While the rest of the world sleeps...
01 June, 2002 :: 7:00a.m.
I live away from the daywalkers...the most magical time of the day is the small hours of the morning. I love the time between when I get done working and when the rest of the world awakes. The world is mine...I can go for a walk and be at one with myself in the darkness, I can just sit and think or do whatever I want and feel totally at peace. As much as I love the dim light as the sun first starts to come up and reveal the world, I dread what comes after--daylight. I love the idea that when I'm working, when I'm joking and laughing with people at work, when I'm throwing a ball to hit Larry upside the head or preparing a whipped cream pie for Brady's last night that most of the rest of the people in this area are sound asleep and have no idea what they're missing out on. I hate going out during the day; I feel overexposed, vulnerable. I'm visible to everyone and I hate that. I love walking around in the dark knowing that a car will rarely pass by and even if one does, the people inside may not even notice me. I hate realizing that I'm bobbing my head up and down to a song that I really don't like...The White Stripes really aren't all that great, but they have that stupid catchy song on MTV and I just realized I was sitting here typing and jamming along to it [editor's note: not long after that I became a huge fan of the White Stripes...I fully admit to not knowing shit most of the time].
Back to the darkness...I've always loved the night, it's always felt like the best time to me. That's why I worked the closing shift at McDonald's and that's why I jumped at the chance to work third shift at wal-mart...night is when I come alive. I don't function in the morning. I remember all those miserable days of dragging myself up and into the shower trying to wash the sleep away before I headed off to school. I probably would have been a much better student if they had a third shift school. I always wanted to sleep through the morning (with the exception of Saturdays when cartoons are on) and Tom would always come into my room, flip on the lights and tell me it was time to get up and get busy doing useful things like picking rocks out of the garden or running the weedeater (until I proved myself totally inept at this skill...going through spool after spool of that glorified fishing line they use to hack weeds off at their waists)...
Pretty much the only time I enjoyed while I was living at home would be the weekends or sometimes weeks during the summer when the rest of the family would take off for a camping trip and leave me to watch the house...I could spend all night watching bad movies (does anyone else remember USA Up All Night?), sleep through the morning and not have someone harping at me that I was wasting the day--seriously, what the fuck does it matter if the lawn gets mowed at 8a.m. or 2p.m. unless you've got people coming over for a picnic at 1 or some shit? I'm the one who has to deal with the heat...and I don't have dew on grass making it a pain to mow...but yeah, that would be why I loved being home alone... I still love being home alone...only now it's so I can sit and drink beer in my boxers and play video games while listening to my music. It doesn't take a whole lot to make me happy.
