Not every student is ‘more alert’ in the mornings. Believe it or not, many students are nearly comatose early in the morning and their brains spring into action later in the day. This is not always a result of staying up late playing video games, etc. Some people are just wired for night. I’ve often wondered how different standardized test scores would be, if our students were allowed to take them at night instead of so early in the morning. Dawn. You know, when a lot of old people administrators are awake.

I’ve read that while younger children are still usually early risers, the average high school student would greatly benefit from school from noon till six.  (This article says that even 8:30 a.m. would be a step in the right direction, but that wouldn’t have helped me much.)

But noon?  That would have been so wonderful for a kid like me. Even better, for a kid like me, would have been high school from 3 till 9. P.M. I would have been wide awake and alert and ready to learn.

Sadly, such scheduling would not be possible for a variety of reasons, most of them stupid, such as some old principal saying “We’ve never done anything like that before.” Or some old coach saying, “When would we practice?” Like I care about that. (You can play games in the morning. From 7:30 till noon. You know, when you’re more alert.)

The most insidious reason of all, the reason many schools can’t have after-school programs, the reason many schools can’t have field trips during the day, the reason many schools can’t have after-school detention, and the reason many kids can’t stay after school for ANY reason, good or bad. . . .

. . . is because of the bus schedules. They are carved in stone.

I am not putting down bus drivers in any way. Many of them are working two jobs, and can only drive a bus during certain hours of the day. I am, however, totally putting down the mentality that can’t seem to separate convenience of scheduling from welfare of student population. Hire more drivers. Split up the routes. We all have to make adjustments in our jobs when circumstances force us to;  heaven knows I did. When are we going to make adjustments in our school day?

Another issue, of course, is the sad fact that many families rely on older kids to take care of the younger ones after school. Sigh. A different schedule would knock that into a cocked hat.

Employers would have to make a few changes, too. But what’s the difference, really, between a fast-food shift of 5-9 and 6:30-10? Some adult would get an extra hour and a half’s pay?

And, of course, many administrators are getting up there, age-wise. And old people keep early hours. Again, so what?

Teachers with young children? That’s a hard one, because I used to be one of those. But I adjusted for various schedules and so can anyone else. In this town, anyway, there are lots of daycare and sitters who are happy to work later in the evening. Not everyone shuts down at three!!!!!

But again. Adjustments for the sake of our kids. Why are they so hard to make?

Honestly. Sometimes I agree with Plutarch.

“Being about to pitch his camp in a likely place, and hearing there was no hay to be had for the cattle, ‘What a life,’ said he, ‘is ours, since we must live according to the convenience of asses!’ ”

What brought all of this up? My students today were talking about how wonderful it would have been to go to high school and be alert. It’s not that they didn’t try to be alert. It’s just that for some people, 7:30 in the morning is NO time to be talking about algebra.

I am one of those people.

My name is Mamacita, and I am a night owl.

There are many like me, and we have no rights.

Call the ACLU immediately.

(I have a hard enough time talking about grammar at nine thirty. But my night classes? My 2:00 classes? I’m on top of those, and I even remember what we’ve done in them.)

Equal rights for vampires! Support the ERV!

And how about putting our kids first, for a change?

I don’t believe in omens, but I can’t help thinking, “omen.”

I did what I usually do on a snow day:  I slept.  That is because I am an exciting, energetic bundle of cool, who utilizes every moment of existence in a lively and positive manner.

I’m also a night owl, a vampire, a lover of darkness, the night sky, owls, and bats.

In another time and place, I’d have been burned as a witch, except that witch-burning is mostly a rumor, not a fact.  The frightened, uneducated, mostly illiterate believers in a handful of men’s personal interpretations of scripture might have dunked, pressed, or, at best, branded me, though.

We like to think such times, people, and thinking are over, but, sadly, they’re not, because we run into frightened, uneducated and mostly illiterate people all the time, as they follow and praise a handful of men’s personal interpretations of scripture.  And you know good and well that such people would burn, dunk, press, or brand us all if they thought they could get by with it.

I don’t deal well with fools.  Did you know?

Students, I look forward to seeing you NEXT week.  Bring your thinking caps and be sure your mind’s eyes are Visined and ready to SEE.  Bring your powers of observation, too; you’ll need them.  Things are not always as they seem, and this is both good and bad, depending on the. . . . . wait for it. . . . . CONTEXT.

