Tuesday, October 05, 2010

The Worst Part Is the Keeping Quiet

At 3AM? Seattle is silent.

The first Community Transit bus does not show up to the courthouse until 5:30AM, or so. Which is why my alarm is set for 5:25. I hate that deet deet deet deet of the bus, it's way too fast-paced to wake up to, and you can hear it from pretty much anywhere in my apartment.

But at 3AM? On a Tuesday, mind? There isn't even a hum from the I-5.

Unfortunately, the uber silence makes even my getting up to pee sound like a cacophony, so instead I just lie there, hoping that whatever started me awake, FULLY awake, would let me go back to sleep for another two hours and 25 minutes.

Did. Not. Happen.

Too dark to read, too dark to write, too quiet to turn on my lappy, and too damned awake to go back to sleep. I wish I could wax poetic about how the city of Seattle wakes up; the echoing sounds of hard heels on the concrete, the hustle and bustle of the service folks runny to and fro and here and there...but I live at the edge of South Lake Union, my apartment overlooks the federal courthouse...when this place gets going? It's all at once, you know at around 5:30 when the first bus discharges 20 to 30 people at a time (they are HUGE double-long monstrosities) and all of a sudden there are engines and bells and whistles and people everywhere.

Which was finally my signal to get up and start the day as well, instead of playing tag with my snooze bar as I tend to do, daily, when I am allowed to sleep more than 5 hours.

Dude! FIVE HOURS. I know, a luxury to some, but I know me, and we are not happy with less than six. One, MEASLY hour...and yet its the difference between my being able to take what the world flings toward me...and my biting you, hard, because I can.

Yes, I will not lie, I'm fully cognizant of the fact that I am always only a few hours of sleep and a meal away from being one of the, um, odd folks on the streets of Seattle, but as GI Joe taught me, knowing is half the battle.

At least I have a load of laundry going in the dryer and it isn't even 7:30AM.