Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Daylight discombobulation time

This spring forward business just kills me.

Let me begin by saying I am a huge fan of daylight saving time. I am massively affected by light, and every single drop that gets added to the end of the day, when I can really enjoy it, helps me immensely. I look forward to turning the clock forward, and I do a little dance realizing how late it will stay light.

That said, it always leaves me cracked out.

Or what I imagine cracked out might be like. Or maybe not cracked out, because that's when you're on crack, right? So that probably feels good, which would be why you'd keep doing crack. Maybe post-cracked out?

The closest I can imagine is coming down off of the sugar rush of having eaten an entire pound bag of M&Ms. Kind of shaky and weak and dizzy. But you'd do it again if that bag were sitting right in front of you.

In any case, it leaves me befuddled and disoriented for a good week afterwards.

I get up before I'm actually awake, and I stumble around. I get dressed and have breakfast, but I am dazed the whole time. It takes me a while of being at work, plus a good bit of coffee, to actually feel like I'm present in the world.

Over breakfast, Nick suggested that for the first week of daylight savings, people should get to spring forward and fall back.

What?

"You could fall back in the morning, so you'd get that extra hour of sleep. And then spring forward at night, to get more daylight. Wouldn't that be great?"

He was kidding. As may be clear to you.

However, me, in my dazed state, could barely process this and eat cereal at the same time. So he had to repeat it three times. Which made him think it was funnier and funnier. Because you know how painful it is to have to repeat a joke. And re-repeat it. And you always wonder if the person who isn't getting it is stupid or humorless.

So on the drive in, I emerged from my fog to say, "But what would that do to your day?"

Because by then I was wondering if everyone gets to choose their own hour in the morning to set the clock back to, and their own hour at night. Would everyone's clocks be different?

"Oh, it would be horrendous. People would be all fucked up. And the days would be 26 hours long!"

"Would they? No. You add an hour...and you take away an hour...so then it comes out even?"

Doing math when you can't use at least your fingers is not the easiest for some of us.

Suffice it to say, this time change really messes with me.

8 comments:

  1. now imagine living in south bend, indiana where they didn't even use daylight savings time until last spring. imagine how that feels.

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  2. It will probably not surprise you at all to learn that I am the same way about daylight. And I am exhaustedly, fumblingly, torpidly ecstatic that we get more sunlight at the end of the day, too.

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  3. Last nights power outage in Columbia Heights didn't help my morning befuddlement this morning. The power was out for at least 6 hours, from just after 10pm, till sometime after 4am. It's crazy how many things start beeping when the power goes out. :-\

    blah...

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  4. As much as I like the extended daylight, there is something wrong and cruel about having to wake up when it's still dark. It's just unnatural.

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  5. Seriously Lis?

    I just left you a message on the other medium we use to stalk each other about your love for M & M's.

    I love that it is still light out when I leave work. It makes me happy. The only downside is that now in the morning it is still dark out when i am *supposed* to go to the gym.

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  6. Honestly I don't understand the "Fall Back, Spring Forward" phrase spalshed all over the news to remind you to set the clock accordingly.

    One can fall forward and spring backward. It's not intuitive. It's just not.

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  7. Mandi - That kind of winter would make me want to crawl in a hole and cry. No exaggeration.

    Dagny - "exhaustedly, fumblingly, torpidly ecstatic" is a great way to put it.

    VVK - Yikes. That's always shocking and horrible in the middle of the night. Ugh.

    Amisare - It IS cruel! Truly cruel!

    SD - Ha ha ha! That made me laugh when I saw it. But NO - the last thing we need is easier and constant access to M&Ms. Yah, morning is so hard, but night is so much better! Once it gets warmer it'll be so nice to go running in the evening! I can't wait!

    HKW - As a person who has done an inordinate amount of falling forward, I am in total agreement!

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  8. I KNOW RIGHT! What's the deal with this week! I feel like I haven't known what time it is, at all, for days. I'm off by like hours with my internal clock.

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