I never take off my pajamas.
April 8th, 2009 | by TJ |Well, Internet, aside from the pile of laundry that absolutely never diminishes due to trying to use the washer and dryer only on off peak electric hours and the fact that we go to bed right at the start of those hours on weeknight, I think I have mostly settled in to a routine here in Arizona. I’m even working now.
Let me tell you a bit about how my day goes.
4:30 or 5:00am: Phil’s alarm goes off. He shuts it off quickly and usually attempts to quietly remove himself from bed without waking me.
5:03am: Most times unbeknownst to him, I have been awake for 10 or 15 minutes. I lay still, wait for the exact right moment, and say “Heeelllllloooooo!!”
5:04am: Phil leaves the room. He does not wake up well. I do. This is a point of contention.
5:10am: After checking my computer for work and required revisions, I follow Phil downstairs to grab some coffee. He is rather disgruntled, his natural morning state.
5:11am: I bounce across the kitchen hollering “Attack girlfriend!” And then I attack. This does little to help the disgruntlement.
5:13am: Phil and I sit outside in the dark having our morning coffee and cigarette. I talk and talk and talk, wide awake. Phil grunts.
5:20am: We head to our respective computers for a while. I do a bit of work, Phil sits behind me with his second cup of coffee, somewhat, but not completely, gruntled.
6:.. something-isham: I’ve completely tuned out to what is going on around me by this point, so somewhere around this time, Phil appears freshly showered and shaved and ready to get into his uniform. Depending upon my absorption into my work, he may once against suffer a vicious attack. It usually involves a full force body slam of some sort. I’m not pleasant to live with.
6:30am-ish?: Again, I’ve stopped paying attention to time. I have nowhere to be. We head downstairs for another coffee and cigarette. I am still talking. He has started to respond like a normal human being. I drag my WiiFit downstairs and he leaves for work.
7:00am: HULA HOOP. HULA HOOP. HULA HOOP. Fuck you, too, yoga, with your deceptively easy appearance. Ski jump!
8:00am: I settle down at my computer to work for the day. In my pajamas. At my house. I’m now one of those people I hate.
9:00am: Work, work, work, work. Watch some YouTube. Giggle.
10:00am: Work, work, work. Practice some Guitar Hero.
11:00am: Work, work, work… premature ejaculation, hemorrhoids, make money online, these are the things on which I am now an expert.
12:00pm: I hold a long conversation with the dog. He doesn’t respond. I believe he is disgruntled.
1:00pm: Kick work into high gear, stop screwing around as much. Check feed reader only after writing whole paragraphs instead of after each full sentence.
2:00pm: Take 47th smoke break of the day. Check to see if the dog is feeling any more friendly. He is not. Wonder what human contact is like.
3:00pm: Realize that Phil will be coming home shortly. Text him to ask what he wants for dinner, develop serious intentions to shower, dress and start dinner before he arrives home.
4:15pm: Phil appears at the door to the office. I look like a straight up bum. If he is lucky, I’ve exchanged my pajamas pants for jeans. If I’m feelin’ real fancy-like, I may even have brushed my hair.
5:00pm: Phil and I cook dinner. I force him to eat it no matter the results. So far, he is still alive. Sometimes I request that we walk around the block to get the mail from the box. Once outside, I run around the drive way yelling, “I’m out! I’m outside the house!” One of these days, the neighbors are going to have Phil arrested on suspicion that he is hiding a prisoner or something.
6:00pm: Sitting with our backs to each other in the office. Having promised to treat my writing as I would a “real job,” I should have, in theory, stopped working at this point. I work while he is at work and then we spend our evenings together. I continually write “just one more article,” however. Hey. The same room IS together.
6:30pm: Phil plays some kind of obnoxious video game on the Xbox. The sound of it makes me want to stab myself in the ears.
7:00pm: Some kind of merciless competition takes place. Sometimes Guitar Hero, sometimes Settlers or Cataan.
7:30pm: I attempt to watch a video on YouTube. Phil decides several minutes later that he would also like to watch a video on YouTube. He finds it hard to hear, what with my video already playing. So he cranks the volume on his.
