Alarming

Every morning, I wake up in a panic about 10 minutes before my alarm clock goes off. On the bad mornings, I think of all the things I need to do when I get to work; I ramble off a list of dangling casenames in my mind, and think of the names of the attorneys that I need to call. On the good mornings, I think with resignation only of the sad fact that I have no sick time to use for sleeping in.

On top of this, I have a serious problem with the snooze button. I've been putting the alarm clock across the room which, in theory, will force me to get out of bed and into the shower. In practice, this means that I bolt out of bed, extremely startled by the beeping, which I generally manage to somehow incorporate into a confusing dream. I hit snooze, and I put the clock on the mattress next to my head, and continue to hit snooze for another half hour. If I've woken up before the alarm went off in the first place, I somehow rationalize hitting snooze an extra couple of times.

I'm starting to think that I might need an alarm clock that plugs into the wall so I can't pick it up and put it next to my head, but then I worry that the power will go out in the middle of the night (as it is wont to do, even if just for a moment), and I won't wake up at all. Actually, I sort of hope that this would happen, because I will use any excuse, no matter how stupid, to show up late for work. Generally, I use the "Gee, my alarm clock just hasn't been doing the trick!" excuse, which is a pretty poor excuse for an excuse.

I seem to remember there being a brief period early last year when I made a point of showing up on time, if not a few minutes early, to work. Somehow, the infrequency of BART trains to Walnut Creek made punctuality easier. I was forced to pick one of two trains that would get me to work on time (or on time-ish). Now, I really have no idea when the trains to San Francisco arrive at MacArthur, so I wander to the station whenever I'm done staring into my closet.

My eyes burn, and there is not enough coffee in the world to keep me awake and focused at my desk. I listen to my coworkers on the phone, all the while staunchly refusing to dial a single number before 10am, the hour at which I ostensibly "wake up." I also refuse to make calls after 4pm, figuring that no one answers his phone at that hour anyway. It started as "no one answers his phone after 4pm on Friday," and the assumption quickly bled into the other days of the week.

It would be less painful to be awake, of course, if I went to bed earlier than I do, but I tell myself that I don't want to squander what little time I have that is entirely mine on sleeping. Because obviously, downloading "King Tut" and "Alley Oop" and fucking Captain and Tennille is a much more worthy pursuit than sleep. In all seriousness, going to bed at 10pm last night would have prevented me from watching an episode of Aqua Teen that I had never seen before. It was great, there was this mummy living under the house, and Frylock had to hug him, but then I can't remember the rest of the 15 minute episode, because my sleep-deprived synapses are just not firing at full capacity.

Wait, what was my point here? I think it was something about needing more coffee. Oh, or it might have been about one of the 25 mash-ups I acquired yesterday, in which the sum, "Big Shot Pimpin'," is greater than the parts, Jay-Z's "Big Pimpin'" and Billy Joel's "Big Shot." Oh my god, that shit is amazing.