Morning People Just the freakin’ worst. by Krissy Howard
I
LOVE BEING AWAKE EARLY. I love the way you can hear birds doing bird things and see dew on the leaves, and I love the way it offers the hope and encouragement that comes with having 16 hours to get all that work I put off until the very last minute done. I love all of that stuff. I just hate waking up. I’m not a morning person. The morning person sounds like a member of a strange tribe whose beliefs seem really appealing, but whose practices I simply cannot comprehend, like polyamorous couples, or the Amish. I’m picking up what you’re putting down, but I just don’t think I could actually live my life like that. Becoming a morning person is no different. I am very attracted to the idea of breakfast and exercise and seeing the sun up in the sky, as opposed to retreating behind those trees, but I just can’t seem to get there when all that shit goes down. I’ve sought advice from a few members of this highly productive bunch, yet here I sit, awake at 2am on a Monday. When you mention that you have a hard time waking up early, every single person in the world has the exact same advice: “You just gotta reset your internal clock!” They then proceed to instruct you to go to bed early so that you may then awake earlier the next day. The thing about that in relation to me, however, is that I cannot fall asleep early. There isn’t enough chamomile or hot baths or guided meditations in the world to knock me out. I am physically disabled from going to bed early! Now give me a tax break, and all of your parking spots. Of course that’s not true; I just really, really love staying up late. I feel like I’m getting away with something, which is strange, as I usually end up spending the better part of my late hours watching TV and being afraid of the dark. I’m not saying I imagine Robert “The Goblin of Galveston” Durst standing under a streetlight in front of my apartment, which he never is THANK GOD, but I can’t exactly say that I don’t do that either. What I’m trying to say is, I’m watching The Jinx again, and it just keeps getting better, I swear. The only way I could possibly restart my internal clock is by waking up insanely early (8am), rendering myself exhausted and immobile by midnight. In an attempt to do so, I’ve resorted to the following tactics: Placing the alarm clock across the room. The idea behind getting up this way
is that you are literally GETTING UP, as in, moving your body out of your bed to turn your alarm off, and then out you go, into the world. I have actually set up to two alarm clocks this way, hiding them in various locations about my room, only to spitefully return to bed upon getting up to turn (read: hit extremely hard) them off. That’ll learn ya, clocks! Wake up calls. I recently asked several friends to call my ass at 10am, like a hotel guest, or possibly just some incompetent human being with a highly inflated sense of importance. That lasted for about three days, or however long it took me to remember that I hate talking to anyone who isn’t my dog within the first hour that I am awake. Not only did I not wake up any earlier, I think I may have actually lost a couple of friends in the process. Clocky™ The concept of Clocky™ is a simple one: irritate yourself into waking up. For my money, there really is no better way to start the day. You simply have not lived until you find yourself screaming at a motorized alarm clock on wheels, in your underwear. I was introduced to Clocky by a former roommate after discovering we shared the same inability to rise at a somewhat respectable time (before noon). She told me about this magical alarm clock on wheels that you have to chase around the room in order to shut off. As someone who always felt she would do pretty well in an obstacle course, my interest was piqued. She gave up on Clocky in less than a month, very on-brand for anyone I was able to call my roommate in my 20s, frustrated by the fact that Clocky would just drive itself under her bed and become stuck there, alarm blaring. I never actually got a chance to use Clocky because the dog I was fostering chewed the wheels off while I was in the shower. I would have tried placing it across the room, but I saved everyone time by just throwing it away instead. The Rock Clock™ Perhaps one of the more embarrassing measures I’ve ever taken in an attempt to become a “morning person,” though not totally as the app is completely free, The Rock Clock is not only an alarm clock, but also a motivational tool, courtesy of one Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. You set both your alarm and a monthly goal, which The Rock helps you reach by sending these incredibly inspiring messages every day! I’m not actually sure what they say, as I have yet to use this app. It needs to remain open all night which just kills my phone’s battery, and I still keep meaning to buy an extension cord that will reach the outlet on the other wall, opposite my nightstand. Ironically enough, “buy extension cord” is my monthly goal, so I guess my hands are tied.
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