Relax. Relate. Release. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.

Lesson: SLEEP!! Too often we get caught up in our responsibilities and forget to, can’t, or are deprived of sleep. When this happens check yourself or else YOUR BODY WILL CHECK YOU, and having you looking like a fool.

I once thought that sleep was something that could be done only at night. The day was for work, productivity, and play – the latter being my favorite. Yet as my first year of law school would quickly teach me sleep is a luxury, necessity and shit if you don’t get it, it will get you.

MLK Weekend 2007 found me at my best friends Bronx bungalow with her and her boo, enjoying a relaxing grown up weekend. The wild child that I am I thought that I could hang with them in all their debauchery, of course disregarding the fact that I have been neck deep in books for 7-9 hours a day for the four months leading up to this test of valor.

Half a bottle of Hennessey and a Cohiba later I feel literally glued to the lazy boy. I could hear a faint voice calling my name only to realize it is my friend, trying to make sure my catatonic state is not persistently vegetative. As I try to respond I feel (what can only be called the dark spirits from the mid 90’s movie ghosts) pulling my body back into the couch despite my efforts to rise from my semi conscious state of elation and exhaustion. Needless to say I was done. Little did I know there was an entire adventure ahead of me.

Finally revived and feeling somewhat alert, my friend informs me that we have an invitation to well known and popping lounge in the meat packing district. That’s right a lounge in the meat packing district most tourists wet dream, yet yours truly is half a sleep drooling in the rental driving down the west side highway on a dag-gawn Friday night! Yet somehow I am totally un-phased by all the commotion including leaving the apartment and getting into the car which for some reason I don’t ever recall actually happening, however something tells me we didn’t beam into the vehicle.

Fast Forward 30 minutes – all of which I was asleep in the backseat—we pull up to the heart of the meat packing district on 14^th and 9^th ave. My friend and her boyfriend have parked gotten out the car, and apparently asked me several times to disembark the vehicle… needless to say I am unresponsive, unless drooling in my sleep can be considered an acknowledgement.

Fast forward 10 minutes – finally I free myself of Patrick Swayze’s ghost get along gang and muster up a “huh.” Somewhat peeved – and rightly so – my friend tells me that we have arrived and we should go into the lounge. Feeling so irreverently tired that I could not care where I was because sleep was my ONLY priority. She could have told me that if I didn’t get out the car right then my breasts would shrivel to raisins, I would grow a third nostril, and patches of hair would fall out my head; But I still would not have gotten up. I shamelessly ask her if I could stay in the car an regroup, and I would meet her inside shortly.

3 hours later. I awake mildly chagrined to see them re-entering the car. I feel refreshed, but still tired; They just partied their asses off. Damn, Law School – the sleep thief - strikes again; No sleep had me looking like a fool.