Rollercoaster Ooh Ooh Ooh!

Yeah, yesterday was pretty...entertaining. I functioned moderately well until around 4:00 or so, when evidently I didn't talk loud enough on the radio, the Chief missed me saying something fairly important to one of his officers (even though the officer heard me) and then called to completely chew me out. Now, on a normal day I would be able to handle that just fine. I would have been able to shrug my shoulders, see where he was coming from, know that I hadn't really done anything wrong (verified by the officer on the call) and moved on. But we have to remember that I was going on about 28 hours without sleep.

I absolutely hit the wall. I started bawling. Right there in dispatch. And I don't cry delicately. Thankfully my partner was kind enough to hand me a tissue, take over radios for me, let me go to the bathroom to compose myself (took a while since I was so tired), and then called the officer who was on the call to see if he had a problem with the way I did anything...to which he said no. That helped a lot, knowing that the officer I was actually responsible for didn't feel like I completely goofed it up. After a while I was able to compose myself enough to get through the rest of the day with only a slightly wobbly smile.

Oh, and did I mention that my last call of the day was someone who had accidentally shot themselves in the calf with a pistol...out in the county. Sweet. Not only did we have to get the city ambulance all the way out there, but we had to figure out which officers were going to go in order to get to the scene before the ambulance, since gun shot wounds aren't really something you send unarmed paramedics in to alone. I mean, who really knows how it actually happened, and whether the reporting party is telling you the truth ("It just accidentally went off" vs "I shot the jerk for running around on me!")? Unfortunately, one of our deputies was on his way home, about 20 minutes out of town on the opposite side of the valley, and the other one was in Huntington...an hour away. So we got to quickly figure out which city officer was going to leave the city to drive 10 minutes out of town. All of this was at the 30-hours-of-no-sleep mark.

But opening night of "Laundry & Bourbon" went great! It wasn't a huge audience, but they were incredibly receptive and active, laughing at parts that I hadn't even thought about as being funny. It was SO nice to finally have an audience. For those of you who don't know, actors get about 30% or so of their energy simply from the energy of the audience. Rehearsals can get pretty tiresome towards the end simply because you are craving an audience to give you that boost that you need to REALLY bring the character to live. And as far as I can remember, I only goofed once, when I called one character by the other character's name...oops. Ah well, it was fun, and I'm looking forward to our second performance tonight!

And then last night, I slept like a rock. Mom helped me throw some hair dye on my hair, since the last time I put highlights in it it came out kind of...well...yellow. When I got out of the shower and got my hair dried, I popped a benadryl (just for good measure), crawled into bed, and out was out like a light. I didn't wake up when Nathan came to bed, I didn't feel him move, hear him snore, and didn't wake up until my music alarm had been going off for a good 30 seconds or so...it gradually gets louder, and it was pretty stinkin' loud by the time I got it turned off. I'm still a little groggy, but much better than yesterday. And tonight...tonight I am going to bed as soon as I get home from the play. It's going to be wonderful. :)