Sarah and Melanie

Went to bed at 1:30 am. I literally could not stay awake any longer. That comes as a surprise to those who know me as a creature of the night. What surprises me is that I haven't seen 3am once all last week! Even if you assume - after three weeks here - that I'm still on EDT, that's still before my normal bedtime. But I have a good reason.

90 million miles away, there's a ginormous ball of fire and right now, we're pointed right at it. Granted, it's not like the top of the world (Alaska) where the sun just spins around in a circle on the horizon and back up again, but when we spin around and face it, there's a lot of energy comes to Earth!

Here, this process starts around 3:46 am, where it's light enough to read outside, and by 6:30am, the sun is over the rooftops and shining directly in my big bedroom window. That's my reason. And the clouds don't help. Because Vegas is in a valley surrounded on all four sides by mountains - okay, foot hills, but they are mountains compared to the Appalachain mountains! Anyway, because of this, the clouds are really, really high (and thin) compared to back east.

The result of this interaction is that if you're used to seeing me pale... well, I still am, but now I look like a Trill from Star Trek; the skin on all the top-most areas of each limb is covered with hundreds of little brown dots. Freckles, they're called, and they're filled with melanin.

No doubt you've heard about Sarah Tonin, and how when she's not around, one tends to get depressed. Well, her sister, Melanie (everyone calls her Mella) lives in your eyes, and yes, in those freckles. When she's around, one tends to be sleepy. Unlike Sarah, who is a foodie and comes out whenever there's food around, Mella (like me) avoids the sun and leaves when your eyes (or freckles) are exposed to the sun.

Did I mention the sun's rays are out at 4am here?

It's a bizarre feeling... to once again be going to bed tired... to once again be asleep within minutes of hitting the sheets... to be asleep by 2am... and then awake by 7am. And the wakey times just keep getting earlier! Today I was up at 6:30! Hardly the crack of dawn, but can one really get all the rest they need in just 5 hours of sleep a day?

A friend from Alaska was telling me about how when you go there in the summer time, for like a week, you go on none or just a few hours sleep a day until you get used to the idea of sleeping during daylight. I feel a power nap in my future... perhaps after the sun rays no longer have line of sight to my window.