Caffeine is waaay bad for you. I want you to know that.
Today is the first day of my new work shift. I took 3rd shift the last time we rotated, so I got in tonight around 11:00 pm. I’ll be working until 8:00 am. Yum.
Actually, it’s not so bad. I stayed up extra late last night, till about 3:30 (am), and then took an extra nap around 4:30 (pm). So I got up around 9 this evening and basically pretended that 6 and I had two hours to get to work before 8. I’ve just flip-flopped my working and my sleeping hours.
To help me in this shifting process, on the way to work I bought two frappucinos. One to keep me up and one for back-up. Did I mention caffeine is bad for you? It’s bad for me anyway. I generally avoid the stuff, so when I do get some in my system, it REALLY works. Generally, it hits me in two stages: The first stage is instantaneous. Within 20 minutes of my first sip of coffee, I get the shakes. When I was a kid, I had asthma really bad and either inhalers didn’t exist, or my parents had been convinced they were of the devil, or something, but we didn’t have them. One of the things we had instead was these little Ventolin pills. Ventolin is the stuff they usually put in the inhalers now, but the pills I had were a straight 8-hour dose of the stuff. Triggered an extended adrenaline rush. Now caffeine does something similar to me. After about 3 hours, though, the second stage kicks in, and I just feel really good.
I took a break around 2:30, and stepped outside, and ran about half a mile in the empty parking lot, just for the fun of it. Then I sang a couple of songs at the top of my lungs and danced a little jig before heading back inside. I barely avoided banging on the windows to harass my coworkers. Be very glad I resisted the urge to harass my coworkers.
I feel a little foolish, but *my* it’s a nice night.
neumatikos 
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