Sleep

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons. So Fun, I Fall Asleep.

Posted by Karl Weller on December 9, 2021
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Animal Crossing is a difficult game to describe to someone unfamiliar with the concept. “Animal Crossing? Sounds delightful, what’s it about?”. Well you play as a childlike human that decides to migrate to a deserted island, take up residence with a colony of anthropomorphic animals, assisted by a relocation company that send three representatives to ensure that the hefty itemised bill you’ve incurred from your move, including airfare, accommodation, labor and tax, is reimbursed in a prompt, but relaxed manner. “Oh. Sounds….fun?”. Never has simulated debt management been so charming.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is where being banished to a deserted island isn’t just a dream, but a reality. And delightful one too. Fishing. Bug catching. Accessorising. Extended constitutionals. Building a encyclopaedia of the creatures that inhabit my island. Collecting shells that wash up on the beaches, neighbouring your rustic home. Crafting furniture to adorn my modest, fully mortgaged domicile. Decorating it with whatever fixtures I scavenge. It’s a routine I usually deplore. The embellishment of the mundane. But in Animal Crossing its so wholesome. So soothing. A therapeutic balm for the stresses of everyday life. The only way it could be anymore charming is if Stephan Fry was narrating your expedition. There is however just one little “issue” though; its too relaxing.

“Issue” probaly isn’t the correct word, more symptom of the enjoyment. But a similar affliction that I suffered with “No Man’s Sky”. Because there’s no fixed objective, no real time sensitive impetus, it’s mellow, pedestrian nature is so relaxing, that I can’t help but fall asleep. After a chaotic day of work, that’s both physically as well as mentally exhausting, playing a game exuding such leisurely progression and promote the importance of tranquil gallivanting is comforting to the spirit. In an industry dominated by the propagation of violence and explosions that require swift, instinctive reactions, it’s rare to find a game so pedestrian and calming, yet addictive. Perhaps even nourishing. One that satisfies you in such a indefinable way.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the game I need right now. Even if it does rouse my narcoleptic persuasions.

Have you played Animal Crossing: New Horizons? Let me know in the comments below. Cheers.

I Miss Sleep.

Posted by Karl Weller on January 23, 2020
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Attempting to educate my daughter to be a polite, civilised individual is at times like trying to teach a monkey to play chess without it shoving the Queen up its ass! Its a thankless task that puts a tremendous strain on my partner and myself, not just as parents but as a couple too. Maintaining civility and discipline when confronted by a 3ft hell spawn, conceived in the cavernous depths of Satan’s rectum is probably the toughest psychological challenge we as parents have faced. The issues surrounding any child’s argumentative behaviour differs significantly depending on various contributing conditions. More often than not though a lack of sleep is the offending source of dissent. During the day, particularly in the morning is when my daughter is at her most placid. She’s exuberant yet receptive to instructions, adhering to our requests to cooperate with eating her breakfast, getting changed and not concealing her Peppa Pig toys in my shoes. But as the day progresses, she regresses. She becomes irritable, unreasonable but mostly unbearable.

There’s a subtle yet critical distinction between mischievous and disobedient. To the casual observer she might be considered a scamp. Hoping down a supermarket aisle, boldly ignoring our persistent instructions not to run off. Seemingly inviting punishment on herself as if its some kind of game that we as parents participate in, but inevitably always lose. The trouble being is that this kind of deliberate defiance isn’t limited to an occasional behavioural singularity, but is in fact a customery routine. Bedtime is especially disruptive, becoming synonymous in our household as “purgatory”. Her vitriolic reliance on the word “No” has become an exasperating response to every single thing we ask her to do. Getting her pyjamas on. Brushing her teeth. Even reading her a story, an essential bedtime activity, is rendered laborious by my daughters resolute temper. Yet her natural resistance to sleep is merely the start of our journey to sleep deprivation.