7:31pm: Phil is violently attacked. Sometimes with sarcasm, sometimes with physical force.
8:00pm: I have been talking since Phil walked in the door and am slowly winding down.
8:05pm: We decide to watch some television. Phil struggles with getting the Xbox to stream some mysteriously obtained [ahem] movies and TV shows to the television. This absorbs him and he eventually forgets that I am waiting to watch a show. He turns to his computer to struggle with it and forgets I exist. The Xbox works sometimes, sometimes not. I believe it is disgruntled.
8:45pm: I give up waiting and finally get around to taking a shower.
9:00pm: Bedtime. By the time I have brushed my teeth, Phil is out cold. I watch medical examiner or true crime shows until I fall asleep. I occasionally give a running commentary to Phil on the shows I watch. Even when he is asleep, I do not stop speaking to him.
No wonder he is disgruntled.
By Awlbiste on Apr 8, 2009
Oh god. /dies laughing The question is, does Phil dream about true crime or medical examiner shows? Please answer Phil!
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By Bernie on Apr 8, 2009
I also wake up well. Must be due to working 6 hour watches on the boat for so many years. I find that most people are wary of people who wake up and are ready to be fully functional human beings.
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By Gauntlet on Apr 8, 2009
My wife wakes up well. I do not, usually, unless it is after 9 am and I got to sleep by midnight.
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By Vronak on Apr 8, 2009
TJ, I must have missed a post. You got a job?! What do you do now?
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By TJ on Apr 8, 2009
@Vronak: It’s all there in the post, you didn’t miss anything.
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By T-Sonn on Apr 8, 2009
Grats, TJ – where are you picking up your freelancing gigs? I’ve signed up for a couple of bid sites, but so far, I haven’t had the sack to pitch for any.
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By ed on Apr 8, 2009
thats great! when my mother in law and i are driving into work, she likes to talk too. sadly all i can do at 6 am is grunt.
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By Laura on Apr 8, 2009
Sounds like my kinda day, TJ.
People are lucky to see me dressed in actual clothes before 3 pm. If they are lucky. Most of the time I just stay in ‘em and say “Fuck it”.
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By Phil on Apr 8, 2009
@Awlbiste I rarely remember my dreams, so I am not sure of what I have been dreaming about. I am guessing it’s probably better that way in this case. I really don’t want to remember being chased by an axe murderer in my dreams.
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By Klinderas on Apr 8, 2009
From the sound of it, I wake up about as well as Phil does, more often than not.
If sympathy was a physical thing, I’d mail it, but no dice.
SOL, I’m afraid you are, yeeeEEEEeees…
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By Shianti on Apr 8, 2009
I know someone who wakes up very much like Phil. He told me the first morning we woke up together…”I have a routine. It is not very social.” Even when I woke him up with glee to go to Disney, there was not a lot of response from him, until at least the second Diet Coke. :p
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By Sargeras on Apr 8, 2009
“Kick work into high gear, stop screwing around as much. Check feed reader only after writing whole paragraphs instead of after each full sentence.”
I am way more familiar with this style of working than I should be.
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By Bernie on Apr 9, 2009
Before long you’ll be tanning!
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By Bellwether on Apr 9, 2009
XD Nice, TJ
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By Capn John on Apr 9, 2009
My wife and I are the reverse. I rise at 4:45ish, bright & early & bushy-tailed, with said tail being torn out by the roots if I dare disturb her before her body thinks it should be awake. I used to get most of my WoWing in on the weekends before she got up, because while she’d often come in and sit down on her PC, sooner or later she’d leap up and say, “Let’s do something! Right now!”
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By Kailen on Apr 9, 2009
I am deeply amused by you running around outside and yelling.
While I don’t yell outside, I often screech at family / friends while in the grocery store. (Usually I have to screech “ON SALE. ON SALE.” to justify buying something extra.)
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By Palladiamors on Apr 10, 2009
I am greatly amused. *LAUGHS* I came here from a link from Daniels new blog. That was just great. “Attack girlfriend!”
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