Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Owning Time

The snooze button has been passed.

In our almost 8 years of marriage Ryan has always had control over the alarm clock. (Yes, we only have one. It does have 2 alarms on it though.) He has always had to be the first up and if I was getting up earlier--like for a race--he would set it for me. But last night, after I told him I would be getting up at 5 am, he relinquished control of the alarm clock to me.

Me!

I can hardly believe it myself and I have to admit that I was ridiculously excited to have the alarm clock on my side of the bed.

And now? Now that I am in control things? Things are going to be different. Time is going operate differently.

Last night, since I have to get up so early now, I went to bed first and set the alarm. Ryan came in a bit later and checked the alarm.

"5 am?" he said, "You are going to be getting up at like 4:15," he laughed. I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking: poor, foolish, naive Nat. She knows not what she does.

"No, I'm not. I set the time right," I informed him.

"What! Why would you do that? You really are crazy!"

"I don't like doing math in my head. It doesn't make any sense to set the clock ahead 45 minutes if I know it is 45 minutes ahead. That is just dumb. I am not tricking myself into getting up earlier because I know it is fast."

And then I really upset him when I told him that I don't do snooze. I tried to explain how research has shown that you are more tired from hitting the snooze button than just getting up. This of course flies in the face of everything he has ever known. He has the alarm go off almost an entire hour earlier than he needs to get up so that he can hit snooze 5 or 6 times. He thinks there is pleasure in the snooze.

But to me? It is so fucking irritating. I've been pissed off about it for years but since I don't have to go to a job I have been powerless to change it.

You see. Unlike Ryan, I don't sleep through snooze. So I am up after the first time the alarm goes off. And then I will have to wait nine minutes for it to go off again and for him to hear it, reset it and set again. All the while I just lie there not sleeping--even though I could be since I don't have to be for up another hour or so.

But now? I am happy to say that I am slave to snooze no more.


Because now? In our house? I own time. Mwahahahahaha

And anyone who has ever come to my house will tell you that time is held hostage here because we have no clocks--at least none with the correct time displayed.

And yes, I got up at 5am and wrote/typed for an hour. And let me just say it is amazing anyone ever got anything written at all with there being that delete button. But God bless the keyboard for it and whoever invented cut and paste. Typewriter? Can't imagine it. Long hand? No way. But I got 3 more rough pages and a sketch of how chapters 1-4 are going to go. So progress.

8 comments:

  1. Hey Ms Natalie,

    I don't do the snooze function either...my reasoning is...why interrupt a perfectly good sleep by being constantly woken up every 9 minutes. It's better...IMO...to sleep till it's actually time to get up. But...my wife has to hit the snooze 3-4 times before she gets up...but...she can go to sleep a the drop of a hat where I need to fall asleep which could take me 20 minutes or more. It's good I get up before her...I'm up showered and out the door before the snooze sequence starts.

    Aren't computers and word processing programs just wonderful!...I can't imagine how anyone could write using the typewriter...well...I can actually...during my high school and college...all my reports and all was on a typewriter...the eraser pencil was my favorite friend...thank goodness for copy, paste and delete! :o)

    Charlie

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  2. Hey! That's a great start!! I was wondering if you were using that hour this morning blogging instead of working on your novel. I didn't know that hitting the snooze button made your more tired. I woke at 5:50 this morning and didn't drag out of bed until 6:20. Thanks for that tidbit of information. Are you going to tease us with bits and pieces from your novel? I hope so. Keep up the good work, Mother Time ;-)

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  3. Way to go on your progress!!

    Doug is with you on the snooze so we don't even use the alarm. Of course now the dog wakes at 4 every morning so who needs an alarm when you have the adrenaline of "the dog might pee/poo on the floor" emergency.

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  4. Hell has no furry like a spouse with a snooze button! I always awake at the first musical Hard Rock song, can't understand how my wife can repeatedly hit the snooze button and NOT get up! If I yelled "FIRE" she would probably muffle me with a pillow.

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  5. Charlie I don't know that I have ever acutlaly used a real typewriter--electric a few times but by the time I needed to type my papers I had a computer. Not that I didn't resist at first.

    Totally agree about the sleep thing.

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  6. Wes
    I blog while the kids have breakfast-- if I have time or I often have time after I take Carmella to school. I usually have an hour and half til I need to take Beau. I can blog while distracted--hence all the typos and such but actually write I need to concentrate.

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  7. Steph, whenever I am awakened from a dead sleep I always get the adreneline rush and it is almsot impossible for me to fall back asleep.If I have to get out of bed and walk around I am up at least an hour after that sometimes I can't go back to sleep at all. Ryan? He can get up and do whatever and be back asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow. I mean that is assuming he acutally hears anything. The man sleeps like he is dead--and me? I really have my doubts that actually sleep. I hear everything.

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  8. Bruce, Ryan sleeps right through the alarm too --no matter what the music is. I always have to kick him awake and he is like What? He use to sleep through the kids when they cried as babies too. We had an earthquake once and he slept through that too.

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