A Reflection on the Wee Hours of the Morning

4am is a really odd time to wake up when you don't have to be anywhere. Part of me is enjoying this weird new sleep cycle I've stumbled into, because mornings are really pretty (especially when it's the start of a sunny summer day) and cool (so very appreciated during this stupid heat wave*) and the birds outside are all jumping around in the grass in the little park outside my front window. It's quite nice. Reminds me of when I had to get up at 6am to catch the 6:45 bus to PSU for the Latin classes that were always before 8am. I liked waiting for the bus at that time. Everything smells fresh and delicious at 6am (which is nearly what time it is now).

In keeping with those years of Latin commuting, the downside to leading a double life as an early bird and a night owl is that my brain doesn't really work this early. I feel quasi-motivated to do...something...but that something doesn't ever seem to pop out of my brain. My neck is kind of sore, and I have a constant mild headache that makes reading (or typing) kiiiiiind of a pain. Ironically, my brain gets warmed up right as the weather/my apartment takes a turn for the sweltering--which shuts my intellectual capacities down again, because I am a creature that is best suited to life north of the Wall. I've been hanging out in the pool quite a lot.** That helps, but it's a short-term fix: gives me enough juice to work my brain for about twenty minutes, post-pool. That's just enough time for me to feel comfortable enough to pass out on the floor because, hey-o!, I woke up at 4am. Boom. Full-circle.

Anyway, I'm trying to warm up my brain a little earlier today (by blogginggggg), in hopes of getting some real work done. It's amazing how much this new sleep thing (jet-lag? or my true circadian rhythm finally showing itself after years of terrible sleep?) and the weather affect my ability to do anything. I'd like to think I am the power-through kind of person, but I'm really more of a wait-it-out person, and that doesn't work super well with this thing I'm doing called "graduate school" and this project, this "critical essay," that needs to be first-drafted by, like, next Friday.

In summary:



photo credit: chrislee

*remember, people who live in hot places: we have no AC in the cold northlands, so 82 degrees F with 80% humidity is something that make living/working in a second-floor apartment with East- and West-facing windows a TERRIBLE THING
** The pool is my bathtub, which I fill with cold water and then sit in for twenty minutes at a time with my swimsuit on and a book in my hand. Tis a fine pool.