. Leonardo da Vinci. Napoleon Bonaparte. Salvador Dali used to stay up all night just bouncing a ball, and look how famous he is.
We're not asking for a ""Mona Lisa"" here. Just wrap up this last bit about John Paul Stevens, cite your sources and stop worrying about revisions. ""Should the concluding paragraph really be in the form of a haiku?"" Um, we don't know. Did the musicology paper you wrote overnight back in February really need a three-page dream sequence set in colonial Williamsburg? These are questions asked by people who avoid working under adrenaline or desperation and who'd rather budget their time in a daily planner with an inspirational photo of a mountain top or a unicorn on the cover and -
Sorry to get worked up like that. Truth be told, we're tired too. We've been awake just as long as you have, and you've been feeding us nothing but green fucking tea for, like, half a day. If you weren't too much of a sissy to drink coffee, like any normal person working under a deadline, we'd have finished hours ago. And now you're drifting off again.
Look, we didn't want it to come to this but, remember the dream with the bees? The ones as big as condors? Why, there must have been hundreds of those things buzzing around. Sure, it sounds stupid now, but remember how you spent the next month terrified of flowers? Bzzz!
Sorry, that was out of line. Still, we can't say for certain, but we're pretty sure that if you fall asleep right now you're going to have that dream again.
For the next month. Except maybe it'll be worse this time. Who knows what the subconscious will come up with if it takes over? So before you think about setting your alarm and getting a few quick winks in, consider whether you want to grow up to be a 35-year-old man who wears a beekeeper's suit while riding the bus to his twice weekly psychiatrist's appointments.
Are you getting up to brew a pot of coffee now? Good! We hoped you'd see it -
Hello?
Covered in bees? Offer Matt a cup of coffee by e-mailing him at hunziker@wisc.edu.
