Prompt Service #2: Nite Owl

Another blog entry taken from my book of writing prompts.  It's a pretty simple question:  are you a night owl or a morning person?  You can probably guess what Grumpy Bulldog's answer would be...

You might guess neither one, which is wrong.  Your second guess would probably be not a morning person, which would be right.  I've never liked getting up in the morning.  Even when I was a kid and we had to get up at 6-6:30am, I didn't really want to get up.

But it wasn't until college that I actually got to be a night owl.  The first year and change from November 1996-February 1998 I worked at Burger King part time from 11am-7pm a couple days a week.  And I had college classes fit in there, though I don't think any really started until 9 or 10ish.  So instead of having to go to bed at 11ish like in high school, I could stay up later.

In a house of six people that wasn't all that big, midnight-2 or 3am was about the only time I could be alone, so it was pretty nice.  Though I wasn't entirely alone; I'd usually let my brother's dog Candy out to keep me company.  It was probably nice for her to get away from her annoying spawn Buster for a couple of hours.

I'd like to say I used the time to write a Great American Novel or something, but mostly I fought flame wars on the Transformers newsgroup, worked on my own crappy website, and wrote Transformers fanfics.

In the summer of 1998 I got a co-op job with a bookkeeping firm.  I worked there most afternoons and had more morning classes, so I couldn't necessarily stay up so late.

When I got my own apartment in 2000, I'd stay up on Saturday nights sometimes until 5am.  And again I'd like to say it was something worthwhile writing-wise or dating or something, but mostly I was watching Syfy's The Invisible Man and Earth: Final Conflict on the local CBS station.  One night for no reason I stayed up all the way until like 8am just so I could say I stayed up for 24 hours straight one time.  Without cable, I had to watch local TV, which wasn't great and I cleaned up and did some reading to stay awake.

After that I'd stay up late on Saturdays but not really that late.  Maybe 3am at the latest.  When I was on the road in 2014 I usually didn't stay up really late because I'd have to check out of the motel before noon, which meant I'd have to get up by 9am, if not earlier.  Most motel breakfasts close at 10-10:30 so that was another reason to get up earlier.

After that when I was unemployed sometimes I might stay up really late until 3-4am and not get up until noon or 1pm.  Not all the time, but sometimes.  When I got a job again obviously I had to go back to only staying up later on Fridays and Saturdays, though as I get older, I don't necessarily stay up until 3-4am all that often.

You might think during the lockdown I'd be sleeping in a lot, but I really don't.  I usually go to bed at 2-2:30am at the latest and get up between 9-10am.  If I survive and get back to work, I'll probably be disappointed I didn't sleep in more.

A couple of times I'd sleep for a couple of hours and then I'd wake up and couldn't get back to sleep for an hour or two before going back to sleep for a few hours.

So anyway, that's my sleep history if you really want to know.