Not a Morning Person

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!