Picture a zombie from any zombie movie you’ve ever seen.  A slow, lumbering creature moaning pitifully, arms stretched outward for balance, glazed-over expression on their face.  They say zombies are like this because they are dead, but I have a different theory.  I think they are like this because they have to get up at 5:30AM for work.

That’s me in the mornings.  Doesn’t matter what time I went to bed the night before, or how much sleep I got.  I could have been asleep for days, but I’d still be a zombie if my awakening were to occur any time before noon.  I’ve always been that way, and I don’t know that it will ever change.  Very simply, it’s who I am.

People that are bright and cheery in the early mornings annoy me, and I’m both envious and put off at the same time.  I don’t know how anyone could possibly find anything to be cheerful about with only a handful of brain cells activated.  Perhaps they’re chemically altered with coffee or soda pop.  Those things simply don’t work for me.   Certainly, cheerfulness cannot be a normal state in the early morn.  It is inhuman.  Inhuman I say!

I recently agreed to take the morning shift at work.  I’m fine with it, actually, because the carrot was getting my weekends off.  That’s a nice thing; it makes me feel normal, in a way.  In order to achieve this morning shift however, I must somehow coax my warm, comfortable, and perfectly happy self out of bed at the ungodly hour of 5:30AM.  This is because I am a shower-taker and a breakfast-eater.  I could probably gain another half-hour or so of blissful sleep otherwise, but my body is conditioned to food at the onset of my day, and a shower is the only thing capable of semi-waking me up.  Because of the shower-taking and breakfast-eating, I lose roughly 15-20 minutes of beloved sleep.  I also must spend an additional 10-15 minutes wandering about it a dazed stupor.  These things are necessary to achieve the proper amount of wakefulness needed to drive to work and begin my day.

It’s not 100% peachy though, even then.  My job consists of sitting in my office and answering phones, which is conducive to lots of head-nodding and eye-rubbing.  Don’t misunderstand:  I like my job and I’m ever grateful for the opportunity, I simply have a hard time adjusting to life before noon.

As the wise and noble Garfield (the cat) once said:  “Mornings would be great if they came later in the day.”  I’m a firm subscriber to this way of thinking.  It’s unnatural to be awake before the sun comes up.  For primitive man, it could have meant life or death.  No one wants to get eaten by a saber-tooth tiger whilst stumbling about in the dark, especially before morning coffee.  Take a lesson from our ancestors, and remember that more sleep is always a good thing.  Oh, and if you see an unkempt creature with wrinkled clothing, messy hair, purple eye bags and a pale complexion, lumbering along with a blank expression of abject misery, it’s either Amy Winehouse, or just me, on my way to start my day.

Writing this blog has been frustrating for me lately.  It’s not that I can’t come up with material or anything, it’s simply the fact that I’m too wordy.  I can’t fit what I want to say in my limited space.

Since I’ve had this blog, I’ve tracked my readership pretty thoroughly.  I’ve discovered that blogs need to be easily digestible and written in small chunks of 300 to 500 words.  Any less, and it’s not really a blog, it’s a tweet.  Any more, and people won’t read it.  I tend to get the most and the best quality comments on posts that average about 500 words, and so I’ve accepted this as the formula to which I need to adhere.

You may advise that I should just write what I write, and forget whether anyone reads it or not, but I don’t feel that way.  I want people to read my blog and I want people to comment on it.  I live for those little comments at the end, and I’m quite delighted when my e-mail informs me of a new one.  Call me vain, I guess.  Or needy.  Either way, I love blogging and I love the attention I get when people read it.  Makes me feel noticed.

I’m a wordy person though.  I can’t simply get my thoughts or feelings out in a few sparse sentences.  I need paragraphs and paragraphs and pages and pages to get my points across.  I can’t help it; I’ve always been that way.  In school, when all the other kids used to whine about the essay the teacher assigned, I was already passing 1,000 words minutes later.  I could never keep myself in check when it came to volume.  I suspect I never really will.

Today I wrote a comment on a friend’s blog that had already passed 1,000 words before I even got into the meat of what I wanted to say.  A comment!  When I noticed what was going on, I deleted it and left a small explanation.  The topic was just too much for a few words, and I needed many!  I’d love to address her post, but I feel that I can’t give it due credit in a comment.  Even writing my own blog about it would require several posts on my part.  So much to say, and so little space!

That’s my frustration.  I’m being limited by my own rules.  Keeping it down to manageable length is hard, but if I want anyone to actually read it, it’s necessary.  I’ve considered exploring the option of multiple parts, like a series.  I may still do that for heady topics, like the one I have planned on religion, but for now I’ll just try to keep them short.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?  Perhaps if my blog ever gets popular, and I develop a solid readership, I can expand my posts somewhat more.  I note that many of my fellow bloggers tend to write much longer posts, but they’ve got the fans to back it up.  We’ll see.

PS.  This post weighs in at exactly 515 words.  D’oh!

