I’m so tired. Like I couldn’t even get out of bed today. Like I’m still in bed. I slept for maybe twelve hours. I don’t know why I’m still so beat. I’m seriously still under the covers. I keep trying to get up but my eyes, even if I can force them open for more than two seconds, it’s like my eyelids are just weighed down with extra gravity, and then when I eventually give up and they slam shut I keep telling myself, just fight it Rob, just stay awake, even if your eyes are closed, just don’t fall asleep, just concentrate on mustering the energy to pry your eyes open again. And then by the time I actually open them up and I look at the clock I realize that I in fact did fall asleep, that my willpower was nothing compared to how tired I am, that an hour has passed and this day keeps slipping further and further out of my hands.

And so I’m resigned to the fact that I can’t get out of bed. It’s just too much today. I feel like a parasite must be attached to my body somewhere, sucking me dry, leaving me this empty husk of a person, unable to stay awake. You might be asking yourself, how are you writing this Rob? If you’re so exhausted, stuck in bed, how are you at your computer writing? I’m not. I gave up on trying to get out of bed. I’m on my phone, typing it out on the touch screen. It’s taking forever. I’ll get stuck on a word for like two whole minutes, back and forth, me trying really carefully to hit the right letter, but because my fingers are so big, and the screen so tiny, and I’m so tired, I just don’t have the energy necessary to really aim my fingers, and I keep messing up. And then when I finally get a word right, the phone thinks I’m trying to spell a different word, and it does me the favor of changing the word automatically, without even asking, and I’m back to square one. It sounds like a long and tedious process. It is. I’ve been working on this blog post for the past eight hours. I’ve already taken like twelve naps.

I feel like my body has started hibernation, like a bear. If I’m really quiet I can’t even hear my heart beating, because even though I’m still alive, (I have to be alive, right?) my heart is still beating, but the beats have slowed down so much, to such a crawl that if I try to listen for an individual beat, it sounds like I’m dead, because the spaces in between each beat are just too long, way too long to maintain concentration on listening, I can’t keep the focus for that long, and so maybe there was a beat, but I missed it, I fell asleep or something.

Hibernation isn’t just about sleeping and a slower heart rate. Everything’s slower. My metabolism is just barely on at all. And that’s too bad, because right before I went to sleep last night I made myself a huge plate of fettuccine alfredo. I figured I’d carboload, give myself the fuel for a productive tomorrow. But I can just feel every strand of fettuccine just hanging out in my stomach. And I’m trying to will my digestive system into action. I’m like, “Come on stomach! Metabolize!” But nobody can control their organs, not consciously, and I’ve wasted so much of my non-energy on just visualizing my intestines, trying to kick-start the whole Krebs Cycle (Krebs Cycle? I don’t think I used that right) into action.

When did I miss twelve phone calls? Who even calls any more? Inbox full? How long have I been asleep? I don’t remember having this full beard. Who installed this catheter? Why would whatever hospital I’ve woken up in spend so much time making sure the catheter is installed correctly but not bother to give me a shave every now and then? Can I take out this IV? Is this feeding tube really necessary? Hello?

When Rip Van Winkle woke up the colonists won the American Revolution. Maybe I’ve woken up and the conservatives have finally won the Romney Revolution. That was a funny joke. Maybe a little too funny. I actually laughed a little too hard and I think I’ve in the process wasted all of the energy that my body was slowly starting to build back up, and now the laughing is over and I’m just so sleepy, maybe I’ll just take little a nappy-nap, just for a minute, because my eyes are so heavy.