Not a morning person.

The historian and I had to be somewhere at 8:30 this morning. The hell.

I know that 8:30 in the a.m. is not early by regular human standards. I know this. And I am almost always up at 8:30 o'clock in the morning when the sun comes up and signals, you know, another day, another dollar, the early bird catches the GD worm, etc., please stop yelling it's so early.

BUT:

Having to be at a place, in clothes, with my wits intact, and be civil to people? is asking a lot, in my opinion, unless the place I am at is a place where someone is bringing me eggs and toast.

I feel, parenthetically, like I ought to adopt the big sunglasses, super cozy coat approach to being in the world before noon. My garb proclaiming: leave me the freak alone, America, I am still adjusting to the light.

Anyway: while we were driving to our destination, we were chatting. I was probably mostly listening. Sentences are so challenging in the morning. And I thought, and not for the first time, not even the first time that morning, UGH I hate having to be someplace in the morning.

I spent many a year adapting to the early schedule that my life required. I got up in the morning and made my children breakfast and helped them get dressed and off to school. I helped several children deliver newspapers on an early morning route (this was hell, don't let anyone kid you). For a good long while I would get up at freak o'clock in the morning and swim a mile. The Lord knows that I did my early morning time.

But the truth of things is this: even when I was a small child I was a night owl. I have vivid, detailed memories of lying in bed listening to my parents watch Bonanza when I was in bed, just thinking my thoughts, holding my Raggedy Ann doll, wishing I was out there eating their popcorn with them and sipping their Cokes, like the adult I always was on the inside. At least, in the sense that adults can stay up late, which basically seemed like the essence of adulthood. That, and high heeled shoes.

I always stayed up later than everyone in my house when I was a teenager. And to this day, if I am allowed to do as I will, I am up till 1 a.m. and awake at about 8. Why is that so bad? Why is the world organized against me and my night dwelling kind?

Anyway: the morning, this morning, was lovely. The sky, in case you missed it, was clear from mountain range to mountain range, and I appreciated it in a purely aesthetic sense. As in, I wish I could have painted it. But, like, at eleven, a proper time for having formed a plan and having gathered one's energy and beginning to execute it.

8 a.m., on the other hand, is a good time for stretching whilst still under the covers, and considering breakfast, and promising oneself that breakfast will taste better after a workout. 8 a.m. is a good time to take stock of the dreams still coloring the atmosphere. It's a good time for pulling the wisps of the day's plans together, silently, without noise.

Sometimes you just have to be up and on your way early. I teach a nine o'clock class on Fridays. To be in position to actually teach at that time, I have to leave way early, and prepare in silence for at least ninety minutes. I need a good run at it, in other words, to be alert and able to communicate by nine. I'm sure if this were my life every day, I would adjust. But I know myself well enough, at this point, to know that, given a shift in that schedule, I would in no time reset at my 1 a.m.-8 a.m. time points. And be dang lovely to speak to by ten thirty, or eleven, tops.

I admire the morning people, their ability to spring from their beds with no regrets and get going, to attend morning meetings unbegrudgingly, and so on. I defy anyone, however, to be on his or her game better than I am at nine, ten, eleven at night. I defy you!

Morning night person owl.

One of my earliest memories is of lying in bed when my parents were still up. I remember thinking, thinking, thinking, holding on to the Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls my grandmother had made me, stroking the silk embroidery of their rag doll features. I could not--possibly would not, but it seemed more like it wasn't really possible to--sleep. From a very early age, I was a night owl.

Here are some worlds that are not organized for night owls:

1. school
2. childhood
3. work
4. young parenthood

And thus, and even so, I negotiated later bedtimes with my parents, and then when they were past policing my bedtime, I stayed up and stayed up and tried to be quiet. Headphones for my stereo. A little night light for reading. This--staying up all hours--has been going on, in other words, for ages.

I used to get up early to go to the dreaded early-morning LDS seminary. That was 6 a.m., the people, for religious formation. My God. I used to get up early for early morning classes in college, because, what, it was more virtuous? or something. Or maybe I just didn't know better. My first semester, I had a modern dance class at 7 a.m. three days a week. (leotard leotard leotard can't stop thinking it!) I used to get up early to swim and walk with a friend when my kids were young. Oh, I have arisen early in my day.

When I am left to my own devices, i.e., in the summer or on vacation or when I'm in Idaho, I go to bed around 1 a.m. and get up around 8-ish. It's not so bad, really--I do like the morning. I just don't like early morning, and I don't like to have to be ready to do anything in the morning, like work. Or talk. I'm ready for working and talking around 10. Ten-ish.

