07 April 2004 19:14
05 April 2004, MondayIt's amazing how quickly a person can fall back to sleep after being awoken. I do it every morning after my first alarm goes off. I usually remember shutting it off, but it's a very short window in time before I am unconscious again. Daylight Savings went into effect last weekend...this means I have to turn the light on by my bed during my fall from the alarm clock to my pillow. If I don't, it's just that much harder to get up. Round two and I'm sitting up, staring bleakly at the alarm clock. When I wake up at my own speed (i.e., no adrenaline), I have three options in the morning: Dark, Bleak, and Resigned. This one was bleak.
I love being up in the early morning, smelling the predawn air, watching the sunrise. I abhor getting up. Once I'm past that first ten minutes, I'm good, but oh how rough those ten short minutes can be. Oddly enough, it doesn't help that I have a cold this particular morning.
My mornings are quiet enough that I'm often not fully awake until i've been at work for a little while. I walk into the shop, eyes half closed, murmering hellos to my coworkers. We all mill around the break room, waiting for the time clock to roll over to 0655, that magic time at which we can first punch in. After we wash one of the planes and tug it back to the flight line, I end up sumping the fuel tanks on it because the captain is running late. By now I've been up for over an hour and my nose is starting to run. Becuase my nose is running and there's no tissue in sight, my eyes start to water. On top of tears running down my cheeks, the airplane is dripping on me, not to mention the fuel trying to run down my outstretched arm.
Today we started a major phase inspection on one of our planes. I spent most of the morning quietly peering around the gear wells, inspecting general conditions. For lunch I sat down at the simulator with leftovers from choir practice the night before, and flew a couple of approches into Long Beach. The afternoon passed away, once again quietly. In all, it was quite a quiet day.
At home I continued a book I started a few days ago. I haven't read much since February, and it is delicious pleasure to take it up again. It was quiet at the apartment too. A while later a coworker joined me to watch the NCAA Championship, but I spent more time reading my book than I did watching the game. Finally nine o'clock rolls around and I head to bed. I still have a cold. After turning off the light, I open the shades in vain hope that there will be enough light in the morning to help me wake up. It's amazing how quickly a person can fall back to sleep after being awake for sixteen hours.
19:14 email me permalink / commentary (0)
