It’s #ThemeThursday again, and I’m feeling super proud of myself for doing this four Thursdays in a row now, even though the first Thursday was late. This week’s theme is, “Early Bird or Night Owl – Which One Are You?”
Everyone who knows me at all well knows that I’m a huge
night owl. If I didn’t have sleeping pills, I’d be awake all night and sleep
all day. For years that was just what I’d do, but it gets kind of shitty
because you can never really go anywhere or do anything, because nothing is
open at night (except for pubs) and everyone is asleep (except for drunks).
The worst thing about being a night owl is that everyone gives
you shit over it. I’m an adult and I pay my bills, so you’d think it’d be no
one’s business but my own if I want to keep odd hours, but you’d be wrong. If I
had a dollar for every time someone called me lazy, I’d build a fucking
children’s hospital so they’d never stop feeling like assholes. Name-calling
can’t make me change my body clock, but it will make me change my phone number.
I reckon they’re just jealous, because, as I’ve said before,
that’s what I always assume when people give me a hard time for no good reason.
After all, some of the most
brilliant minds in history were night owls, including Winston Churchill, Charles Darwin,
James Joyce, Marcel Proust, Robert Louis Stevenson, Hunter S. Thompson, Thomas
Edison, Charles Bukowski, and President Barack Obama.
A recent study by the University of Madrid found that night
owls possess “the kind of intelligence associated with better jobs and higher
salaries,” according
to The Telegraph, because of
their creativity, analytical thinking, and problem-solving skills. Another study
by the London School of Economics and Political Science suggests that night
owls are more
likely to have higher IQs.
So suck it, morning people.
I’ve been this way since I was a kid, and after decades of
struggling to live on a “normal” schedule, I broke down and saw a doctor. He
tried to tell me that “Sleep problems are usually temporary.” I didn’t laugh in
his face, because that’s rude.
The doctor also wanted to know why I couldn’t just sleep
during the day and stay awake all night if that’s what my body clock wants. I’m
a freelance writer, after all, so I have a greater degree of control over my
schedule than most, so if I want to sleep late, I can pretty much arrange that –
and believe me, I do, because not having to wake up at the taint of dawn is one
of the few perks of a job where I get no sick days, no vacation pay, no health
insurance, no pension plan, and
no respect.
But I don’t want to sleep all day. Sure, I spend most of my
waking hours at work just like everyone else, but you can’t work all the time.
Sometimes you want to go somewhere (besides a pub) and if you live alone and
works from home, sometimes you want to talk to other humans (besides drunks). So
I’ve been trying, with the help of medication, to become a daywalker. There’s
no fooling your circadian rhythms, though. Even if I get plenty of sleep, I’m
still pretty much worthless before noon.
