Brutal youth ...

... or more like a lack thereof.

Seriously, there's no doubt about it. I'm old.

In college, I could go to class, go to work, write and edit articles, stay up half the night writing a paper (or watching TV for my media criticism class; talk about multitasking -- there was great TV on cable at 3 a.m.) and be fine the next day on four hours of sleep. I can't count the number of times I drove the 300 miles from Pullman to Seattle to go home for the weekend having slept less than six hours the night before, or aced a test (OK, not the math ones) after staying up all night.

So imagine my horror when I realized that after two weeks of day shifts in Editorial, I was going to have to get up on Saturday morning and drive 300 miles to Pullman. Don't get me wrong, I really love working in Editorial. (One of the writers loved my headline on his column so much that he bowed to me. Sadly, Newsline simply does not garner that kind of love.) But when you're used to getting off work at midnight, and you suddenly have to be at work at 9:30 a.m., it's like a journalistic Armageddon.

Normally, after an Editorial stint, I sleep all weekend. So when the alarm clock went off at 8 a.m. Saturday, I kind of wanted to die. I eventually dragged myself out of bed and the first thing I said to Chris, in a low croak, was "you'd think after two weeks ..." And then I realized the irony of what I had said (for those who know what I am talking about, consider the title of this post) and totally cracked up.

A rental car, a trip to Starbucks, a mountain pass, a stupid two-lane highway, an awesome fic soundtrack and 300 miles later, we arrived on the rolling hills of the Palouse. I love, love, love going to Pullman. It's like going home again. Being a city girl, I wouldn't want to live there again, but there is something to be said for visiting our old hangouts, like Sella's (best calzone around), The Emerald (best Chinese ever, and also, the site of our first date) and Applebee's, where I managed to get drunk on a measly two drinks (mmm, pomegranate martinis.)

As for the game: Oh. My. God. I tend to get this kind of cynical "we better not be driving 300 miles to watch them lose" attitude every time we go out for a game (born of them losing three consecutive years when we went out for football -- and also nearly froze to death, not that I'm bitter) but Chris told me there was no way the Cougars would let the Huskies beat them at home, on Senior Day, etc. And when the end of the second half rolled around, and the Cougars were down by three -- after leading most of the game -- I was contemplating telling him to have a nice walk back to Seattle, but then the unthinkable happened. Not one, but two overtimes saved the Cougars from breaking their six-game win streak against the Montlake mongrels.

All I can say is 67-63, baby.

If we hadn't been woken up Sunday morning by a fire alarm going off in the hotel, it would have been totally perfect.

After all, I need my sleep. I'm old, remember?