03/31/01 06:51 AM: I fell asleep at 10:00

I fell asleep at 10:00 or so last night. That’s pretty early for me. Then again, didn’t get around to the whole sleep thing until about 3:00 AM the night before. I guess that was just evening things out. Anyway, my alarm went off at 6:00 this morning, like it always does. I usually get up, turn it off, and go back to sleep on weekends without ever really waking up. I mean, I do wake up, but does it really count when you’re sound asleep again fifteen seconds later? Well, I was about to do the same thing this morning. Then I realized that I had already slept for eight hours, possibly more. Sleeping for more than that is really just a waste of time. Your body won’t be any better off for it. So I said, “What the hell, I’m already up. I might as well ‘get’ up.” Well, I didn’t really say it, but I thought it. I talk to myself excessively, so thinking/talking is a big grey area. By the way, doesn’t “grey” look much nicer than “gray,” “colour” much nicer than “color,” “theatre” much nicer than “theater?” Not that I’m an Anglophile, but they just seem more aesthetically pleasing. So anyway, instead of laying back down and going to sleep, I sat up and read a book. I felt pretty good, like I was doing something instead of wasting the day sleeping. After a while, I noticed a noise. No, not a noise. A car backfiring is a noise. This was a sound. It was a crow cawing. I don’t know if that was some sort of “start” signal or if I just hadn’t been paying attention before, but that was followed by the songs of several other kinds of birds. I don’t know anything about birds, and I couldn’t tell you what species they were. But I can tell you that it was quite a symphony. It made me glad that I hadn’t just rolled over and slipped back into dreamland. I never remember my dreams anyway, so that’s no fun. I usually listen to something like Unearth or In Flames in the morning, mostly because they’re so good, but partly to wake me up. But those birds do a better job of making me want to get up than even the heaviest power metal. I had never noticed the birds during the week while I got ready for school. There is the possibility that these are only weekend birds, but it’s more likely that I was so caught up in my routine that I never had time to notice nature’s music right outside my window. What a shame. I went outside and listened to the birds for a while, trying to make up for all the time I had missed. Despite the 28 degree temperature, I felt warm.

Kevin Peliusczak