What's Up? I'm Up. What's Up With That?

Speaking of people being productive...

Ordinarily, I'm not a morning person. Sometimes I'll get up early. Usually it's for a boating thing (like the NY-to-Albany delivery trips that used to be one of my favorite things about working on the schooner Adirondack), or some long tide-dependent kayak trip. In those cases, it's always this huge struggle getting up, a one-woman battle involving multiple hits on the snooze alarm and great needing of coffee. My ability to actually walk out the door, at a pre-dawn hour, in a state remotely resembling preparation is entirely dependent upon having pre-set everything (including morning's outfit) the night before.

Once I'm out, on the water, watching the sunrise, I'm always thinking "Sunrise. Nice time to be on the water. This is nice. I should do this more often". Never happens, though (except for multi-day camping and/or multi-day boat trips, when I think I get a lot more in sync with the daylight). Getting up early is rough.

So I was surprised to find myself jumping out of bed this morning at 5 a.m.!

I've actually been pretty busy over the last few days. Weeks. OK, years even. If you read this blog at all, you know how I tend to get too many things on my plate, right? I was running around running errands on the Saturday morning before the work day a couple of weeks ago. Errands like taking my NEW watch to a jeweler in Newkirk Plaza to get the band shortened, then going back to pick it up so they could hold it hostage for fifteen minutes while I begged them to just give it back to me as it was so that I could be on time to meet Prof.M, who was giving me a ride to the work day - (they hadn't finished breaking it, see). I was running home after that thinking "I do NOT understand how parent-type people do it, I can barely keep my own life in order and there's only one of me".

This week's been same as usual. Work stuff, a surprise bridal shower my boss had me coordinate (we pulled it off great btw, our colleague's face as I started rolling back the dividers to reveal the 30 co-workers & cake & champagne who'd gathered in the back half of the dividable conference room where she, my boss & some sales folks had gathered for a "meeting" was truly priceless), finishing the switch from the old computer to the new & then wiping the old one's hard disk (I hope I wasn't being too optimistic there, the new one's doing fine but I used a real erase program on the old one & it did the job I bought it for, there is no resuscitation now), usual home & self maintenance, trying to drum up interest among my friends in a really special trip, the usual day-to-day stuff, and then I'd said I'd write an article for the club's newsletter.

The day-to-day stuff was sort of getting short shrift, as usual. The article got done at about 2 am on Tuesday morning. The shower was yesterday. I worked a little late to finish up the work stuff I hadn't been doing while planning the shower (it's quarter-end close, certain stuff had to happen). I came home, had some dinner, looked at the day-to-day stuff (bill paying, cleaning, etc) I hadn't been doing, shook my head, sat down on the Futon of Nap (the most lethally comfortable piece of furniture I own) with some kids' book from work, thinking I'd just unwind a bit before I started in on chores, & promptly crashed. Moved to bed at some point (still fully dressed may I add - I guess I was a pretty pooped pup).

Hence the abnormal 5 am waking.

I would be so scary if I was a morning person. When I get home from work, I'm just too tired. Things don't get done, or if they do, it's in fairly hass-alfed fashion.

This morning...well, I got up. I paid bills. I watered the plants. I put dishes away. I washed dishes. I hung up the drysuit. I put the laundry in the closet. I put the backpacks in the closet. I put the luggage cart I'd used to bring the computer home in the closet. I pulled a hooded wetsuit top I never wear out of the closet to think about whether I wanted to cut off the hood to replace the hood I lost. I pulled more kayak gear out of the closet to confirm I really lost the old hood (I did). I put the kayak gear back in the closet. I pulled a carton out of the closet & packed up the books I've been meaning to send to the Chickens as a thank-you for their hospitality in October. I had a healthy, fat-free breakfast (a banana & some leftover rice with a bit of shoyu). I did a little digital photo filing. Having accomplished enough things that were of actual use to make myself quite disgustingly smug about the morning's accomplishments, I moved on to futzing around online. I looked up some ferrocement construction information (no, not thinking of building my own "yot", just still been checking in on my old Pier 63 acquaintance Reid from time to time & was curious about the construction) and now I've written a blog post.

And the time is now 7:40 a.m., the hour at which I am usually FINALLY hitting the snooze alarm for the last time, turning on NPR & stumbling towards the shower.

Wonder what sort of scary, smug, organized person I'd be if I did this voluntary getting up at 5 am thing more often. At the very least, maybe I wouldn't always have this nagging sense that somehow, somewhere, something I was supposed to have done hadn't gotten done.