I Am Not A Firefly

IT’S COLD. IT’S DARK, AND MY EYES ARE WIDE OPEN. Why they are wide open at 6:15 in the morning is understandable, but not acceptable.

The body – my body, your body, anyone’s body, operates on a cycle of sunlight and darkness – activity and sleep. It is called a Diurnal Rhythm. It’s a Human thing.

There are some creatures that function in an opposite manner where they are active at night and rest during the daylight hours. They are called “Nocturnal.” Think of Bats, Fireflies, and Comedians.

For the last couple of weeks I have been straddling the line between the two lifestyles – not by choice. I blame it all on the shift to Daylight Savings Time. I know that was almost three weeks ago and the adjustment was only one hour, but in my body it feels like I am suddenly and forcibly living like a raccoon.

My internal alarm clock had been in a nice Diurnal Rhythm. My beady little eyes would pop open at about 7 AM and would close for the night at about 11 or 12 PM. It was a nice, human lifecycle. Then DST kicked in earlier this month and all of a sudden I’m waking up at about 5 AM (And not just to do a potty run) and my eyelids begin to droop before 9 PM. I’m turning into a living example of Jet Lag.

One would think that the body would quickly adjust to this one hour clock trickery. It’s not like the first time it has had to do this – and in the Spring we’ll pop it all back in the other direction and lose an hour. But this time it’s different. This time I feel like a piece of lost luggage spending endless time going around on the baggage carousel.

Why this is happening the way it is this year is beyond me. I’d hate to think that it is yet another free perk that comes with joining the Geezers Club. There have already been too many freebies attached to that membership – Thinning hair, Grumpiness, and Physical Exams that in my younger days would have been Felonies.

I am determined to shake this unwanted and inconvenient “Greet the Sunrise and Give Up Primetime” realignment. Seven AM is a decent and perfectly acceptable time to get out of bed, and I don’t want my day to end so early that it brings back memories of my mother scolding me with, “Go to bed. It’s a school night.”

So – here I am at 6:24 AM sitting in my pew at St. Arbucks scribbling away and sipping my coffee. It’s a good thing that St. Arbucks is open this early. I think they only hire nocturnal baristas. I suspect a couple of them are really Red-Eyed Tree Frogs.

I’m sitting at a corner table looking out the window and it is still as dark as a politician’s heart. My internal Bulova is wringing its hands wondering what is going on. “Why are you not still in bed? Did you buy a cat?”

I just dropped my pen and when I bent over to pick it up that floor looked quite inviting and not so hard that I couldn’t catch another 160 winks, but then one of the Honey Badger baristas saw me and coughed to let me know that he was watching me.

I think I’ll go home and take a nap.

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