Like most children in their formative years my daughter is afraid of the dark. So to combat this mandatory state of blanketed twilight we have illumated her room with several night lights. Yet despite her bedroom being lite up like a Vegas casino, she still insists that it’s too dark, which usually means she will wake up sometime in the night, bellowing our names, pleading to come into our bed. Due to my partner and my own conflicting teaching methods, I’m usually tasked with consoling her during her midnight mewls because I have bigger hands, which means I can strangle her much more effectively (sometimes I wish I could!). And as much as we try to accommodate and appease her anxieties it does invariably afflict our own sleeping patterns, which is only further propagated by our need to work during the day. We regularly endure sleep patterns so chaotic that it could have been formed by a spirograph. But this is probably nothing new to other parents.

There is a fine line between facilitating her needs and trying to allay her fears, and sometimes its difficult to interpret a genuine fear from my daughter merely exploiting the chance to sleep alongside mummy. Because Daddy has to then sleep on the sofa. But despite the intermittent sleep, the pervasive fatigue and the insufferable irritation of my 6ft frame draped over 5ft sofa, stained in whatever food substance she’s careless smeared on there, I can’t imagine my life without her. No seriously I can’t mentally visualise that. I really wish I could sometimes. I really do.

Too Tired To Game.

Posted by Karl Weller on January 25, 2019
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Gaming narcolepsy. I’m not confident this is a legitimised condition, certainly not one recognised by medical practitioners. Maybe apnoea is a more appropriate term, I don’t know. All I know is I’ve got it! Perhaps it’s my age, fatigue, some innate “sleep mode” that activates whenever a controller touches my skin. It’s a particularly aggressive strain, persistently aggravated by my nocturnal comfort and isolation. An almost intuitive mechanism that debilitate’s my ability to play games for longer than a loading screen.

I’ve had moments when I’ve literally loaded in to a game, walked approximately 10 feet…..and then nothing. Just a brief period of blackness, before my eyes strain to comprehend the sudden view of my ceiling that moments ago were attentively gazing at my television?! As I lurch from my vertical position, peeling my daughters strewn “Peppa Pig” toy from skull that I’d carelessly rested my head on, its jagged frame leaving malformed indentations I try to gather some composure, wiping the drool from the crease of my mouth and stare sympathetically at the idle character on-screen. Standing there like a soldier awaiting command, motionless, confused and oblivious to my disobedient convalescence. Helplessly seeking guidance from anyone that will listen. Looking at me as if to say “Dude, seriously?! Again!”.

I’m at a loss as to what to do. Do I fight, revolt against my own failing anatomy? Seek genuine medical advice or just accept that I’m not as young and virile as I once was? Finally conceding that the wick in that candle I’ve been burning at both ends for years may finally have run out.

How often do you you fall asleep during a game? Let me know in the comments below. Cheers.

The First 6 Months Of Being A Father.

Posted by Karl Weller on October 13, 2016
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Looking after a baby is hard. Damn hard! It’s a cathartic exercise in mental and physical fortitude that fluctuates between pensive solemnity and exasperating parental torture. Nothing is easy, everything has to be strategically compliant with the child’s needs. You can’t make a drink, a sandwich or even take a dump without first considering you’re child’s needs or safety. They apply an incredible strain on you’re relationship with you’re spouse as well by virtue of proximity. Every scream bellowed by an infant is purposely designed to attract the attention of anyone in a 5 mile radius, with each one possessing it’s own unique emotional derivative. It could be one of pain, joy, inquisitiveness or simply one muttered to provoke attention at how she would rather eat her blanket than an actual nourishing meal. What ever it maybe it’s a primitive, yet effective form of communication to indicate to you, as well as the neighbouring community that she requires your immediate attention; Now! They love to play up too. Her disobedient behaviour and general insubordination is not simply limited to her nocturnal refusal to sleep but also in the simple demands, such as refusing food because there is something shiny on the wall. Screaming because noise illicit attention. Having huge steaming bowel movements in newly changed nappies. Punching or scratching herself in the face and being bemused by why such actions hurt, as well as sticking her fingers in my nostrils in search of hidden treasures, I presume? They really are an anomaly of reproductive invention.

