On the second day, she overloaded herself with media, trying to exhaust her mind with music, movies, books, the Internet. It had worked in the past – she could just read or watch TV until her eyes couldn't stay open anymore. Work had been a little fuzzy, but she had still functioned normally. Grissom hadn't even noticed when she spaced out while he was talking to her – though once Nicky had squinted at her and asked if she felt all right. But she had managed; she knew how. Her insomnia, though usually not quite as bad as yesterday, often forced her to work on limited sleep. She was used to it; she could do it, could keep going when her batteries were nearly empty. But she needed to get a little more rest today, at least four hours. She needed to recharge.
And so she watched Contact, then a few episodes from her X-Files DVDs, then Pretty in Pink. When the movie was over, she flipped through the channels on her TV until she found a station halfway through showing Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.
"Asps. Very dangerous. You go first," she recited along with the TV as she got up and made herself some nice warm lemon tea. When Indy had finally vanquished all the bad guys – or rather, the bad guys had vanquished themselves – she clicked the TV off and headed for the stereo. She arranged CDs in the five-disc changer: Pink Floyd, Bruce Springsteen, The Doors, The Who, Eric Clapton.
"Rock out." She closed the CD drawer and punched play, then curled up on her couch with a blanket, a second cup of tea, a mystery novel, yesterday's newspaper, two magazines, and five catalogues.
Some time later, she glanced at the wall clock hanging over her breakfast bar. 7:38 p.m. She had arrived home at 11:30 a.m., and she didn't need to leave to go back to work until 10:00 p.m. at the very earliest. Las Vegas criminals appeared to be taking a vacation this week – there were no pressing cases, no hot evidence trails, no loose ends to tie up. It was making it very difficult to justify as much overtime as she liked to take.
Sighing, she headed for her desk, resorting to the haven for insomniacs world wide: the Internet. E-mail, games, posting boards, polls, quizzes, movie reviews, newspaper articles, and instant messenger all unfolded before her, and she grimaced determinedly as she opened Cubis. She was going to wear herself out. She had too.