Morning Ritual

Carlos wakes up at 7AM.  Without an alarm clock.  I don't know how he does it - the only time I have witnessed him oversleep is when he has been ill.  I don't wake up then.  I mean, I hear him, but burrow back underneath the covers until 7:45AM or so when he comes to say goodbye and then leaves for work.  I am awake then, but still refusing to leave the bed.  I stay there until about 8:30AM.  The only reason I get up is because I'm having nightmares again, and I know if I stay in bed they will stay in my head.

After being off my thyroid medicine for a month and being put back on it a few days ago, I feel 100% sure that these nightmares are drug induced.  They are the sort of dreams that would be called delusions if they occurred while I was awake.  I wake up mumbling to Carlos about dinosaurs or floods or my brother wearing a Victorian suit, complete with top hat (he actually has the top hat, I think it was our grandfather's).  If engineering doesn't work out for me, I'm sure I would have a profitable fiction career based on these dreams.  But they are not just dreams, they are nightmares.  Nightmares are dreams whose effects linger throughout the day.

After I get out of bed I make some tea and get dressed and get on the computer.  Everything is fine and normal until about 9:50AM.  There may be a 10AM blackout.  So I finish my downloads. complete important correspondence, warn who ever I am talking to that I may disappear at soon.  But at 10AM everything is fine.  Then 10:01AM.  10:02AM.  10:03AM.  We're safe for now, I can consider doing laundry.  10:04AM.  Then the beeping starts.  The power is out (for some reason something in the neighbor's house starts beeping when there is no power).  It will return at 1PM.  Until then I really can't do much.  I need to find matches if I want to light the stove.  Laundry is out of the question.  I can wash dishes.  Or I can read.  Or write thank you notes.  Or see if we need anything at the market.  Or take a walk in the cemetery.

Sometimes it is 10:06AM and we still have power.  Phew.  I can cook lunch.  I can bake bread.  I can do laundry.  I can download lectures from the London School of Economics to listen to during the day (my new favorite educational podcast to listen to, though This American Life will never be dethroned).  And at 12:55PM, I do the same thing I did three hours earlier, seeing if the 1PM blackout will blanket the neighborhood.

And then it is no longer a morning ritual.