Good Morning!

I don't have any right to complain. My misery is entirely self-imposed and it would be disingenuous to wax sentimental about my plight. Did I just use the conditional? Let me rephrase with more accurate grammar: I will be disingenuous as I wax sentimental about my plight.

Evenings are a soft landing. You can miss your bedtime by an hour or two and pay no immediate price. Sleep isn't like mom in that it forgives easily when you don't call. Mornings, on the other hand, are harsh. Commitments made at a less sober time can be pressing and the snooze button only provides so much relief. The light outside only gets brighter as the reality of life's travails dawn with the new day. Mornings are a daily Monday; a regular reminder of the curse of time.

Then there is the bed. Beds are like relationships in that they are really easy to get into but terribly hard to get out of. I've invested quite a bit into making my bed a hospitable place to rest and recharge. I've got a firm mattress, a pillow and I even washed my sheets once. Getting out means leaving behind a cardinal comfort. If you're a heavy guy like me, your body creates a form-fitting mold in the mattress that is so inviting, you'd listen to Nancy Pelosi if it meant curling up inside.

Anyone who is cheerful in the morning be cursed. Smiling within two hours of waking up is like cracking a joke at a funeral. Coup de don't do that. Whilst the normal world is wiping the sleepies out of our eyes, you have to be a danged whippoorwill. Why weren't you so much fun last night?

But mornings can be cheated. At least, that's what I told myself three days ago, when made a soft landing on my evening and stayed up past the godly bedtime. I had to be at work for the early shift at General Mills the next day, but that didn't keep me from fooling away the early morning hours, answering email, surfing the net and doing pretty much what you're doing now.

When I finally cashed it in, my face had the tired rigidity of a corpse. I didn't worry about it; that's why they call it beauty sleep, right?

You know in the movies, when the main character gets out of bed, how the only thing that is at all out of place is a few wisps of their otherwise perfectly coiffed hair? That morning I woke up looking like The Joker. Or maybe it was Sienna Miller without her makeup (you don't want to know). My alarm buzzed and my radio turned on to my favorite sports analysts, who seemed much to chipper for 6:00.

I have an old person problem. When I wake up, I can't get back to sleep. Some of my friends can snore away hours and hours of their lives one morning at a time, but not me. The buzzing alarm is the finale to all my sweet dreams.

Thanks to the miracles of modern chemistry, I managed to survive the day. It actually turned out pretty normal - or as normal a day as a proud derelict with a humor blog can have. So encouraged was I by the feat, that I tried it again the next night.

If I was Sienna Miller without makeup the first morning, I was Queen Latifah on day two. This morning was day three and I am beginning to see why you can't cheat mornings. I have this amazing new skill. I can stare at a clock and watch time pass and actually be entertained by it. My new favorite facial expression is the slack jaw and I have some severe contact lens problems, but the biggest problem is what I'm going to do tomorrow.

My friends now await their 1 AM GTalk messages and I am reconnecting with the night owls in my life. I can't pull the plug on all of them now. I have a big cyber meeting with my new buddies at World of Warcraft tonight, but if I attend I'll be Dick Clark tomorrow morning. Time can be so cruel!