Anybody else...

Think it's odd/funny/sad/worrying/sympathy-inducing to see U.S. Presidents gray, wither, and wrinkle before our eyes? Just do an Inauguration-Day-to-Farewell-Speech comparison, and it's a change that you wouldn't think four-to-eight years (or even as little as one or two) should make. Obama already looks a good ten years older to me. It's one of the most coveted positions, but I often don't envy Presidents. You deal with millions of lives, and sometimes you decide who dies and who lives. I think I'd crack. I wouldn't be able to sleep. How Dubyah supposedly slept ten hours a night... you know I was going to say "is beyond me", but when all I want to do is escape from the world, I sleep. Other times, I can't. I'm no President, but I could see it would work much in the same way except more violent. Plus, being on such a tight schedule, I'm sure it takes a toll on the body.

I'm no scientist, but I feel that looking at Presidents offers the answer to the disputed question of whether stress causes premature graying. I did some investigation, and it turned up that this link has never been proven, but it's suspected by many scientists. The debates seems to revolve around melanin, an a pigment polymer in our body that determines the color of hair, among other things. I won't talk too much about it, as I'm unsure even of that last statement, so I'll direct you to some links that discuss different sides of the issue.

The bottom line is that Presidents seem to age much faster than us commoners. Maybe it's because of the stress. Maybe it's just because we look much more at pictures of Presidents than ourselves or the people we know. Or maybe it's because the U.S. government has mastered time travel and Presidents spend years in the future finding out what issues they have to change to resolve the problems in future America. Which is your money on?

I don't sleep

I don't have any excuses. I really don't. Most of the nights I don't sleep it's just due to my idiocy. Well, I've done self-psychoanalysis and come to the conclusion that I stay up late because I worry that I will miss something. It's definitely subconscious. Now, for the first three semesters of my college career, I would just sleep in and skip classes when it got to be bad. But lately I've been forcing myself to go because I'm trying to get into the School of Education. However, I make up for it on the weekends and suffer for it during the week. The funny thing is that I miss more by sleeping in because it's poor use of daylight. I'm sleeping while people are awake.

Okay, that's not true at all. Everyone's hungover on weekends and sleeps as late as I do. Although, with the way people drink around here, I could see them being passed out really early. I was walking down the street on Friday last week, and a girl hits me and goes "Hey, Sexy" and stumbles all over the place, and I go "Seriously? It's 7 o'clock". But that's Madison for you.

I dunno, I guess I just like being awake at night. I don't know what it is. I guess I just keep telling myself to hold out until something eventful happens and then I can sleep. But I always just end up looking for new bands for hours and stuff, because everyone else is sleeping. And usually the one night I am falling over tired is the night I'm racked with homework.

I might be able to go to sleep now though, because I did something eventful. I just called someone and sang "Hit Me Baby One More Time" in Robert Goulet's voice (for your own amusement, please click on that link). Yeah, this is what I've been reduced to for entertainment at 1:27 AM on a Thursday night / Friday morning.

In other news, I helped push three people's cars out of the snow that I just happened to walk by in the two blocks on the way home from intramural hockey. Also in other news the song "Will You Be There" by Michael Jackson just game on my iTunes. You know, the one from Free Willy. It's the only MJ song i own (a result of a Graduation mix a friend made me), and it came on because I just got to the end of my Menomena collection. There's got to be a Michael Jackson joke where the punch-like is about freeing little boys' willies (no link here, that'd be creepy).

So, in honor of my failure to sleep, the song of the day will be the Strokes' "Fear of Sleep" from the album "First Impressions of Earth". I'm sure many of you are familiar with the Strokes, but in case you didn't know, they're from New York. I don't know what to say about the Strokes. I know a lot about them, but there's no real interesting fact I can give you. They're one of Conan O'Brien's favorite bands? I have a poster of them on my wall? Their guitarist, Albert Hammond, Jr. put out a really good solo album last year? Yeah, I dunno. But their music keeps getting better in my opinion.

The Strokes' "Fear of Sleep"
The Strokes' myspace
The Strokes' official website