When I'm on a week or so of vacation it takes 3-4 days for my body to believe it can sleep in. And even then sleeping in is usually 7:30 or 8. Yet the whole early morning wakefulness doesn't generally translate into productivity. Many weekends, I'll be in my robe until noon, drinking coffee and reading fic.

Darby got up at 11 the other morning.

I wish I would frigging train myself to go to bed earlier.

I never use an alarm unless I have to wake at a really odd time. My body wakes up 6ish, or earlier in the summer when it gets light earlier. But yeah, like Burrell, life would be golden if I was in bed when I should be more often, or if I could stop reading and shut the eyes earlier. I never was able to do the nap thing so if I am up late I am still up early with no sleep until night time.

I wish I would frigging train myself to go to bed earlier.

Ahahahahahahaha. You guys, I've been SO PROUD of myself the past few days for being in bed by 11:45.

Pete has tried for years to convince me that we should keep to a regular schedule on the weekends, no sleeping in to catch up on sleep. He hasn't succeeded yet, and I think it's kind of endearing that he still thinks he will. Nope, sleeping in is one of the best things about weekends!

Yeah, I used to be really bad about it and mornings are still hard for me, but I'm getting better. I do really need to start heading for bed at, like 8:30 because it takes me so long with puttering around and building the fire and brushing the dog's teeth and then reading forever. Next up is reducing that routine, I guess. But I've reconciled that I have two 6:30 out the door days and I really just need to get to sleep and get up. The dog knows he can only wake Dave, which is more or less unfair.

. But I will say that my terrible habit is getting back to bed (after opening the back dog door for Cayenne) and reading youse guys on my iPhone (along with Twitter/FB) well into the morning. I should be using that time to sleep or just get the hell up. I annoy myself!

See, I've started doing this and sometimes I do let it go on too long, but I only have so many sites bookmarked on my phone. So I figure its my way to slowly wake up--I can read but not be awake enough to post or get out of bed, but once I've been reading a while I'm less likely to sleep again. Maybe not more likely to get out of bed, but...

Oh, I do this also. Usually I check b.org, email, and FB. If I'm awake in the middle of the night, I add Twitter.

I'm trying to imagine what the "math setting" on an alarm would be.

There are all sorts of math alarm clocks:

• >[link]
• >[link]

Basically they require you to commit a neuron or two in order to get the noise to stop.

I remember in grad school, in grad housing (which was cinderblock apartments with cold linoleum floors), in the middle of winter, needing to wake up early for class to finish a project. I set the TV timer to turn on to MTV (I hate that channel), rather loud. I remember waking up, saying an expletive, rushing as fast as I could on crutches and bare feet on cold floor to the living room, turning off the TV, rushing back to bed, and sleeping past the start of class. So much for that alarm clock.

These days, I have a dual alarm clock by the bed. First alarm is NPR rousing me from sleep. Second alarm is the buzzer saying "get in the shower now!!". In between those, my phone and iPad have a variety of ring tones to try and get me awake. I have found, with the new place, all the natural light, does help a lot. Except when I need to wake up before the bloody sun is up yet. Then, just makes the room colder.