Today was Day Two of my "Get Up in the Morning Like A Normal Person" plan. I've been a night person since I was a kid, and I'm fine with that. I do not want—nor have I ever wanted—to be a morning person. Something about morning people just after they've woken up strikes me as vaguely inhuman. Morning people don't need to do a whole lot of research before they buy an alarm clock, because they don't need to know exactly how many minutes will elapse between presses of the snooze button, or how many times total the snooze button can be pushed before the clock just gives up on you. I bet the morning people among you didn't even know that it's possible for an alarm to give up on you. That's because while I'm trying to ignore the existence of the world for an extra eight minutes (times four), you're busy making yourself a wholesome breakfast and directing lively comments towards anyone who enters the room. If you're a tolerable-variety morning person, you understand that no matter how I feel about you, your lively comments are like fingernails on the chalkboard of my caffeineless psyche. If you're an insufferable-variety morning person, you chatter incessantly despite my baleful glares, and if you're really bad, you also take a break from your monologue every ten lines or so to ask me what's wrong.

So, no. I don't want to be a morning person. Even if I did, I don't think you can change your preference if you lean heavily in either direction. I know plenty of night people who get up early every day because they have kids who get up early every day, or because they have to get to work. They can maintain this routine for years, and they'll still think it sucks. If they have a partner who isn't of the same sleep persuasion, they'll probably spend about twenty minutes each morning wondering what they did to deserve eternity with Julie Fucking Andrews.

My goals are more modest. I just want to stabilize my schedule to help fend off insomnia, start lifting weights again—I've been going to the gym, but I got lazy and stopped lifting—and gain the ability to make phone calls to the East Coast during business hours. I've decided this means I should get up at around 9:00. So far, the plan is working fine. I bet I'll like it even better when I lose the sensation that my arms are maybe about to fall off.