Mornings

I haven’t been sleeping all that well lately and I’m not sure why. The heat could be a factor, though it’s already been hotter than this, so could the lack of a breeze to break up the stagnant air. I tend not to do well with the fans blowing all night, but I do even worse sweating in our stuffy bedroom, so if it’s hot I’ll usually turn one on.

These days, my neighbor heads out for work at 5a.m every morning. I know this because he parks his ancient van directly behind his ratty tent trailer taking up all the room beneath the birch trees on one side of our lot. He gets in, slams the creaky door shut and after a few errant tries, starts it up and heads out.

Why is his van parked outside our single-wide you ask? Well it’s a complicated story but I will do my best to explain it all to you here. When the Simpson’s, our old neighbors who lived a few lots down, moved to Purdy, they decided to give their trailer and lease to a sibling. She’s married and has a couple of kids and it’s her husband who parks his damn van outside our bedroom window. He swore after it first showed up that that he wouldn’t keep it parked there, but so far he always has – squeezing it directly behind a ratty tent trailer with the brown tarp that he also swore wouldn’t stay.

He drives an old Dodge cargo van with a shot starter and leaky gaskets that sends up an oil plume when you start it up; an oil plume that makes it’s way across the grass and into our bedroom every morning when the fan is on and blowing in. This morning’s puff of smoke was particularly nasty but it’s not like I was asleep anyway. I was just lying in bed starting up at the ceiling, vacillating between cursing the world and wondering what the day would be like if I just got up that early.

Clearly this “getting up early” thought never wins.

You see, I tend to subscribe to the words of Grampa Slackjaw, that’s “It’s nice to get up in the morning, but it’s nicer to stay in bed.” And though this morning under a gray plume of smoke that could have been easily debated, I stuck to my principals by burrowing my head under my pillow and breathing through a sheet.

I really don’t get any quality sleep until after 6 anyway, which is a problem as I my alarm is set to go off at 6:30. Fortunately I’ve become adept at hitting the snooze bar without disturbing the best sleep I get. Lately I’ve been working on a project-adventure called “pushing the envelope”. (I just gave it that fancy title right now to make it sound more dangerous than “Sleeping in”.) In “pushing the envelope” the game is to see how many more minutes of frowsting can be done without the boss coming down on you for being late.

This morning I waived coffee to gain a few more minutes. It was a risky maneuver, as caffeine when properly administered can gain you that few minutes when needed. But this morning I really had to shave, and it’s no use being all hopped up and jittery when you’ve got a razor at your throat.

From my bed to a shower, shave, breakfast and commute all in under 35 minutes…not bad, but if I don’t start getting a better nights rest, I’m gonna have to find some way to cut that down even more.

Keeping the bread un-toasted might help…

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