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August 28, 2004

Early Morning Guilt

I get up every morning at around 7:45. I have no alarm clock, and as best I can tell its guilt generated by my latent protestant work ethic (PWE) that jars me awake. Notice that its guilt, not the actual work ethic in and of itself.

I think I abandoned mine somewhere around the 8th grade when I realized a. one need not get a's to be the smartest person in the room and b. I've got a roughly 80% chance of pulling a b or higher if the test is multiple choice or essay.

I will say though that since being married he's started showing up around the house again. Probably not to the extent my wife would like; she wants him to move in with us, threes company style. Me, April, and a no-holds barred work ethic. Sometimes I wonder if she'll leave me for him.

But back to the beginning, the real point of my message: I'm incapable of sleeping in past 8 a.m. Even on a Saturday I end up waking up at 7:55 at the latest. Sure, I can kill a hour watching Sports Center, Headline News, or reruns of Beverly Hills 90210 on FX, but I most definately cannot sleep for another hour. It's like my sick PWE is willing to let me waste 60 minutes buried in cultural black hole that is an Aaron Spelling TV show because hey, at least I'm doing something, just don't go back to bed and try to catch some more shut-eye. That would be lazy.

So what do I do on a Saturday morning, up and ready to go at 8 a.m., April gone working a half day at Middle Valley? Well, I like to call and wake up my friends. Well, it doesn't occur to me that they're all sleeping till after the second or third groggy phone call. But it usually doesn't matter because by that point I've found somebody who, like me, suffers from sleeping in guilt from their latent PWE. So Morris & I are off to Barnes & Nobles to do some reading. I might play a little GBA, but rumor has it they've got the latest issue of The Believer.