Burning the Candle at Both Ends

My watch and calendar seem to know that Daylight Saving Time has ended, but neither one of them bothered to tell my internal clock.

I was nocturnal in college, but I've become something of an early-riser as an adult. I suppose that's still a relative term: it's not like I get up at the crack of dawn; I usually roll out of bed at 8:00 a.m., the time that most of my fellow New Yorkers are beginning their daily commutes into the City. Still, when you consider that on Sundays when I was in college, I slept through and therefore missed brunch (which ended somewhere in the neighborhood of 2:30 p.m.) as often as not, it's a big improvement.

Getting to sleep in until eight is a joy and a delight on most weekdays. The problem is that I can't seem to teach my internal clock to set the snooze button on weekends. Even sleeping with earplugs (to drown out the street noise) and a sleep mask (to block ambient light), I still get up hours before the Mister drags himself out of bed on most weekends these days.

I have reconciled myself to this being-forced-to-wake-up/unable-to-go-back-to-sleep on weekends status by reminding myself that -- if 8:00 a.m. is an indecently early time to rise on a Saturday or Sunday, it's a mercifully late hour at which to rise the rest of the time. With a ratio of 5:2, I would say it cuts pretty heavily in my favor.

The problem is that we set the clocks back this past weekend. And my darned eyes have been jolting open at 6:15 a.m. -- 45 minutes earlier than they would ordinarily, even allowing for the switch from Daylight Saving Time to whatever time it is the other six or so months out of the year.

I've tried to make the most out of this newfound even-earlier-riser status by going to the gym before work, rather than leaving it for afterwards, when a frillion different excuses populate my brain, justifying the lethargy that inevitably ensues when I flop down on my sofa rather than switch immediately into my gym togs. Still? I. Am. Wiped. Out.