Bright and early

It's gray-green and wet.

I'm awake. It's not even nine AM. This is not common since school has ended. I think I'd like to be a morning person. There is the social stigma that goes with being a non-morning person. I've had arguments with people who use the term "beauty sleep" to describe people whose sleep hours are no more than 5 or 6 but which happen to be the wrong 5 or 6 hours*.

I love sunrises. The way coffee and toast smell in air that hasn't decided whether to be hot or cool reminds me of mornings at my grandmother's house. I like the sounds of morning birds, not the same set as the evening birds or maybe just things are quieter in the morning so it takes less to hear them all. I like hearing the increasing frequency of cars coming down the road. Before it reaches the point where it becomes routine background noise, the stream is a bracing antidote to any feelings of 3 AM solitude.

Still, I am just not a morning person.

For a time, I made the mistake of believing the cultural rumor that people like me are just lazy and can be whipped into shape if given the right incentives. My attempt to overcome my "laziness" ended with very bad grades, several degrading and demoralizing academic experiences at college, and more than one professor who asked me if I had sought medical help. I guess I looked as rotten as I felt in the morning. I am not a morning person.



* = "I know you people need your beauty sleep" (very annoying woman at work)
"Are you still asleep?" (labmate Sharon speaking in a derisive tone on my voicemail ~ 8 AM)
"Hey! Tom! You awake? Tom! Hey! Gotta wake up! Everyone's been up for hours already, what are you doing?" (my ex's dad on answering machine ~ 9:30 AM)