Literary Lifehack: Still Successfully Stirring

In mid August, I wrote about my so-called "Night Owl's Literary Lifehack", where I used the anticipation of reading for 15 minutes as motivation for getting up in the morning. I have to say that it has worked beyond my wildest dreams. I've gotten up immediately, every morning, except for today.

I've been fighting off a sore throat since late Saturday night and I've felt gradually sicker, although not severely so. This morning I thought that perhaps my reading time would be better spent resting. When my second alarm went off, I felt as if I would really benefit from getting some adequate rest today by actually *gasp* taking a sick day. It would be my first whole sick day in the two years that I've worked at Duke.

When I woke up again, it was almost six hours later. When I looked at my alarm clock, I expected it to say some time after 9am, but instead it was after noon. I must have been right about needing some extra sleep.

Speaking of extra sleep, one thing I've learned since I started getting up on time is that it's important to go to sleep earlier in the night as well. That alarm filled or snooze alarm interrupted sleep is still more restful than getting right up. I know if I get a decent amount of sleep every night, I'm a lot happier and less cranky, so it's important to adjust accordingly.

Coincidentally, this morning I would have finished my first book since experimenting with my "lifehack". Of course, if I'd noticed yesterday that I only lacked two pages, I might have finished yesterday anyway. Tomorrow, assuming I'm up to it, I'll start a new novel to read for the next month or two. This way I also truly get to savor a novel that most people finish in a couple of days or less.

Night Owl's Literary Lifehack

Ever since I moved into my own house, I've been struggling with how to make myself get up in the mornings. Of course, I always get up eventually and by some standards it's even timely. It's just not necessarily when I, personally, would choose to get up if I were completely conscious and it's not always the same hour as when my alarm first goes off.

I've tried all kinds of crazy tactics from turning on multiple alarm clocks throughout the house (all of which I can ignore) to setting my programmable thermostat to bake myself out of bed. Before I gave up on that strategy, well-done was, on occasion, the order of the day. A friend of mine once rigged up his computer and his printer to pull a cup of water onto his head at a specified time. I haven't gone that far.

Finally, perhaps inspired by the recent publicity for DailyLit, I decided to try getting up and reading a book for exactly 15 minutes before getting on with my morning hygiene routine. I've done this for a week now and it's worked flawlessly. I'd been getting behind on reading Harry Potter books, so I've been reading the 5th one, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It's exciting enough for me to want to get up out of bed to read more. The amazing thing is that I feel so much more refreshed and clearheaded than when I head straight for the toothbrush. The important thing is to have a second alarm set such that I only read for 15 minutes. After I've been reading for that long, I'm awake enough to obey the alarm and get ready.

Yes, it may take several weeks to read a book this way, but there's nothing stopping me from taking an evening to read for longer periods. I have a large stack of things I've been meaning to read, so there's plenty available for my morning reading. It's one of those rare win-win situations, where I get to read more and get to experience more of my mornings. I get to work a bit earlier and the weekends are longer, too.

A Discreet Awakening

Bzzzzzz....Bzzzzz..
Bzzzzzz.

I opened my eyes and realized it was my pager that was buzzing. That meant it was after 8am. NOOooooooo! Normally I get up at least an hour before that. Normally my alarm is set to go off at 6:23am. I had forgotten to set it the night before. I've forgotten before, but I generally wake up around the right time anyway.

It turned out ok, because I didn't have any early meetings. I called NC and I ended up not being more than about 20-25 minutes minutes later than usual. I was embarrassed, though. I did, however, feel rested.

Guitar practice had been moved from Friday to last night, because of the ACC basketball tournament. Most people had other things they needed to do afterwards, so MP and I went out to dinner. We decided on Blue Corn and then determined that they were closed, based on the fact that the restaurant was empty and there were upside-down chairs on the tables. Fortunately, we only had to deduce this by staring for a few minutes from the parking lot. After much discussion, we decided on either Parizade or Verde. Our decision was then made for us, because Verde was also closed.

We had a lovely dinner. I had baked goat cheese with very good bread and a Parizade salad.
Parizade salads have lettuce, feta, strawberries, toasted pine nuts and a raspberry vinaigrette. It's a wonderful combination. I had a cup of decaf coffee for dessert and MP tried their butterscotch creme brulee. Then I drove MP to EB's, so she could get her car. Heading back, I missed a turn and got lost. I've gotten to the point that I almost enjoy getting lost if there are no time constraints, because it's almost like a puzzle to figure out. I, however, prefer not to do it at 11pm when I have to get up the next morning. I wasn't lost long, though, and found a different I-40 West On-ramp from the one I'd originally planned to use.

It was a beautiful day today. I had lunch on the the library patio and ate the crab dip and crackers that CL gave me on Saturday. Then I wandered over to the Bryan Center Walkyway with the hope that the on-line schedule was wrong and that the Keva Juice stand was really open. It wasn't. It's spring break at Duke this week, so almost everything is closed. I ended up getting some fresh squeezed orange juice from Alpine. I then headed back to the library. I stopped to drink more right in front of the old Perkins Library entrance, giving the juice the opportunity to spontaneously squirt down my shirt. NP came out of the building just at that moment and pointed out that people were going to accuse me of having a drinking problem.

Again, it's been gorgeous here. March and April are my two favorite months of the year, because the weather is usually lovely, the flowers bloom and then the leaves start to come out.
Here are some photos of all the wonderful daffodils blooming in my yard. (Thanks to a loyal reader for taking these pics.)

Belated Tale of an Alarming Day

I should really just post what I'm thinking at the time rather composing full chapters or volumes.For example, I wrote this about ten days ago and then saved the draft. I should have just posted it.

I took this cool photo of the moon over Duke Chapel just before I went inside to work one morning.



I was vanless for almost two weeks while my van was in the body shop. This was fairly traumatic for me. I had to remember what I used to do before I could drive. I had to get rides to and from places. The horror. That is way more complicated.

It was way more complicated when NC and I were going to take my dad's car from the library over to the the American Tobaco Campus for a meeting. It was particularly complicated when we discovered that his car had a car alarm. Let me state, for the record, that it does. Neither of my parents nor I knew that the car has an alarm. It's very loud. My dad ran over from his building and figured out how to shut it off for us. We tried to recreate the problem in my garage that night and it seems as if you repeat the convoluted steps that we did that it goes off about 25% of the time. Note that it seems a lot louder in an enclosed space. In any case, that was a fairly hilarious (but loud) portion of the day.