A
typical morning, for me, betrays the fairly intimate relationship I have with
the snooze button on my iPhone. I am not a morning person, not by any
means. I snooze a minimum of three times every work day.
Truthfully, though, I need to set my alarm for at least forty-five minutes
before I have to get up, so the option is there for five times. As soon
as the alarm starts to go off, I am fair game for my two cats. My roommate
is up before me, although my alarm starts going off before his. He
typically feeds the cats, as he is the first human on their feet. By fair
game, I mean I become part jungle gym, part cat toy, part barrier. The
cats, Tim Riggins and Luna, are happy they’ve just eaten. Post meal
happiness usually brings with it a burst of energy. Did I mention I am not a
morning person?
Last
Thursday, true to form, Tim Riggins decided he wanted to share my pillow with me, so wriggled in between my head and the wall, not very
effectively, I might add. I did have
half of him on my head, but at least, he decided upon being cuddly, instead of
playful. Luna, meanwhile, not wanting to
be left out, lay over my feet. Every
time the alarm went off and I moved to tap the snooze button on my phone, the
two of them had to get up and move around, finally settling back to where they’d
begun about four and a half minutes into my nine minute snooze. Rinse and repeat. It probably makes no sense, whatsoever, that I
go through this over and over again every morning. I should just set the alarm for the time I
have to be up and cut out this snoozing business altogether, but where’s the
fun in that?
I actually do get out of bed eventually. After this
happens, I have allotted roughly an hour to take my pills, eat breakfast, have
a cigarette, brush my teeth, shower, shave (sometimes), moisturize (always),
get dressed, do my hair, spray cologne, clean the litter box, and walk –or run—2
½ blocks to the bus. It’s a well-oiled
machine, my morning routine, as long as I avoid my phone like the plague from
the moment I turn the alarm off until the moment I put it in my pocket, five
seconds before I head out the door. I
get easily distracted and it wouldn’t be unheard of for me to spend twenty minutes checking
Twitter or playing Words with Friends, then discovering, my bus is leaving
from the bus stop in five minutes and my hair’s a mess and, oh yeah, I’m not
even dressed yet.
Last
Thursday, I was up and on my feet by 5:55AM.
It was pay day and I needed to reload my bus pass and pay my electric
bill. I actually like paying bills. It’s something about having a list --even of
bills to pay-- and crossing things off of it.
Pay days, then, start off happy and then quickly devolve into thoughts
of despair and dreams of winning the lottery.
I fixed myself a bowl of Sugar Corn Pops (No judgment and at least I eat
it with Skim Milk!) and took it, a small glass of orange juice, and a large
glass of water to the computer, but first I swallowed my first thing in the
morning fistful of pills. I scarfed down
the small bowl of cereal while adding value to my bus pass and paying Xcel Energy. Checked email quick. Checked time.
No time to Paypal a couple of friends the money I owed them for group
gifts. I could do that later. In fact, I had dallied at the computer too
long for me to even have a cigarette.
Cereal bowl
and juice glass in the dishwasher, litter box tended to, teeth brushed. Oh crap!
There was a load of laundry in the dryer from the night before. Clean towels.
Naked run to the dryer. Thank
goodness roommate is already gone. Trip
over a cat on way back to the bathroom. Fuck! 6:25AM.
How does time go by faster in the morning than any other time of the
day? Have you ever wondered that?
In twenty-five
minutes, I managed to shower, wash my hair, shave, moisturize, get dressed,
grab a can of soup for lunch and my coat and bag, and get out the door, down
the stairs and out to the street and make it two blocks to the bus stop just in
time to climb aboard. If you’re a
regular follower of this blog, you know that I have been HIV positive for
almost twenty-five years and that I’ve had a couple of rough years where med
changes and side effects are concerned. Recently,
I’ve missed some work due to throwing up.
With every new med change comes an adjustment period. In fact, last Wednesday, I was up half the
night “adjusting”. I was relieved, THursday morning, that
seemed to have passed, at least for the time being.
As the bus
took off, however, I knew all was not well.
I was nauseated almost immediately.
For the next twenty minutes or so, the dread built, until finally, I got
off the bus as quickly as possible, waited for the bus to leave (I take that
same bus with many of those same people, five days a week!) and turned around to
throw up on the side of the road. Now, I
laugh at most of what I face. Let’s be
clear, many people face worse and many people face the same, every day, living
with HIV. There is no better way to deal
than to laugh at what you can, cry if you need to, and then get back up as
quickly as possible and move forward. It’s
probably a great recipe for just about everything life throws at you.
That said, I
ask life, really? Really? Couldn’t I have puked prior to the snoozing,
bill paying, cat box cleaning, teeth brushing, showering, shaving, moisturizing, dressing, and
running? I mean really how rude! I could have also really lived without the whole
on the side of the road thing. But I
guess that’s just life’s little sense of humor.
I’m reminded of a meme I particularly loved from a few months back.
"WHENEVER
LIFE KNOCKS YOU DOWN, JUST CALMLY GET BACK UP, SMILE, AND SAY, ‘YOU HIT LIKE A
LITTLE BITCH'."
Words to
live by!
