These days I’m in a bit of a rut. It seems every morning just blends into the next with nothing to distinguish one part of the week from another. I frequently find myself completely forgetting what day it is, or not noticing the time unless I’m wondering if it’s still too early to pour that first glass of wine.
I pretty much know from moment to moment what I will be doing, because it is exactly what I did the day before. It isn’t exciting, but it is reliable.
Just for fun, let me run you through my typical morning routine.
At 8 AM the alarm on my bedside clock goes off and I am awakened to the sound of country music because I have no idea how to adjust the settings on the radio and I’m too lazy to read the directions that came with the clock. Now, you may wonder why I set an alarm when I have nowhere to go, nothing to do, and all day not to do it. The answer is simple. I have discovered that if I don’t set an alarm, I don’t wake up.
I am likely to go to bed on Monday night and only get up sometime late Thursday afternoon. While I consider this to be a lovely, restful period of time, WebMD seems to think that this is one of the warning signs of clinical depression.
Or cancer. It might also be cancer.
Anyway, to avoid getting cancer, I set my alarm every day.
As soon as I wake up and turn off the alarm, the cat immediately jumps up on the bed and starts to meow, demanding to be petted. At least, I think she is demanding to be petted. I suppose it’s possible she is simply expressing her displeasure that she spent the entire night watching me sleep and yet again, I failed to die. Come to think of it, she does tend to appear a little irritable in the morning.
I choose to believe she wants attention, so I pet her for about five minutes before getting out of bed.
Once I’m up, I throw on sweatpants and a shirt, brush my teeth, and go outside to water the plants on the back patio. I have timers and drip line that automatically water the lawn and surrounding landscape, and it would be very easy for me to set up the patio to do the same thing. I also have more time than I know what to do with each day, so filling and emptying a water can is a good way to take up some of that empty space.
After watering, I come back in the house, sit down at the computer and spend about an hour online checking out my social media accounts. I write a few witty comments that are generally ignored by everybody, check my message folder to make sure that it is still empty, and see if everybody is still spouting hateful political rhetoric every chance they get.
Spoiler: They are.
Social media time is followed by exercise. Every morning at about 9 o’clock, I go out and walk for 4 or 5 miles. The original plan is to walk 2 or 3 miles, but I find once I get outside it is sometimes very difficult to convince myself to go back in the house.
The kids are in there.
I don’t like being trapped in the house with them.
Generally, my daughters don’t like to spend time with me and they avoid me whenever they can. This is a good thing. They are horrible people that don’t clean up after themselves and say really mean things to me because they think it’s funny to hurt my feelings. I blame their mother for this.
I barely talked to them while they were growing up, so it can’t be my fault.
When I do finally go back in the house, I sit down at the computer and check to see if anyone enjoyed my earlier, witty online statements. Usually the answer is no. The only person that reacts to my posts is my wife, and I can feel the pity emanating from the tiny thumbs-up symbol she slaps on each of my comments.
She might as well be patting me on the head and saying, “That’s okay. You keep trying.”
Somewhere around 11 o’clock is when I finally stop torturing myself on social media and get to work writing. This is really the end of the morning, time-wasting routine and the beginning of my day. I spend the rest of my daylight hours sitting in front of the computer trying to create something others might one day enjoy reading.
Well, okay, not the entire time. I occasionally stop to eat, or drink, or watch a movie, or sneak back onto social media, or go work in the yard, or run to the grocery store.
Or lie down on the couch to take a nap.
What I guess I’m saying is: I’m not really all that productive most of the time.
But at least when I take a nap, I always set an alarm.
That way the cat knows when it’s time to jump up and get petted.
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Very good, Gary!