On mornings and their aftermath

When I was a kid, I used to have a T-shirt that said ”I don’t do mornings”. I think I still should have one of those. It’s not that I can’t get up early – I can, if I have a good reason – and it’s not that I don’t function well in the morning – if I do manage to get up early, I function better in the morning. I’m pretty much a morning person, apart from one little detail: I can’t be trusted in the morning.


I’m not saying “don’t share state secrets with me in the morning” – I can keep a secret even before 10 am (though frankly, if you’re sharing state secrets with me, it’s you who have a trust problem…). But what I am saying is that I am less rational in the morning.

Last night I told myself that I needed to get up early today. I needed to have a quick shower and breakfast, and I needed to leave the house and go to the university where there is a perfectly nice working space waiting for me.

This morning, however, I told the alarm clock to go hide where the sun never shines. Actually, I got out of bed to tell it this. I was up, I was awake, and I was lucid (or so I thought). But instead of staying up and awake, I went back to bed, back to sleep. When I eventually did get up, I had a looong breakfast, a looooong shower, and I didn’t leave the house at all. “After all,” morning-me said, “I have a perfectly nice working space right here. Working from home will save me lots of time.”

Only it didn’t. It never does.

I turned on the computer (that part is easy). I located my notes, and I intended to open the documents I need to write what is commonly known as “that ruddy chapter five”. Only before I got a chance to do that I decided I should check my email. Facebook. My blog. The Burrow. Before I knew it I had spent two hours replying to emails, writing comments on my blog, watching “Can I Haz Cheezburger Kittehs”, reading and commenting on other people’s blogs, and so on. And so forth.

Once that was done, I realized it was time to eat lunch. Lunch it is. I couldn’t work while eating, of course, so I read some more blogs. Watched more kittehs (I hate that word, by the way. It is beyond me why the funny captions [they are very funny!] supposedly become funnier because they are misspelled. Why?). Checked my email again.

After lunch I had to do the dishes. And once I was at it I might as well tidy a little as well.

I don’t know how time learned to fly, but I can assure you its wings are working perfectly around here. All this because the irrational morning-me decided that today would be different (it wasn’t). Morning-me thinks emails should have a higher priority than my education (it shouldn’t!). Morning-me even believes that night-me will be rational enough to set tomorrow-morning-me right (I won’t).