This semester, I am teaching a ten a.m. class. Quixotically, I get up super early on the days that class meets, so I can be to school by seven or so. If I have to be ready to talk by ten a.m., I need to get a good run at it. This means that three days a week I am generally up to see the dawn. Me, not a morning person, greeting the dawn with a silent scream.

One morning this week, I was up early enough to see this glowing, compensatory sunrise.

Slow morning: a meditation.

Who wakes up in the morning raring to go, greeting the day with verve and snap? Not me, that's who. Not.

No, I am the person who stays up till all hours with verve and snap. Which means that when morning rolls around, I crack an eye and tell it to go to hell, I need a little more sleep.

There was a time when I woke up to swim each morning. Verve, snap, swimming suit, which sounds so improbable I wonder if I am making it up. But no, I'm pretty sure I threw myself in the swimming pool at the Kearns Rec Center and swam a mile most mornings.

Evidently, I can, for a compelling reason, reset and wake up, etc. Swimming is good because you don't have to say anything--your face is in the water. It's kind of like sleeping, in that very little is required of you in the way of social interaction.

Where are the lap swims of yesteryear?

Now, I get up--later--and dawdle over the paper, the internet, breakfast. Then I take the dog for a walk. Then I get a shower and it's, whoa, ten a.m. Ready to greet the day!

I would like the rest of the productive world to align itself with my protracted interim period--that buffer between stumbling out of bed and being ready to roll. Or, if not align, at least allow: I get a lot done in this world, the people. I just don't get it done early.

Food court.

While the internet is working . . .


Running son and I went out to the mall today, because he needed to have his watch band adjusted and there's a 1 hour jewelry repair place there--I know, because I have had the chain on this one necklace I wear all the time and love there about a zillion times, easily equalling the original cost of the necklace a couple of times. It turned out that the watch band adjustment took about 3 minutes, but we decided we'd get lunch at the food court anyway--why not, we were there, and there's something for everyone at the food court.

We chose the Italian Village, which is a local version of Sbarro's, basically. You know what I'm talking about, right? Food that looks waaaaay better than it tastes, and sits heavy in the stomach afterward? Oh yeah. Food court. The best thing about this meal was easily the Dr. Pepper.


What saves a food court meal, which I only ever eat when I'm at the mall with my kids (or at the airport, but that is its own special circle of hell), is the conversation. We discussed: the disgusting state of the trash receptacle within eyeshot; the dire need of the Utah Jazz for an outside shooter; the amazing stats of Dirk Nowitzki last year (the last person to have his stats? wait for it . . . Larry Bird in his heyday--yes, two of the whitest men ever to play basketball); the nothing-but-inside game of the Utah Jazz; possible new jobs for running son now that the electrician's co. has laid him off.


After that he considered a new game for his Wii, I considered a sale dress at a store. Neither of us bought those things. Instead, we drove home whilst discussing how there are no bad songs on the new Foo Fighters, and wondering whether my son-in-law (running son's brother-in-law) was on drugs when he said of this album, "Where's the rock?"


Taggage: Scotland daughter (at http://davieshandsacross.blogspot.com/) has tagged me, the gist of which is to share seven random facts about myself. It also means I'm tagging some of y'all to do the same. Here's how it works:

The Rules
1. List the link to your tagger (like I did with Janet) and also post these following rules.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird, etc.
3. Tag 7 people at the the end of your blog also leaving the links to their blogs
4. Let them know they are "TAGGED" by leaving a comment on their blog

Seven facts about me:

1. I was born in Delaware in a segregated hospital.
2. I have yellow, purple, red, blue, and green shoes. Not all on the same shoe.
3. I have six kids, a project I started when I was twenty-two.
4. My first recorded music passion was Glen Campbell--the Wichita Lineman and the Galveston LPs. After that, I switched to Simon & Garfunkel. This was in junior high.
5. I never thought I would live in Utah this long--I came from SoCal. and thought, somehow, I might return to live there. That was 30 years ago.
6. I love to shop and have to fight with myself not to go into a store and buy something nearly every day. Often, I lose this fight.
7. I stay up till midnight almost every night, even when I'm tired.

Now: I tag

the orris http://signifyingnothing.com
middlebrow http://middlebrow.net
dr. write http://dr-write.blogspot.com/
counterintuitive http://counterintuitiverundonotwalk.blogspot.com/
assertively unhip http://assertivelyunhip.blogspot.com/
otterbutt http://nikwalk.blogspot.com/
and sleepy e http://thenewsleepy-e.blogspot.com/

Don't hate--post!