early to rise

"Gotta get to bed so I can get up at 2 to re-set my clocks. I really don't understand why we can't have these time changes at a more convenient hour."

~ david hutchinson

and so, darkness descends on the northwest.

here, the end of daylight savings time is the beginning of months of getting up and driving to work in the dark, returning home in the dark, and ingesting fistfuls of vitamin D in between.

it's a time of people taking on the healthy pallor of zombies, along with a corresponding level of brain activity. seasonal affective disorder wraps us up in its clammy embrace, broken only by forced exposure to UV light or fistfuls of pharmacology.

it hardly seems worth it, but at least on the day we fall back we get an extra hour to spend however we like. there's no consensus on the best way to seize the carp and fully exploit that time, but the options are characteristic of the soon-to-be-deranged...

1. sleep in (the desperate act of the desperately sleep-deprived)
2. run around the grocery store muttering "the end is near," while loading the cart with wine
3. plunge into puget sound's 50-degree waters, imagining they're warm, and you're warm, and that hypothermia builds character
4. go to your favorite restaurant and wander through the bar saying "donner, party of 20..."
5. have mind-bending, toe-curling sex with julianne moore (assuming you actually know julianne moore and she finds you sufficiently intriguing)
6. avoid taking your car to the local car wash for the sixth straight month, because every time you wash you car, it rains (also, when you don't)
7. obsess over politics, even though the recent election ensures nothing worthwhile will happen for the next two years
8. obsess over sports and television, even though nothing worthwhile ever happens in either case
9. go outside at lunch for a glimpse of that dim star low on the southern horizon
10. go shopping, buy things you don't really need, because it makes you feel better, however briefly
11. stay home, save your money, because it makes you feel better, however briefly
12. drink the wine you bought at the grocery store; go buy more
13. buy food, while you're there
14. hug your children
15. yell at your children, tell them to shut the hell up so you can hear yourself think
16. realize what you're thinking isn't particularly interesting or important
17. pick up a book, begin reading; get the feeling you're reading the same few pages over and over
18. find a way to work the word "ennui" into as many conversations as possible
19. exercise, compulsively, because if you don't you feel fat, which is depressing
20. stare blankly into space while daydreaming about sunlight, pondering the prospect it might never return

some of these things might take more than an hour, but not to worry. there's a long, bleak winter extending endlessly before you. you have plenty of time to savor them at your leisure.

that, or you can sail to lahaina.

Sent from my iPad