I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning

When they're matching up potential college roommates the most important answer on the questionnaire isn't about how loud you like your music. It's isn't even about how tidy you are (I think everyone secretly believes that their roommate never does the effing dishes).

They want to know - are you an early bird or a night owl?

Maybe the answer is so important because everyone is a little grouchy when they are woken up; whether it's by a beer-pong game or a hairdryer. But, I think it's more than that. It says a lot about a person - about what they value, and how they work. 

Night owls are passionate and adventurous. Their best hours are split between having a beer and being bent over a mood-board. Most of the artistic people I've interned with have been late-nighters. They thrive on that moment when all that's they have seen in a day comes together and - pop - becomes something new. 

I admire that. I envy it. I've even experienced the flash of inspiration that the quiet darkness can coax out.

But I am, unwaveringly, a morning person. 

I can't help but wonder: what does it say about someone when they are chipper at the crack of dawn?

 I guess, it says that I'm hopeful. Mornings are a new beginning, full of potential. 

Perhaps this will be the day where I do it all right. Where I pay my bills on time - no, early! - and I say the witty thing that makes everyone laugh at my staff meeting. Where I cook an unburned dinner for my boyfriend and listen to my voice mail.

Of course, it never happens like that. And by the end of the day, I can't ignore of all those little things that actually feel like big things. They stack so high that all I can do is call it quits, and be thankful that, even on the worst days, my blunders don't follow me into tomorrow. And inspiration? That is out of the question.

It's only in the morning that I am able to sit down infront of a blank sheet of paper. Because writing takes the confidence I only have before I'm reminded that I'm really just a ding-bat who mailed a letter, that was already late, without a stamp.

It's less than healthy - this perfect standard. I know.

But I think I'll always be a morning person; even when the blessed day comes that I finally, like my dad suggests, stop letting things get to me.

The morning is full of simple joys like watching cream disappear into coffee and phone calls to friends who are far away. For now, they are what fortify me against the day's inevitable failures. That ... and knowing I can always begin again tomorrow.

are you up all night? or do you thrive when it's light?

(1) on film with my pentax k1000 at Intelligentsia Coffee in Silverlake, Los Angeles.I don't know that boy in the picture. (title allusion) Bright Eye's album title. (p.s.) I pulled the word 'blunders' from this quote from Emerson | On Tomorrow