Remember that word.

The fact is, things used to have down time. Stores closed. Television and radio stations “signed off,” and each station often had its own unique signoff ritual. After midnight, people went to bed; they didn’t stay up for hours and watch because there was nothing to watch. When people said, “There’s nothing on TV,” it wasn’t just an expression.  Radio stations signed off, too.

Sometimes I think it was better the old way. After midnight, people generally went to bed. People didn’t watch show after show just because something was on, because something WASN’T on. Just blackness, static, or a test pattern.

I can remember turning on the TV on Saturday morning, seeing nothing but the test pattern, and waiting patiently until 6:00 a.m. or so for the station to “sign on.”

When my cousin C and I were kids, and would stay at our grandmother’s house every weekend we could manage it, the sign-off for Indianapolis’ WTTV channel 4 was a few minutes of Mahalia Jackson singing.  I can’t remember what she sang, specifically, because C and I usually watched our grandmother when Mahalia sang.  It was one of the few times we saw Mamaw laugh out loud.  Mahalia’s kind of singing just wasn’t heard much in southern Indiana, and the shock value of it set Mamaw off every Saturday night.

Most sign-off rituals were religious in nature, and patriotic as well.  A local clergyman would speak a few words, the National Anthem would play, and the sign-off words were spoken, along with a promise to sign-on again in the morning.  It was kind of cool.  It was also a signal that everybody still up ought to go to bed, as well.

Maybe that’s one reason people stay up so late these days.  They’re glued to the TV, and there’s nobody now to tell them it’s time to sign off and go to bed.  As long as there’s SOMETHING on TV, some people will watch it.  I’ve never understood the mentality.

This picture, now, is the NBC peacock, telling us that the next program would be in living color. Those of you who thought In Living Color was nothing but a funny television show have a lesson to learn here. And now you know why the title of that show was funny in more ways than one!

Seeing that NBC peacock flexing its tailfeathers was the signal that Bonanza was about to start. A lot of the old 50′s sitcoms had been filmed in color but never seen in color, and eventually those started to be shown as was intended, too.

Here’s your laugh of the day. I didn’t know The Wizard of Oz was partly in color until I was in my teens. It made the expression “a horse of a different color” understandable, for the first time.

I’m not really QUITE that old, but my family just waited that long to get a color TV.

Mamacita says:   I remember being so tired it wasn’t humanly possible to turn OVER, let alone get up.  But I got up anyway, because I had responsibilities.  I sleep-walked across campus many times, to take a test.  I took tests with migraines so severe there were sparks shooting out of my head and I could barely read the questions.  I took tests that I’d pulled two or three all-nighters in a row to prepare for, and I really believed I was prepared!  I have fallen asleep with my head resting on my completed test.   I never once cut class on a test day, even though there were plenty of times when I wanted to.  (Are you listening, students dear?) (Because midterms aren’t all that far away, you know.)

I think a great way of telling whether a person is an adult or still a kid is watching him/her to see if he/she is, on a regular basis, dragging the ol’ carcass out of bed to do something because he/she signed up to do it, promised people he/she would be there to do it, paid money to do it or is being paid money to do it, and by golly he/she is just SUPPOSED to be there to do it.  No excuses. If it’s an obligation that requires a timeline with an established start and finish point, get up.

That being said:

Unless there is a legitimate reason for a teen to get up on a Saturday or any vacation day, the kid should be allowed to stay in bed all DAY if that’s what he/she wants.  Item:  the possible fact that Mom and/or Dad are up is NOT a legitimate reason to make others get up.

Teenagers really do need far more sleep than even a baby, and they seldom get it.  Many adults don’t understand this, and they insist that a teen GET UP on a Saturday morning or a vacation, because YOU’RE WASTING HALF THE DAY! COME ON, GET UP, THERE ARE CHORES TO BE DONE, ETC ETC ETC and these things can’t be done at nighttime, apparently. . . .  Plus, there’s the absolutely ridiculous early-morning start of high school, which most experts agree is detrimental to most teens’ body clock and yet school systems insist on it, mostly for the convenience of the bus drivers and families who rely on their older kids to babysit the younger kids after school.

