I am still annoyed by life. The start to 2024 has not been the best, but it hasn’t been the worst, either. I wrote yesterday about how the small things seem much worse because I can’t actually talk to a human being. Let me talk to a real human, and I’m much more patient–even if things go south.
For example. My phone. My annoyance that it wasn’t working was outsized because I couldn’t actually talk to someone. I talked to an AI and did the best I could with the limited choices I was given. They gave me an appointment for between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Which, I mean, that’s not really an appointment time, is it?
The day they were supposed to come, I got up at 7:30 a.m. Not two minutes later, I get a message from CenturyLink that my appointment will be between 1:40 p.m. and 5:40 p.m. I could have slept an extra two hours if I had known this the night before! But, no. They set the schedule in the morning, so I had to wake up at an ungodly hour for me just in case I was the first appointment.
Side note: Can we please put to rest for good the notion that people who are night owls are lazy? I have tried to adjust my sleep schedule, and I cannot go to bed before one or two in the morning for the life of me*.
I have tried. And I have tried. I have told myself sternly to go to bed earlier. I have pushed it back in increments. I was going to wake up an hour earlier every day until the appointment day. Yeah, that didn’t happen. I just set the alarm for 7:30 a.m. and went to bed at 1 a.m. I did not fall asleep until after 1:30 a.m., and I did not sleep well.
That’s the other issue when I have to get up at any given time. I just can’t sleep well. I wake up every few hours or don’t really sleep. I nearly slept through my alarm. I woke up to NPR talking about whatever, and that was really bizarre. Not that th e person from NPR was talking–that’s what NPR does. They talk. But because I was only half awake and thought it was something happening in real life. I mean, in my actual home and not just the radio. Yes, I still use a radio alarm. I’m old school like that. It’s worked for over three decades, and I’m using it until it actually breaks.