Here I am, writing in what I consider the 'wee' hours of the morning. The actual wee hours are when I get most of my shit done, so trust me when I tell you that eight fricking thirty o'clock is not my friend. This must be what boot camp is like. The horror.


But as a writer, you never know when the muse will strike, and mine belted me a solid one across the chops, apparently, as I lay sleeping a few minutes ago. She wasn't thoughtful enough to leave me a topic in the welt or anything, but that's not unusual. Muses are like that. Lousy shiftless mythological bitches.


Of course, the main drawback to writing so early in the morning is the same issue with doing anything before a reasonable hour like noon -- I'm likely to hurt myself. Of all the bumps, bruises, scrapes, nicks, owies, and tongues stuck in dangerous places with live electrical currents that I can remember, the vast majority have happened before I've had a chance to shake off the sleepyheads and get my wits about me.


(No, that doesn't explain the black eyes, the headaches, the swelling, the nausea, the exhaustion, or the tongues stuck in dangerous places without live electrical current.


But that's only because nighttime has the decency to include booze, chicks, and parties, to keep you entertained. Morning could learn a whole lot about 'customer service' from nighttime.)


(And who am I kidding? The last time I had my tongue stuck in anything interesting, it was when I bet the dog I could get the last Vlassic slice out of the jar without using my hands. I accidentally snorted pickle juice and a hamburger chip into my lung. She won a Milkbone. Welcome to my life, folks. Glamorous, no?)


The fact is, nothing much good ever happened between six am and noon, as far as I can tell. That's when you get out of bed, not into it. That's when you go to work, not leave it. You eat bran muffins, instead of nachos. And you wake up with that three, after you went to bed with a nine.*


(* Previous statement could be taken in a number of ways. I suggest you choose one, and stick with it. This is not a sentence to be wishy-washy with.)


For most of my adult life, I've tried to avoid mornings altogether. I treat them like a bad illness, or a conversation about 'feelings', or an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond' -- I'll just sleep blissfully through it, and somebody wake me when the fever lifts and the credits roll.


Of course, the 'day job' overlords tend to frown on that sort of thing. And -- seeing as how I need money to feed my booze and tongue salve and dill pickle habits -- I'm obligated to spend time in their dungeons at their whim. Which usually involves 'the morning'. Overlords can be very cruel, when they put their minds to it.


So here I am, up and awake and groggy like a raccoon in Ted Kennedy's trash can.


(See, that's political humor, apparently. That can't possibly be mine. I don't know how it got there; I shouldn't even be awake yet, dammit.


Mostly, it's drinking humor, really, but Ted Kennedy fell into it somehow. I'm guessing he has a lot of that sort of trouble in the mornings, too. I feel ya, Teddy.)


But I'm 'fighting the power' with this post, you see. If I have to be awake, then I might as well do something fun before slaving away at the office, right? And writing is fun, dammit. Never mind that so far, I've bumped my head on the monitor, rolled the chair over my foot, and gotten a nasty paper cut from the 'k' key -- this is still worth getting out of bed for. Barely.


Now, if I can just manage to negotiate the shower without impaling myself on the shampoo bottle, maybe I'll see you again at a decent hour. Happy morning, folks.

This morning, I was rudely and unexpectedly awakened by the shrill buzz of our doorbell. I have a very simple policy concerning unexpected doorbells: I treat them in the same way as television commercials, would-be hitchhikers, or lost children at the airport.


That is, I ignore them, and hope they go away.


I had just worked up a really good ignore and was drifting my way toward dreamland when the knock on the door came, loud:


'BAM BAM BUMP BANG BAM!'


That got my attention. The tiny sliver of attention I could muster in my drooling early morning haze, at least. I ran through the likely candidates of who might be at the door:


A neighbor? Screw 'em.


A local politician? Nah, the election's over. And anyway, screw 'em.


Jehovah's Witnesses? Screw 'em, smack 'em with a Bible, and screw 'em again.


Some contractor, coming to do some expensive bit of tinkering? Oooh... no. My wife always tells me in advance when those guys are scheduled.


"I have a very simple policy concerning unexpected doorbells: I treat them in the same way as television commercials, would-be hitchhikers, or lost children at the airport."


Speaking of which, how about my wife? She knows my 'don't ask, don't answer' doorbell policy. If she forgets her keys, she's got two options -- bang like hell on the door until I open it, or slither through the doggy door. And I'm in trouble if I'm in the house, and she has to use the doggy door. Again.


(Yeah, it happened once. I'm pretty sure we'll laugh about it together some day. But when I mention it now, I spend the night on the couch.


Too soon. Must be too soon.)


So, I figured it was my wife. I didn't figure that she'd been gone for two hours, or that if it wasn't my wife, whoever was there probably wouldn't enjoy seeing me wearing nothing but bedhead and a rumpled pair of boxer shorts. So I stumbled down to the door.


It was a contractor. He was there to check our water heater. My wife forgot to tell me about the appointment. And he did not look happy to see me.


(For the record, I didn't look that happy to see him, either.


I mean, I want the heater fixed before winter, but I made sure my boxers fly was closed, too. Even my wife doesn't want to see that.)


Eventually, the guy got the heater checked out, while I combed my hair and made myself marginally presentable. He didn't even charge me for the work when he left. He said it was 'on the house'.


Hey, whaddaya know? Maybe my fly was open when I answered the door. How you doin'?