Tag Archives: morning

Autopilot…

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If there’s anything I’ve come to expect from myself it’s that no matter how late I go to bed, no matter how blown out my throat is, no matter there’s a dull thump somewhere in the middle of my head, if it’s Saturday morning my eyes are going to flip open sometime between 6:00-6:30. My brain is going to engage and it’s going to insist that I get the day started, no matter the level of protest the rest of me might throw in its path.

This internal alarm clock is one of the reasons I don’t tend to have late nights often. The other reason, of course, is late nights tend to demand social interaction with people… and I think we all know how I feel about people. The weekend looks like it’s going to be dark and rainy, so I’m about to pour on a few gallons of coffee and switch the day to autopilot. If I’m going to be awake, I might as well make the morning count.

The virtue of 6AM…

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One of the parts of being an adult that no one thought enough of to warn me about is that after a decade and a half of getting up for work in the dark hours of the morning, your body might accidentally attune itself to that time. Then you end up waking up at what some might consider “early” regardless of how late you went to sleep. Since I find it aggravating beyond measure to just lay in bed awake, the only thing to do is get up and get on with the day at hand.

I’m not saying there isn’t some virtue in 6AM… especially in 6AM on New Years Day. That virtue? For 90-120 minutes the world is absolutely quiet. Inside. Outside. For a few minutes, it’s like all the best parts of I am Legend. Inevitably, though, the rest of the world wakes up – hungover, but alive, to begin their day.

It’s just after 8AM as I’m finishing up this post. Already I can hear the traffic picking up outside and know that my revels are ended. Even so, it was a good couple of hours. I can only hope that it’s a harbinger of the year to come. And now that the world’s waking up, let’s go take 2014 for all she’s worth.

Time of day…

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I love this time of day – The few hours before the rest of the world wakes up, finds the caffeine, and starts moving again. The hours when it’s quiet, when the dogs, still groggy, are happy to nap at my feet, and George is satisfied with basking on his rock under his own miniature sun. It’s a few brief moments of time that seem to work well before the day has a chance to jerk things around too much. Anyway, my only point is that I really do enjoy these weekend mornings. Of course I enjoy the weekday mornings too, but since they’re so quickly interrupted by pulling into the parking lot and putting on my “professional” face, they don’t really get to count.

It’s President’s Day weekend. That doesn’t mean much unless you work for Uncle Sam or a bank, but for me, it means the last scheduled three day weekend between now and the end of May. As tragic as that is, for the first time in a long time, I think I’m making every minute of it count. Starting it off with plenty of coffee, a little bit of writing, and a big dopey grin seems to be like a good place to start. Yeah. I love this time of day.

Dan Rather…

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Everyone has their quirks, but the one that probably annoys me most (at the moment) is one individual who has taken to providing regular accounts of the morning’s news to me before I even sit down at my desk in the morning. I’m not exaggerating. He’s standing at my right elbow before I’ve even set my bag down each morning and starts in with whatever “emergencies” are happening around the country. If there are no fires or earthquakes, he’s on to the local news and weather… and I’m still trying to get my computer booted. This drones on for 20-30 minutes every morning despite my best efforts to politely redirect his attention and sometimes my blatantly impolite efforts of staring at the now-booted monitor and responding to his review of the highlight reel with the occasional grunt. Uh huh.

I’m deeply interested in the events of the world. Before I get to the office, I’ve usually at least scanned the headlines of the local paper, the New York Times, CNN, and the Washington Post. If it’s a light news day, I’ve probably already looked over Drudge and the AP wire as well. But at half past six in the morning, I don’t want to have a philosophical conversation about what’s going on anywhere. What I want to do is spend the first 30 minutes of the day focusing on email that came in over night and otherwise preparing for the day before the rest of the staff wanders in. But no, instead of doing that, it’s like I’ve got my own dim witted Dan Rather giving me a daily morning news brief.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of previously de-published blogs appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Broken…

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I get to the office early most mornings. It’s usually a good chance to catch up before everyone else starts wandering in. One of the challenges is that pretty much no one with any passing relationship to authority is around in the event an employee is feeling lonely and wants to talk. So more often than not, I’m the lucky manager who gets the early morning conversations. This morning was one of those times.

Jeff: Good Morning *seeing “employee” walking over to my desk*

Employee: My computer works now, but none of my files are there. I think it’s broken. *looking at me plaintively*

Jeff: Ummm… Did you call IT?

Employee: Uh. No. I thought you’d know how to fix it. They got it working yesterday but now my files are gone.

Jeff: So you want me to fix something they broke yesterday?

Employee: *looking at me blankly*

Jeff: You’d better call IT since they know what they did to it yesterday.

Employee: They won’t be in for another 20 minutes.

Jeff: Patience is a virtue, I’m told.

I’m not the friggin’ laptop whisperer over here. Put in your help request and wait like everyone else does. My using illicit passwords to go in and tinker around with your settings is pretty much guaranteed to only cause more trouble. If not more trouble for you, then certainly more trouble for me… and that’s a no go at this station.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of previously de-published blogs appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Dear Neighbor… again…

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Dear Neighbor,

Maybe you’ve been reading my blog, since it seems that you’re managing to get your trash can in from the curb by the time the weekend rolls around these days. Of course your lawn still looks like shit, so maybe you haven’t been keeping up after all.

It’s Sunday morning and I know I’m not really a late sleeper these days. It’s something close to physiologically impossible for me to sleep later than 7:00. You, on the other hand, were clearly up at 6:00, because that’s when you put your two Rottweilers out in their cage in your back yard (Incidently, I don’t really think an 8×6 cage is really big enough for two full-grown rotts). I know it was 6:00 because that’s when they started barking. You might remember it because we made eye contact as I glared at your sweat-suit wearing ass through my just-opened blinds.

In case you missed it, when you put your dogs out in the morning, they bark the whole time they are outside. It’s not so much a big deal during the week when I’m up at 5:30 anyway, but on the weekends, and since you know they are going to spend the next half hour barking at God knows what, maybe you could get up, put on their leashes and actually take them for a quick walk rather than sticking them in the cage 20 feet from my bedroom window.

So, dear neighbor, you are the clinical definition of a fucktard. I don’t usually wish bad things on people… mainly because I’m ambivalent about most of the asshats I’m forced to deal with on a regular basis… but in your case, I’m making an exception.

Regards,

Jeff