I got ready and went to work an hour early today by accident.  You’d think that this would be a rare, stupid thing, but I actually do it more than I’d like to admit.  The scary thing is, I don’t really know why.  I just recall sitting at home, probably goofing around on Facebook or something, and glancing in the general direction of the clock.  I probably noted the time, but didn’t give it any real thought.  Thus for some reason I felt compelled to get dressed, pack up a lunch, and drive to work.  Exactly one hour early.  Weirdness.

That reminds me:  Do you ever look at your watch or phone or clock to note the time, sometimes even repeatedly, and still not know what time it is?  I do that a lot too.

Work is still going well, as far as I can tell.  Sometimes I feel a little out of the loop though, considering I’m kinda at the social center of the hotel, being the fist point of contact for anyone calling in, and being that my office is literally right next to the time clock where every employee clocks in and out.  You’d think I’d feel like “one of the gang”, but I don’t.  I’m still a temp, and for some reason that makes me feel like an outsider.  I’ve been training new front desk employees on the PBX system lately, which makes me feel special and important, but I still don’t seem to fit in.  Maybe it’s just my perception.  Everyone here seems to genuinely like me, which a curious thing.  They also think I’m in my late 20s, which highly amuses me (and brings an instant smile to my face.)  There are a couple of cute girls that work in the spa who sometimes come and visit me on breaks or during their lunch, just to chat and be friendly.  One of the managers told me the other day: “Every time I walk by here, there are girls in this office!”  To which I respond, “hey, what can I say?  That’s why they call me ‘The Operator’!”

In truth, the call me the Operator because I answer the phones.  I guess you had to be there, but trust me, it’s funny.

Fall is almost here.  I can feel it in the air, and I can see it on the leaves that adorn the trees.  Especially here in Park City, which is at a higher elevation than Salt Lake; the scenery is becoming fantastic.  I love Fall so much.  I think there should be a whole planet where it’s Fall all the time, so I could move there.  “Planet Fall”, I’d call it.  There’s a crispness and a charge in the air, and Halloween (my favorite holiday) is fast approaching.  Last year I went to Vegas, but this year finances may not be in order, so I need something to do.  The charity club I belong to is having a party, but this being Utah, it’s going to have “family friendly” activities.  This is Halloween!  Who wants “family friendly?”  I’m up for some debauchery.  Anyway, Fall is almost here and it makes me giddy.  Just so you know.

Well then.  I’m over 500 words already, so it’s time to go.  Type at ‘cha again soon.

I.

I don’t know who Jon and Kate are, but they are driving me mad.  Yes, I know that I could google them and find out, but I honestly don’t care enough to do so.  Jon hates Kate, Kate hates Jon, they both hate together… who cares?  I imagine that they are some overnight celebrity couple who won fame on a game show or some reality TV nonsense, but I could be wrong.  Regardless, I would try to ignore them except they keep popping up on my Internets almost daily.  Every time I try to read up on my news, regardless of whatever web site I use, Jon and Kate jump out specifically to annoy me.  Stop it already!  Nobody (and by nobody, I mean me) cares about either one of you.  Please fade away into obscurity where you belong.

II.

I have State Farm insurance.  I’ve had them for more than 20 years, and I’ve loved the low rates and helpful agents the whole time, but for the LOVE OF GOD, fix your website!  State Farm has the most asinine security system possible, and it has once again locked me out for failing to answer stupid questions three times.  The worst part is, I KNOW I gave the correct answers to the stupid questions.  I’ve been using those SAME correct answers for a number of years now, but for some reason, this time DoucheBot didn’t like them, and subsequently locked me out.  I did possibly want to pay my bill, but I’m feeling more ambivalent to that possibility now that I have to jump through hoops to get my account reinstated.  Here’s a hint, State Farm:  Technology is supposed to make things EASIER, not more aggravating.

III.

Got into a fun little debate on Facebook today about Obama’s speech to the kiddies this morning.  I read the full text of the speech, and I applaud it heartily for its good message and its relevancy.  What annoys me are the parents that are having fits over it.  I understand that as parents, you need to know exactly the type of information your kids are being exposed to as school.  That is important, and I agree with you.  However, don’t dismiss what the President has to say simply because your own personal politics give you some sort of grudge against him.  Your kids are not your politics, and no matter how much you hate Democrats or hate Obama or hate Liberals, that doesn’t give you the excuse to use your children as a personal political shield.

The parents that are going batshit insane over this are, by and large, residents of areas that voted Conservative in the polls last November.  This isn’t me saying that either, it’s the news agencies reporting it.  What this says to me is that people are bitter about having their conservative representatives lose the election, and they see this as a way to make noise.  I’m sorry if your conservative values don’t jibe with the way our country needs to be run, but don’t deny supportive and encouraging information to your kids because of it.

Could you imagine Sarah Palin making an address to school children?  It would probably involve prayer hour and Jesus riding dinosaurs to school as a little boy.  No thanks, I’ll stick with the Liberal views this particular time.  The best thing for you upset parents to do is talk to your kids when they get home and ask them what they thought of the President and his speech.  Use this as a teachable opportunity, not a political platform for your opinions.