They’re like default humans that require constant visual surveillance with only the basic principles to guide them; eat, sleep and poop. Sometimes all at once! My daughters days of benign activity is divided between being coddled by overly attentive grandparents, feeding, having her nappy changed and yawning. Mine largely consists of concealing a very tenuous grasp on reality and the vague recollections of sleeping. God I miss that, sleep. The relaxation of uninterrupted slumber. What a gloriously frivolous use of time that was. But fatigue is a prerequisite of parenthood, as is patience, the latter of which can become a conflicting emotion to conquer. Bedtime for instance is an intermittent period of rest where your often roused by the fluctuating breathing patterns of your child or the full blown panic attacks because she’s aware of her dark surroundings, the spatial restrictions of her crib or simply coercing her mother and I to wake up, indicated in the guttural whaling for us to simply admire her (and smell?) her feet, as if to say “Look! Mum, dad. I’ve got feet! Isn’t that weird?” Honestly she giggles like a drunk hyena whenever we inhale her foot odours. Her playful pursuit of self discovery can’t be rationalised, nor diminished by appropriate timing. Take last week for instance. Having been woken at about 4:30 in the morning and being the designated handler for this shift, I slink out of the comfort of my warm cosy blanket, still retaining a encroaching sense of fatigue to determine what white noise had disturbed her slumber. I was grouchy, tired and in short supply of the necessary restraint to mediate such an abrupt awakening. But when I entered her room, observed her holding her feet with her bum poking in the air and farting to usher my approach, I couldn’t of been prouder.

“Okay, next time we will try the food “in” your mouth.”

You can’t be mad then, even if they do attempt an adorable scratch on your retinas. But losing sleep really is something you will struggle with most. Everyday will feel like a listless daze of neurological discomfort that slowly metastases into a violent twitch in your left eye. Or until both you and your partner collapse from exhaustion on the sofa at 3 in the afternoon because your lively progeny decided breakfast begins at dawn. Hell even children’s TV is encouraging kids to get up at 6 in the morning! Going outdoors, however briefly will feel like a blissful compromise as my daughter tends to conk out after about 5 minutes and by extension help expand my Pokedex as I strategically locate rare Pokemon whilst maintaining serenity for my sleep deprived daughter. Work will become a profoundly liberating reprieve from the exhausting activities of parental responsibility. Of course most of the substantial tribulations occur when a feed is late or tiredness sets in, and as bad as that is for me it’s exponentially worse for my girlfriend, who has to spend the majority of her day monitoring a gurgling, puking, defecating, aggravated amalgamated version of ourselves, which I can assure is a potent concoction. Yet strangely despite our diminished time to relax and for me to recline and indulge in my habitual gaming needs, the PS4 has become an invaluable resource for comfort that engages the entire family. A versatile solution for all our home entertainment needs including gaming for myself, providing countless Friends episodes for my girlfriend and distributing nurturing and highly educational programming for my daughter, such as Paw Patrol or Teletubbies. I mean what can’t you learn from 4 heavy set bean bags that look as though Yoda is attending a fancy dress party as a cushion and suffers with a startling glandular problem. With a penchant for streaming questionable images of children onto their stomachs, presumably extolled by some dark magic. That live a reclusive lifestyle in a Hobbit house scattered with a substance they refer to as “Tubby custard” and are regularly sucked off by a mobile vacuum cleaner?!…..I’m sorry. I really do need some sleep.

If you have kids then you know what I’m talking about. If you don’t but plan to in the not too distant future then make good use of resting, nonchalance and most definitely sleep. Don’t neglect it, cherish it. Nourish it. Hug it. Take it out for a candle light dinner, with fine wine and steak before taking it back home for some gentle but sweet, sweet love. Because believe me as much as you will love your children, you’ll miss sleep almost as much.