5:20 AM

That's the time the New Guy wakes up on weekdays. Apparently, that's the time I'll be waking up too, at least for a few minutes.

Usually if something wakes me up before my natural time, I can get back to sleep fairly quickly. The odd thing is that I often sleep WAY past my natural wake-up time when this happens, starting the "drifting" process. My fellow DSPS'ers know what this is - waking up later pushes my natural sleep time back even later than usual, pushing my natural wake time even more off the mark. Not a good thing.

Today, I tried to counter that by setting my alarm for 9:00 when I woke up at 5:20. Between 9:00 and 10:00 is my natural time, so it wasn't far off the mark. Still, when that alarm goes off it jolts me awake and throws me off all day. It's like a mental switch doesn't quite turn on.

This leads to things like:

Walking into a room and looking around, not remembering why I'm there.

Hitting my head on the bathroom door, which opens outward into my hallway. I usually know it's there, and I pay attention, but not when I'm "off."

Putting my brush in my medicine cabinet instead of in the drawer.

Making coffee without putting the grounds in the filter, then standing there for a few minutes wondering why all I ended up with was hot water.

Dropping a whole container of blueberries all over the kitchen floor. Do you know how hard it is to get blueberries swept up off a kitchen floor that looks like THIS? Yes, those little dots are just about blueberry sized, of course.


It's not just that I'm tired when I wake up unnaturally. I'm...weird. There have been times in my life when I've been afraid to stay at other people's houses overnight because I don't want them to see how freaky I am in the mornings.

Does this happen to other people with DSPS too? Does it happen to you??? Or am I truly strange?

A New Kind of Burgermare

Well, they finally rented the studio apartment behind me. . .to a MORNING person!!!!!!!! How do I know this? Let me count the ways.

First clue is that I'm working on this blog at 9:58am on a Sunday morning. And not just any Sunday morning, but my very first Sunday morning after quitting my crack of dawn job. I was out until 2:00 celebrating last night with friends. I should be sleeping right now. Really, I should.

Unfortunately I was jolted out of sleep at an ungodly 8:20am by a loud, deep, booming voice coming right through my wall. Don't get me wrong, I'm not upset with the New Guy. He's not doing anything wrong. I'm sure he's speaking in a perfectly normal tone of voice, and I'm even more certain that he has absolutely no idea that he'll never have a private conversation again. I'm pretty sure the property management company left that part out of the glowing ad copy.

In any case, I think I'll probably like him. I know enough about him already. Turns out his new apartment is about the size of the master bedroom at his old place. He looked at several in the neighborhood and this was by far the best option. He really likes that the fixtures are all original - the place still has the old tile, old cabinets, old doorknob handles. He hates the parking here though and hopes getting a place without a garage wasn't a mistake. He's jealous of the rest of us, because the bigger apartments come with garages.

I know how many bottles of wine he bought for a friend's potluck. I know about his paranoid former roommate. I know who he voted for in the primary, and I know what he feels are the pros and cons of the candidates. I know a lot more that I won't post on the internet because, well, he didn't sign a consent form and neighborly gossip isn't what this is about anyway.

My point is, he had a friend over to show him the new apartment. At 8:20am. The last person who lived there was one of my best friends. She understood the "wall thing" to the point where she never let her microwave beep before noon. I love her!

But she's gone now, lost to co-habitation with a really cool guy. Happy for her, sucks for me. I'm going to have to go over at some point and have "the talk" with the New Guy. Ugh. Not pleasant, but I'm sure he deserves to know that nothing that happens in there is sacred. I'd want to know, wouldn't you?

But I definitely need some coffee first.

Thank you!!! You all ROCK!!!

Thanks to everyone who e-mailed me about participating in the study!

The response has been overwhelming and I'm doing this on the side, so it might take a while to get back to everybody. If you haven't heard from me yet, I promise that you will. I'm writing to everyone personally, so hang in there!

:-)