February 10, 2003

When does school start for you?

I know Halley is proud to wake up at 5-o-damn-clock in the morning and start stair steppin' at the side of her bed, pilates, karates, or whatever such hellacious way she chooses to greet the day. She can do that stuff. She's Halley.

And I know they say morning is a great time to get work done, to meditate, to load the dishwasher--whatever it is THEY say to try to convince you that real people actually enjoy the crack-o dawn and don't whine about it.

I'm here to tell you they are a bunch of liars--conodolisaliesalot liars--that there is no conceivable way they can enjoy morning before it is officially morning--especially hearing an alarm cut through the silent sleepy bedtime land that should be sacred.

Waking up before nature is sick.

It's twisted, it's wrong, it's industrial age nonsense.

And it's what I've had to do since Jenna changed schools in October--her new school starting an hour earlier than her old one.

I know--I'm in my 40s. The last five years notwithstanding, I've done the 12 hour a work-day job thing, the commute, the early push down I-75. Fine. That's fine. That was then. And even then, there was no way to get me out from underneath the covers before 7:20. Usually 8:20. Then once they couldn't live without me, 9:20.

I compensate for it--I work til midnight. And I'm more than happy to.

But 6:00 a.m. crap is beyond even the birds.

What are we training first graders to be--besides miserable and over tired? GM trick workers? Is that what public school is about--is that all we have left?

I hate it hate it hate it hate it. Four times each day I think about how I cannot possibly wake up in the dark one more morning. How much I want to stay curled up under the comforter. How right the song "Is that all there is" sounds when you're brushing your teeth in the moonlight.

I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it for four more grades. It's mind numbing and it's spirit killing for me and for Jenna.

I am so lame. But I'm telling you true.

I am not a morning person.