Night Owl

My days and nights are a bit turned around. Kind of an understatement. I've slipped into a deal where I'm going to sleep between 4:00am and 6:00am...sometimes later. I'm okay with that. This is actually what my body has always preferred. I used to be like this in college. And even while I was working, as soon as the weekends came around, I'd be back to staying up all night. It wasn't until the last few months of my now-previous job that my body went normal on me, and even though I'd still be up late (not this late, but late), I'd still be getting up around 6:30am, and my body wouldn't let me sleep much past 8:00am even on the weekends. That's all reversed again. I think I'm still trying to deal with that.

The problem has been that it's made me unproductive. My recent heart issues aside, the ones that kept me in bed a lot, the problem was that my mind couldn't catch up to what my body was doing. I'd feel the "I need to go to bed so I can get up early and be productive" guilt, so any work I was doing--writing, whatever--would stop around midnight or 1:00am and I'd start "winding down". This would involve convincing myself I was on my way to bed, but it would usually result in distractions or busywork that will still keep me from sleep until sometime before sunrise.

Now feeling a bit better on the heart front (fingers crossed) and wanting to produce more again, I'm trying to embrace the night owl within and get things done late night. It's a good time for it. Fewer distractions, more quiet. And, best of all, the weather has finally gotten more spring-like so it's much easier and more pleasurable to be out on my patio in the dark of night, either writing or reading on my laptop. I prefer the patio seat for the less-distraction reason, too. I'm more focused out here.

Usually.

You would think a fellow could expect to come outside on a Thursday night at 2:30 in the morning and expect a little peace and quiet, right?

Enter College-Girl-With-Issues.

She's a relatively new neighbor. She lives one building over, across the pool from me, and upstairs. I started seeing her and her friends and her boyfriend out on her balcony, which is how I knew I had new neighbors. That was cool. As I've said before, I live in pretty middle-aged complex, so it's nice to see a little youth around to mix things up. I don't mind the occasional loud party or gaggle of college folk walking by, yammering loudly, on their way to her place. Reminds me of college time, and that's always a good thing.

However, the problem has now become that she seems to keep the same hours I do.

And she has issues.

Ones she apparently doesn't mind advertising.

Case in point - tonight. I got out here around 2:00am, ready to get a little something done. A little reading is what I wanted to start with. And I did. And then I heard a car pull up. She and her boyfriend came walking by. Okay, fine. But within minutes of getting in the door, she was back outside. On her cell phone. Bitching. Loudly. And walking back and forth around this side of the complex as she did so.

So since I gave up trying to concentrate, I figured I'd just write a few words about her, as she seems to want to want to be my inspiration.

Fact: She's mad at her father. She's making this clear to whoever she's talking to. She puts up with his crap because she's "daddy's girl" and that's what's expected of her. Daddy just doesn't understand. Daddy also seems to be paying her bills.

Fact: She works at Leatherby's Ice Cream. Daddy thinks she was only able to get that job because her friends working there got it for her. Which sounds like it's the case.

Fact: Daddy doesn't like her boyfriend. This is interesting that this is problem for her, because from what I've heard (and I've heard it several times, coming from her place), she doesn't seem to thrilled with her boyfriend either. I've heard them fighting before. In one particular drunken yelling match that involved things being knocked over, she threatened to call the cops on him, and he said to go ahead, because she's the one with the DUI, so she'd be the one to get in trouble. And for some reason, she seemed to have believed this. I've heard her crying outside on her steps. And I've been saddened at the fact that I've lost all sympathy over the years for girls in situations like that, because every time I've tried to help in some way (once calling the cops when a couple upstairs was getting physical), I've ended up getting screwed over for it, and I've ended up being the bad guy in the girl's eyes, and the girl has remained with the guy. She's with an obnoxious, loud moron, and, psychological analysis side, she is because she chooses to be. It bothers me that I've become this jaded about something I was once sympathetic about.

Fact: Her boyfriend is living there with her paying all the bills. Color me shocked.

Fact: Her phone call ended and she went back inside to her boyfriend, and they began fighting again. With the windows open. She used the words "Why don't you just leave, then?", and the answer is obvious. He won't, because he knows it's an empty implied threat. He also appears to not like her father. Who's paying the bills at the apartment where he's freeloading.

Fact: The fighting seems to have gone quiet, so unless the sounds of desperate make-up sex begin sounding across the pool, I'm going to try to go back to reading now.

Fact: I'm getting old, aren't I?