Two questions

[mrissa]

1. Timprov and I were watching a very silly TED talk, and I wondered: does anybody but Timprov like 4 a.m.? And if so, do you like it from the staying up side or the getting up side?

2. As we know in Dar Williams’s “The Christians and the Pagans,” “When Amber tried to do the dishes, her aunt said really no, don’t bother.” What does this mean in your idiolect? In mine it’s, um…it’s basically “I don’t really trust you, person I barely know, so get the hell out of my kitchen.” (There are other ways of saying things like, “I think it’s more important for you to get time with your uncle,” or, “I have a system that I’d just prefer to work within.”) Is that what it means in Dar’s home dialect/idiolect? What does it mean in yours?

Originally published at Novel Gazing Redux

Comments

[sprrwhwk.livejournal.com]

4 AM is bedtime for me, mostly, and I both am lucky that my current work schedule allows it and was unhappy when a previous work schedule required it. Mostly because the time after midnight or so should be my time, largely free of distraction from or obligation to other people, and if I don't have that then I grow progressively more resentful of them.

I feel a little guilty about liking it and needing it -- residual received Midwestern farmer ethics, I suppose -- but I haven't yet figured out how to live any other way, so I've brokered an uneasy peace with it.

Getting up at 4 AM is unnatural, although acceptable very occasionally. I love the new-morning world, everything including me fresh and waking up, but it's the love of a visitor, not a resident.

Also breakfast is a meal which is just as good before or after noon, I don't care what anyone says.