by Jamie LB

Created on: December 30, 2008

I am many things-but a morning person is not one of them. I'm not even a mid-morning person. I reluctantly roll out of bed every morning completely unaware of where I am or how I got there. Slowly, the fog clears and I am once again thoroughly disappointed by the fact that, just like every other day, I just woke up.

I can not function, nor can I even coherently speak, until I have had a shower. A long, hot shower. The first five minutes are normally spent just standing, arms hanging at my side, head bobbing, trying to navigate through that place that lies between asleep and awake. As I come to, I savor the last few peaceful moments of my day before I head to work.

Once I arrive, I start the first and most important task of the day: endless coffee consumption. The caffeinated grains brew into my secret weapon, the one and only thing that can zap me into reality and shove the last of the cobwebs from my still-slumbering brain. At 8 am, I am a useless waste of space, there, but not really "there."

Around 9am I begin to come around, revived by my morning brew and ready to start tackling my day. I break a smile and widen my eyes just in time for my 9:15 meeting, successfully avoiding as much human contact as possible up until that point. I forge a wide-eyed presence for 15 minutes before I head back to my desk and pour another cup. My stomach lining is just a small sacrifice for my ability to function.

By 10am, I am profoundly pissed off that I am not still in bed. I stare at my inbox, bitterly returning emails that were sent at 6am and wondering who the HELL works that early in the morning. I glance at the clock every 10 minutes, wondering how early is too early to take a lunch. There's a driving range down the road with a shady parking lot that would be perfect for a nap, and I could definitely use one right about now.

Alas, my body clock kicks in, and I am alert and astute. It is 2 pm, my power hour. In the next 60 minutes I will accomplish more than I have in the other 7 hours of my workday altogether. Fueled by a Diet Coke-induced sugar high, I will return calls, draft proposals, and email at the speed of light. After all is said and done, I will realize that it probably is not healthy that it took me nearly 6 hours from the time I awoke to actually be functional, and that the only other people who handle morning daylight as poorly as I do are vampires and insomniacs

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