Survival in the Morning

I am not a morning person. I hate waking up. It’s a long process and normally I end up running late, forever miscalculating how long it will take me to rouse Nate, clothe us both, and get us where we need to be. Sometimes, I sleep right through the alarm, but only if it is tuned to music. While music is my preferred way to wake up, if I deeply truly need to awaken, then I turn on the blaring alarm. I am a night person. I wake up when the rest of the world goes to sleep. It is more peaceful and I can relax. My favorite time is from when the sun goes down to about an hour or two after the sun rises. Even after working long hours last week, some 14 hour days, the last six spent in temperatures of mid to upper 90's at the shop (Friday, while I was cleaning, sweat literally dripped off of my face and nose), after I left and came out into the darkness and relative coolness (if you consider 85 degrees at 10:30 cool), one would think I would be ready for bed. No, not really. If anything, I was energized. AZ is the same way. We were lamenting that fact after a particularly heinous day of broiling hot temps and disgusting humidity. Since both of us have to rise early, he at 4:45 and I at 5:30 (or so), it doesn’t help much that at 11:00 we’re both very tired yet energized. I don’t know how to explain it. We got around that on Thursday when I text messaged him that he had infected me with “do it twice syndrome.” This was after standing outside the shop with the door shut realizing I had left my purse inside, then coming home and realizing I needed to leave immediately to go pick up wet cat food in an attempt to keep some kittens alive (which has failed miserably), thus, doing things twice. AZ called me and snarkily said, “I take no responsibility, I believe you may have already had this syndrome and are just now realizing how annoying it is.” HA! Then I thought about it, and I am indeed cursed with the “do it twice if not three times syndrome” and have been most of my life, especially when it comes to leaving in the mornings. Then we discussed various things, mainly I did since I had told him to go lay down and I would lay down too, since, even though we’re a few miles apart, tends to help wind us down if we’re both in the bed, albeit different beds. I think I was wrong in my belief that he’s totally passive-aggressive. I can see it in both of us but being together or rather, in the same environment, has quelled a great deal of that, especially in the fact that we must communicate with one another and we’re there, in the moment, and head off behaviors, gently. If anything, I’ve stopped taking some things personally and realize it is more the environment versus anything I’ve said or done, which is sometimes hard to do over the phone. On Thursday, I was talking about my plans for the future and what they included and didn’t include, and after I had concluded that, I added, “Oh yeah, and it would nice to have someone to share all of that with,” and then lamented my recent dating disasters and how I feel, as Celti once told me, if you’re totally satisfied, then you’re stagnant. You have to keep moving forward, ambition in a person is very important to me, and AZ said, “I have more ambition than I know what to do with.” I said I didn’t want someone holding me back from achieving things or something to that effect and he said, “Can misery come along?” I paused and I said, “Ahh, misery loves company and misery is welcome as long as it doesn’t hold me back.” Misery. Misery being him. He who describes himself as the most miserable person on the planet. The eternal optimist, me, and the eternal pessimist, AZ. Life is about balance. So, finally after drifting off to sleep, the alarm goes off at 5:30, and I hit the snooze button, twice more until 6:02, when the alarm goes off, the music alarm and one of the few songs guaranteed to rouse me out of bed is playing. The first song of the day on AZ’s shift is “Survival of the Sickest” by Saliva. If you’re not acquainted with said song, it’s a song about rising above, proving who you are, while showing everyone the middle finger who said you couldn’t do it. It’s also a sexual song... So ease down And wrap your legs around me baby Wrap your legs around me Ease down And wrap your legs around me baby Wrap your legs around me! Roll over baby, get on your knees I'm gonna drive this little red love machine And because I’m the Nanner, I text messaged AZ and said, “Drive MY little red love machine. AZ in my a.m.” Referring to his radio call sign and motto. He called me and read me the morning’s news, which we discussed while I got dressed, fed the cats, packed up my suitcase of beads, and left for work. That’s not all but this already too long and I’ll just write the rest for me. But things are going well and I had an epiphany last night at about 4:30 when I awoke from my slumber of 14 hours duration. I was a tired Nanner. I'll need to at some point, write out the conversation about whether or not he should marry his girlfriend. That was. . . *snort* *laugh* very interesting.