I am not a night person

Despite the fact that I routinely stayed up until 2a in college, I am not and never really have been a night person. Just because you can (or must) do something doesn’t mean that you do it well and I think anyone who knows me would agree that after a certain hour the quality of … processing? interaction? takes a nosedive. Only once or twice, maybe, did I stay up into the wee hours writing papers (they were not my best efforts); and the reason I was routinely up late was mostly just due to work. Making the pizzas, it goes on into the night and then you have to mop. Or count the drawer. Or whatever. And, as anyone with a late job knows, you can’t usually just go right to sleep when you come home, you have to settle down.

In short, I’ve mostly thought of myself as a morning person. It cannot be denied, I am mostly ridiculously chipper and conversational first thing out of the gate (with or without caffeinated enhancement). It’s definitely my most focused time of the day, intellectually speaking, which is why it’s sad that frequently my free blocks of time are in the afternoons.

A colleague of mine called in ill today, and she had the 6-9 shift; so I offered to cover, since I had no other desk hours and thus could go in at 1p.  Although now that I think about it, we have a 35 hour work week (I Must Never Complain About My Job [repeat])  … whatevs. I had a meeting at 1p.

So I had a delightful lazy morning at home, only slightly marred by raucous construction noises (alas the City of Chicago has put the kibosh on our spiral staircase, so out it came). And then the time came to go to work…and here I still am.  I’d call it slow-steady – too steady to really get mentally engaged in anything, too slow not to feel the moments hanging on me a bit, hence the blogging.

Mostly I’m marvelling, once again, at the fact that somehow, some way, I was able to go to class once a week after a full work day and stay there until 9p and be coherent at all, for FIVE YEARS. I marvel even more at my classmates who often took two classes at at time.

The reference desk, at least, affords human interaction. I just wowed a young lady with the quantity of our information on St Francis of Assisi; discovered that one of our databases provides no way to limit by language (in an art database? how can that be a good idea? I’ll give you a clue, IT’S NOT); commiserated with a history senior regarding the Chicago Manual; and identified what I think will be my next year’s datebook based on the one that another young patron was carrying. There were some other desperate souls trying to find things for papers due in the morning but we won’t dwell on their sad plight.

That’s right. I’m just one screenplay away from a thrilling biopic in here.