Early Bird vs. Night Owl

"I'm turning this off," Mr. Ginley proclaimed, ejecting the DVD from the machine. "You fell asleep. It's only 9:00, for god's sake."

Public domain image

"But I only closed my eyes for a second," I protested.

"You had your eyes closed for at least a minute. Just go to bed."

And there we go again.  Alas, I am an early bird and Mr. is a night owl. I'm up at 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning, while he sleeps in until 9:30 or so.

In all honesty, I like getting up early. I get so much done while much of the world dozes along, ignoring the dawn. Admittedly, part of the reason I rise early every day is the cat doesn't understand the concept of weekends. So even on Saturdays and Sundays, she gets me up so I can  see to her breakfast. The downside of this is that I also crash earlier than I'd like. Sometimes I'll nap on a weekend afternoon, just to stay awake for Saturday Night Live.

And no, that doesn't really work. Mr. Ginley is still prodding me to keep the peepers open.

I feel bad about my narcoleptic episodes. But somewhere around 9 pm, my brain shuts down and my eyelids quickly follow. And Mr. is left to channel surf or read until 1:30 or 2:30 a.m. 

There was an article in the New York Times about sleep patterns. There's a thing called segmented sleep, where you snooze for two four-hour periods rather than eight hours straight. So, for example, you might sleep from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m., then 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. The French even gave a name to the awake time: dorveille (translated to wakesleep). Some folks swear by it. Maybe it's a good alternative to insomnia.

As for me, I'm stuck with the straight-through-the-night method. Once my head hits the pillow, I'm usually down for the count until the cat alarm goes off (except for the three or four nocturnal bathroom runs, which are more like sleepwalking episodes). 

I'm not sure it's any more possible for me to become a night owl than it is for Mr. Ginley to rise with the birds. 

So I guess we'll just have to make the most of our time together.

Before 9 p.m.