Doesn’t anybody care about our sleepy teens?  An average teenager’s body requires ten to fourteen hours of sleep sometimes!  Why won’t some parents let the kid sleep?  Just, you know, leave the kid alone and let him SLEEP?  Wasting the day?  Some people are night owls, plain and simple, and sleeping when they’re the most tired is just logical.  Not everybody loves the early morning.  I don’t.  I hate it, in fact.  “Are you ever going to get out of that bed?  Do you intend to sleep your life away?  Jane, you’re wasting half of your Saturday!”  No, I wasn’t.  My Saturday was divided differently than certain other people, that’s all.  And at nine or ten p.m., when those people were curled up in bed, I was just beginning to be at my mental-alertness peak. I’m still that way.

Teens are wasting good daylight hours when they could be DOING something?  No, they’re not.  Teenagers desperately need that sleep, so leave them alone on their days off and let them sleep. It doesn’t do any good to insist that a kid go to bed earlier, either.  Most of the time, a kid just isn’t sleepy enough to go to bed earlier.  Mother Nature is a wily old thing and wired us all differently, sleep-needs-wise.

So who’s right and who’s wrong?  Nobody and everybody, of course.  But far too many adults can’t fathom a kid who wants to sleep so much.  Nay, a kid who MUST sleep so much.  I understand it completely.  I sympathize. I’m all for leaving the kid alone and letting him sleep.  He needs that sleep.  He needs hours and hours and hours of blissful uninterrupted sleep, far more than adults need.  Leave the kid alone and let him sleep!

Unless, of course, the kid, of his own free will, signed up for a job, or a degree, in which case, the kid needs to be there, #2 pencil in hand, or spiffy uniform donned and ready to fry, right smack when he/she contracted to be there, or else.  Part of becoming an adult is forcing oneself to do things one really doesn’t want to do, simply because it’s the right thing to do.  Many forty-year-olds still haven’t learned this.

HOWEVER, if that’s the case, these kids should have signed up for the midafternoon or evening class, not the morning class.  And since they did sign up for it, they need to honor their commitment. Most of my students have jobs.  That’s good.  All teens should pay for their own car insurance, dates, and fast food with the pals.  But if a kid can get up for fast food with the pals, the kid can get up for class.

Parents, please leave your teens alone on vacation mornings.  Do you really think he/she would have set the iPod and cell phone down and turned his/her back on them unless there was a very, very, very good reason?  Your kids are genuinely tired.  They desperately NEED that sleep.  It’s not laziness.  It’s biology.

Just be grateful it’s the kind of in-bed biology that you don’t have to lose your own sleep over.

So, old people, get up at the asscrack break of dawn if you are wired that way (bizarre) but leave other people alone. It’s a funny thing, but early-rising people always seem to love that time of day so much, they can’t conceive of anyone not being grateful to be awakened to share it.

News flash, morning people: If you don’t get out of here right now and leave me alone, I’m going to have to hurt you. I’m not kidding. The only good sunrise is the one you watch before you hit the sheets.

And I was even worse as a teen.

Sincerely,
–Dracula’s daughter

P.S. If the teen has a real commitment, such as a job or a class, he/she needs a good LOUD alarm clock and some serious consequences falling on his/her head – not from you but from the college or employer – if there’s a question about whether or not to get up to meet that obligation. If you just want the car washed, you can bloody well wait until late afternoon. Sheesh. Go watch the sun rise and eat “breakfast” if it’s that important to you. Leave everybody else alone. LEAVE THEM ALONE. You are not like them, and they are not like you. They’re normal, and you’re a bloody freak.

Well, I feel better now.

Mamacita says:  Women who had difficult labors probably hate me already right now, but I’ll go ahead and make it worse: I loved being pregnant. I felt GREAT.

Even when I was sitting still, doing nothing, I was still doing something wonderfully productive.  I was euphoric.  I felt very off-balance, but I’m so inclined that way anyway it wasn’t too bad.  But mostly, I just felt good.  The concept that after I had the baby, I would actually HAVE the baby, hadn’t sunken in yet.

I was scared of my babies. I knew I was too ignorant to deserve them, and I felt it was just a matter of time until my supreme ignorance caused me to do something with or to a baby that would toss me in the state pen for life, and deservedly so.  I could hear the sentence in my head:  YOU ARE FAR TOO STUPID TO GET TO HAVE BABIES!”

