YES! YES! YES!: My First All-Nighter

My first all-nighter at the end of my freshman year taught me some important lessons about what my mind and body is capable of when placed under the stress that is going without sleep for more than 24 hours.

1) Between 3 and 5 a.m. I am incapable of forming coherent sentences on paper and possibly aloud. I have some stellar thoughts, complex ideation that I am incapable of during normal waking hours. But when it comes to recording them, I have the language capability of a non-Einstein like fourth grader trying to write about quantum physics.

It’s funny in retrospect, but it makes me want to jab a pencil in my eye when I need that thought to get me through a paragraph or two at 6 a.m., when I’m able to write again.

2) Hot chocolate disappoints like no other, as it’s more of a distraction than an aide in concentration. Marshmallows – either their presence or the mere of idea of them melting sugary goodness in your cup – are the funnest thing ever when you’ve been studying pre-colonial African history for seven hours.

Coffee will never let me down, but hot chocolate is more of a party in my mouth kind of beverage and not quite the upper I wanted and needed it to be.

3) If I end the 24 hour no-sleep-athon with a 20 minute run, upon beginning my cool down, I will have an orgasm.

I remember everyone telling me that I was insane for attempting to work out. I remember questioning my own sanity as I changed into my workout clothes. I remember that it was a gray humid morning and thinking that I probably was indeed crazy, as I was alone in the gym.

But most vividly, I remember that as soon as I slowed down to a walk that my knees buckled, my eyes bulged out of my head and I held onto the treadmill as my body shook. I was 18 and still new to the world of orgasming, but there was no doubt that I’d had one.

My jellified legs carried me back to my dorm and after I showered, I napped and rather than immediately finishing the paper that I’d botched up during my 3 – 5 a.m. ditz blitz, I found a few of my friends to tell them about my jog.

They still call it my trip on the treadmill and I’m disappointed that none of them have tried to recreate the experiment.

I don’t know the science behind it and I will not investigate it for fear that I will uncover the awful truth that it will never spontaneously happen ever again. And I can’t live without that hope.