As Long as I’m Up

Dearest Rachel –

To be fair, I hadn’t planned for things to happen like this (gosh, that’s become a familiar refrain in my life, now, hasn’t it?). After all, I’d been up until what constituted a late hour for me – eleven o’clock, yes, now stop laughing – working on a new build that may yet require another couple of days before I can really go into detail with you about it (since I’d like to get it all assembled first, and it seems that I’m lacking a part of two at the moment); you’d think I’d be sleeping soundly until well into the morning.

Although, if by “well into the morning,” you mean four and a half hours into it, then yes, I guess so. As a rule, though, that doesn’t generally strike even me (let alone you; I remember how late you would sleep in on Saturday mornings, as I was up – in more ways than one – waiting for you plenty of times) as a reasonable hour to wake up.

At the same time, I had planned, however reluctantly, to perform my every-other-day gym routine today, presumably on my way home from the men’s Bible study. I did wonder if that would conflict with my attempt to locate the missing part to my computer build – as well as picking up breakfast for Daniel – so, as long as I was already up, I decided I might as well get myself put together and get my workout out of the way before bothering with anything else today.

But first – since the place wouldn’t be open for another whole hour – I tried to get a little more of a nap in. And I might well have gotten a half hour or so more of sleep; I can’t tell when I’m unconscious, after all.

But I was up again at five fifteen. Not exactly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but I was awake, and it would have to do. At least I didn’t have to shower beforehand, or do any of my usual morning ablutions; those could wait until I got home.

Of course, it wasn’t as if I was ever completely alone here; as long as the building is open, there’s always an attendant at the entrance of the fitness room, which is open to both the vestibule and the room itself. And by the time I’d finished ten minutes on the stairs, a mile across the water and fourteen miles by bicycle, there were about a half-dozen other patrons busy at their own exercises – which, considering how I’m paying virtually no attention to what they’re doing other than noting their presence, suggests that I probably needn’t be so self-conscious about my own workout. Some mindsets are hard to shake, though… although, at this point, is was approaching seven o’clock, and I needed to get cleaned up and dressed for the study.

You may or may not know about this – it’s not as if aboriginal lore was a particular point of interest for you – but in the days before the Columbian Exchange (and even for a considerable time afterwards), many of the Amerind tribes would conduct battles and assign rank based on what was eventually referred to as a ‘coup’ system. In some cases, the object for a warrior was not so much to kill an adversary, but to touch them and escape unharmed, occasionally with some proof of contact, such as a bead from their buckskin or the like (not unlike David’s encounters with Saul during the period they were playing at cat-and-mouse with each other). While I don’t have proof as such, I can confirm that I just managed to tag my next benchmark (which, to be sure, I had hoped to reach a week ago already) upon washing away this morning’s sweat. Sure, after having breakfast, I would be back above the mark, but at least I had achieved a coup of sorts.

And I did have breakfast this morning; after the study (which dealt with the need for us men to have a purpose, lest we descend into apathetic anarchy, a la the Mouse Utopia), I headed up to the computer supply shop, only to find myself with fifteen minutes to kill yet before they opened. So I wandered over to the Burger King next door for a ham and cheese Croissan’wich (which I hadn’t one of for months, at least – Daniel no longer goes there, as you know, so there’s rarely a chance to do so. It’s a surprise to me, by the way, that the ham is decidedly less caloric than either bacon or sausage; the croissant versus the biscuit, not so much) and an iced mocha (which I think Daniel would actually like, if he could get past the fact that there’s nothing else on the menu that appeals to him).

That killed just enough time that I could return to the shop as soon as I was finished, only to find out my whole trip was a wasted effort; they had none of the cables I needed in stock. The clerk suggested that if I was simply replacing one hard drive with another, there wouldn’t be any need for a new cable; the original one would suffice. However, when I informed him that I was adding a drive rather than replacing the one that was already there, he admitted that I’d have to get a cable from somewhere else. While I’m not always a fan of Amazon, sometimes it’s where you have to go when brick-and-mortar fail you.

Still, as long as I was out, I figured I would also swing back the house and pick something up for Daniel for breakfast. These days, his morning meal (if he bothers to have one) tends to come in liquid form, so I stopped off at the local smoothie place. Turns out, they had a new chorizo quesadilla, which I could hardly let pass without trying it out. I don’t have second breakfast very often – I’m not a hobbit, after all – but since I’d achieved a coup, I figured I could justify it. Besides, I gave Daniel one of the four slices – although he wasn’t as enthused about it as I was (since chorizo isn’t his thing), he seemed to find it agreeable – so it’s not like I was consuming all the calories.

I guess the good news is that, between getting up so early and wearing myself out so soon, I’ve messed enough with my circadian rhythm that I’ll want to be in bed early this evening, so I can get up and head out with time to spare in the morning. We’ll see how things go soon enough, I suppose.

For now, honey, keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.