Somehow, I managed.  WE managed.  My kids are fantastic today, so maybe they didn’t suffer TOO much.  Sigh.

But, between panic attacks, I had fun with my babies, too. I made zillions of mistakes and did tons of stupid things, but I had fun. I hope they did, too.

I know I was half-asleep through a lot of it, esp. anything that happened in the early morning hours, and I know I was an odd mommy, and I hated having to leave them and go to work but I had no choice, and I know I packed some really bizarre lunches for them to take to school, and I know it’s probably my fault that both of them are night owls like me, and I know I embarrassed them a lot (that was my job, after all) but I also know that the good things far outweighed the bad, even if I could remember all the bad, which I don’t, which is probably best for the perpetuation of mankind.

After all, they’re alive, and they’re still speaking to me. I call that a good sign. And, they’re curious about everything and they love to go to see live shows.  They also both love music and enjoy living outside of the box.    They’re both sensitive and tenderhearted and like to help people, and they enjoy being odd on purpose to make other people mad.  I’m sure I have no idea where they learned THAT.

This ramble probably makes no sense, but I’m sitting here with a soul-splitting migraine, wishing I were tired enough to just get up and go to bed, and knowing that if I did I’d just lie there for hours and hours, feeling guilty because lately I’ve been wishing for my children’s childhoods back so I could do a better job this time, and knowing that with some things, well, even the gods can’t unscramble eggs. . . .

I also wish I could solve all the problems of the world with a wave of my hand, and knowing I can’t, and wishing I could, anyway, and wondering why some people have to be so cruel, and wondering how some people can be so upbeat in the face of unspeakable horror, and wishing I were thinner, and nicer, and more fun, and knowing I probably could be if only I weren’t also so lazy, well, I’ve got a massive migraine and these thoughts aren’t my fault.  They’re not, they’re not, they’re not!

Maybe I should go to bed and get up early.  I almost wish I had a pile of quizzes to grade.  Life has all kinds of quizzes, doesn’t it.  The quizzes in my briefcase usually have  easy answers.

P.S. It would be lovely if there were a prize for the person who counts all the run-on sentences and comments with the number, but there isn’t one.  Do it anyway if you’re the O/C type, and I’ll thank you, but that’s all you get.

I know they’re big stuff now, and I’m glad because they so totally deserve to be big stuff, but let it be known that I loved them before you did.

But grooving all over Straight No Chaser is something I’ve already done and will continue to do. Here are some things I haven’t done yet:

1.  I really need to mow the grass one more time before the snow covers it.  Why do I need to do this?  Because I’m hosting Thanksgiving, and I don’t want my family to get their knees wet when they walk across my lawn.  And why, you might wonder, would their knees get wet if they walked across my lawn?  You’re not really wondering, are you.  Some of you have been here.

2.  I haven’t taken the huge stack of midterm exams – makeup version – to the Testing Center yet, but I’ll do that tomorrow afternoon.  Pig-genre Flu has taken its toll on my students.

3.  I haven’t washed the fifteen bread pans I used this afternoon yet.  I didn’t even know I owned fifteen bread pans, but I guess I do.  Spread out all over the stovetop and counters as they are, a casual observer might guess that I owned a hundred bread pans.  The dishwasher won’t hold them all, that’s for sure.

4.  I haven’t loaded my Christmas music into my cd jukebox yet, but I’m thinking about it.  I always try to wait until after Halloween, at least, but I do love me some purty Christmas music.  If my mention of this fact has offended anyone, suck it up.  People who take offense at other people’s celebrations make me tired.

5.  I still haven’t stopped humming awesome Beatles’ songs; I’ve been a fan since sixth grade and since I saw “1964″ a couple of weeks ago, the obsession has surfaced again.  (Thank you so very much, Smaller Indiana!!!!)

6.  There are leftovers in my refrigerator that have almost achieved the “science project” level.  I haven’t cleaned it out in a while.  Perhaps I should do that tomorrow.  Yes, tomorrow.  The sun’ll come out tomorrow.  I’ll think about that tomorrow.

7.  In my head, I’m still at Blog World Expo in Vegas.  I haven’t really come home yet.  I mean, I’m home, and back to work, but I’m not entirely here.  Note: this is NOT the same thing as “She ain’t all there.”  Although, there has been some doubt for some time. . . . .

