Livin' on Old Guy Time

My linguist friend, is, in fact, an old guy.

He is quite accepting of himself in his oldguyness. He is an old guy in the same sense that CC is an young woman. It's an essential part of him and aspects of oldguyness are a central part of who he is. He is that specific sort of professorial old guy who will drive to Michagin to shop for books but has lost weight recently because easting anything other than turkey and crackers is too much trouble.

CC is a young woman, let's not forget. She worries about what she's going to do wtih her life, wrestles with whether being a "good wife" is an antiquated notion and what it means to her, and all sorts of other stupid stuff young women worry about before they mature enough to get over themselves. She lusts after Johnny Depp. She wears sexy spice girl shoes. Her standard sleeping hours are midnight to 6:30, with frequent insomnia breaks in the middle.

She mentions this because old guys do not sleep those hours, especially in the summer. (In fairness to my linguist friend, he sleeps a lot less during the school year.) At my linguist friend's house, we would get back from dinner, talk for awhile, then sometime between nine and eleven, he would announce that he was going upstairs to bed. Now, my linguist friend's house has no giant TV and his internet connection is...gulp...dialup.

So CC would go up the guest room, bringing along a trusty book, expecting to read for three hours before finally nodding off.

And she'd be out like a light.

In the morning, sometime between seven and eight, she'd hear him in the bathroom across the hall. But we all know that good houseguests give their hosts some time to shuffle around, so she would linger in bed for a bit longer, letting him do his morning stuff, finally getting up when he went downstairs. Really, lazing around was the least she could do.

And the thing is, I felt great. Full of energy, lots of fun. I'd bounce out of bed right then a happy girl. Energized, ready to go book shopping or look at art. I was so much fun on vacation, y'all.

Yesterday, I flew in early, worked, grabbed dinner, taught class, then headed home. I canoodled with the CSO, baked some cookies for work and called my linguist friend to give him the obligatory "I got home OK" message. We talked for a bit then he said "Well, I'm headed off to bed."

It was ten. I decided to try keeping up this old guy time thing, so I curled up on the couch. (The CSO was tinkering with our netwok in the bedroom and insomniacs often have several chances to switch beds.) I stretched out on the Fugly Couch and put a comforter over me.

And then I lay there.

And lay there.

And lay there.

And got up and watched an episode of "I want to be a Hilton" and worked on a story I'm writing and did laundry.

By midnight, I was in bed, I swear.

Oh well.


CC