8.  Whenever I use an ordinary trash bag, I see gnats – or worse.  When I use a Repellem trash bag, there are NO bugs to be seen anywhere in the house.  They even take care of the ladybug beetles, which is nothing short of extraordinary for southern Indiana.  I need to order some more Repellem bags.  I haven’t done that for a while.

9.  I still hate Pentax.  Haven’t come down from the shoddy treatment yet.

10.  It’s nearly three a.m. and I have to get up in a few hours.  I always do this on Sunday nights.  When will I ever learn?  Probably never, that’s when.

And now, Carly Simon has begun to sing “bedroom songs, ” so maybe that’s where I’d best go.

Goodnight, dear Blogosphere.

Did you ever “sort of” know someone and wish you could be friends?  I ran into a lady today and she invited me to lunch on Friday, and I’m so excited, my earlobes itch.  How junior high is that?  Well, I’m here to tell you something you already knew:  in many ways, we never outgrow junior high.

The world is full of lovely people, and I truly believe that if we open our eyes and ears and hearts to others, they will respond.  Well, most of them, anyway.  There are some people you can’t kill with a meat axe.

Tomorrow is my last day to sleep until just before my husband gets home from work to sleep in, and I intend to take full advantage of it. My teaching schedule is full, full, full, and this is a wonderful thing indeed. Normal people – whatever THAT is – get up in the morning, and soon I will be getting up at 6:30 and doing a lot of whining about it even while I’m grateful.  I’ll be teaching most of every day, and nights until 9:00.  I like to be busy; it keeps me off the streets.  Our creditors are also glad.

You and I both know that someone will phone me early in the morning.    Twas ever thus.

Listening to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Celebration.

Invested in new washcloths today.  I lead a thrilling life.

I need to get out the Sevin.  My poor tomatoes and rosebushes look like green lace.  Stupid bugs.  Why can’t they eat the weeds?

I’ve got the blog conference withdrawal blues.  Ain’t nothing gonna make me content except another conference.  It’s an addiction; I must be humored in every way.

And now, I’m off to do important things.  You know, like harvest some more cotton and stuff.  Oh, and laundry.  And ice cream.  It’s sugar-free, so it doesn’t count, right?

Saturday afternoon, and I’m finally awake.

Today, it took about two hours.

When I got home at 4-ish today, I was finished.  The semester is over and I’ve got some free time.  I thought at first about taking a nap, but the phone kept ringing.  Then I thought about mopping the kitchen floor, but by the time I stopped laughing, the notion had passed.

The point is, if I might drag a point in by the hind legs, that I can stay up late now because I can sleep late now.  Of course, I always stayed up late, but I had to get up early, and the combination was beginning to wear me down.  It can’t be old age, so I figure it must have something to do with those footprints on the moon.

I only know that I used to make fun of people who took naps, and lately I’ve become one of those people.  I still laugh at them, and at myself most of all, but, well, there you have it.

Those moonprints have made me weird.  I was normal, once.

Hahahahahahahaha, did you fall for that?  I was NEVER normal.

Nor did I ever wish to be.

Back in the middle school,  the 6th grade girls used to have backpacks that looked like dead animals with their front paws wrapped around the students’ necks.  Watching them walking up and down the halls,  animal backpacks clinging desperately to their backs, looked a lot like one of those weird science fiction stories wherein the human race was enslaved by equine aliens, and made to serve as packhorses.

I always loved to walk around the track when the weather was nice; I usually managed about five miles each time, so I’m not exactly anybody’s idea of athletic.  Now, though, we’ve joined a gym.  Tonight was the first time. My too-frequently-used excuse of “I can’t do it tonight; it’s too cold/rainy/crowded/dark/whatever” is no longer valid.  The gym is open 24/7/365.

I love it.

With a little luck, maybe I’ll get a few more pounds off my very poundful self.  Or at least firm that jello up a little.

Jello that isn’t firm is just, well, Kool-aid.

Jiggly-ball was funny on Scrubs, but in real life, it’s just butt-ugly.  Those sneakers still feel really, really huge and heavy.  And a gym that’s still open at 3 a.m. is an omen:  it was time.