1 post tagged “dst”
Love it or hate it, many of you lost an hour of sleep last night due to Daylight Saving Time? Worth It? Do you like it more/less now that Daylight Saving Time occurs earlier (and later) in the year?
Despite the somewhat convoluted nature of this question, I did have some Daylight Saving Time thoughts that I wanted to post (because I have my finger on the pulse of society and I feel that this "Daylight Saving Time" issue is here to stay and should be addressed by the blog-osphere). But stay tuned, because I might digress from this topic later on...just maybe....
Yesterday, I praised Daylight Saving Time...today, I have come to bury it...but still praise it a little. Indeed, when I woke up at almost 7 AM yesterday morning, I was thrilled...of course, it was really only 6 AM, but since I always seem to wake up between 5:45 and 6 AM on the weekends, the fact that it was already almost 7 was quite exciting (even if it was actually the same time of day, technically speaking). I was also excited because it meant that I wouldn't have to wait for the local Noah's Bagels to open at 6:30 to get my morning coffee (I do have a coffee maker, but I accidentally broke the carafe last week, so until the replacement arrives, I have to purchase my coffee). So that was nice.
Of course, the real boon came in the evening, when I didn't find myself going to bed until later than usual, thanks to my old friend Daylight Saving Time. This was especially helpful last night, as I had some weekend work to accomplish and had put off doing it all weekend. All of this, plus the fact that it didn't get depressingly dark at 4 PM lead to my slight nod of acceptance in the direction of DST.
That slight nod of acceptance quickly became a steely-eyed glare of anger this morning when I had to get up at my normal 5:45 AM, only to find that it felt like 4:45 AM. Had Daylight Saving Time been personified and hanging out in my apartment this morning, I would have delivered it such a passive-aggressive cold shoulder.... But still, the fact that it will still be light out when I leave work this evening will make up for this unfortunate change in routine. So all in all, I suppose I welcome Daylight Saving Time, even if it does mean an end to all of my pre-work enthusiasm and energy (so much for working out in the mornings...but at least I'll have more energy to do so at night).
Other than that, my weekend was slightly better than past weekends, but I'm not really sure why. I guess there was a little bit less laziness involved, but not much less. Perhaps I could chalk it up to Daylight Saving Time...that seems to be the primary difference. I also started a new book, which made me feel more productive than just watching movies...unfortunately, the book in question was The Nanny Diaries, which is grippingly trashy and comfortingly predictable. I need to get back to reading some classic literature, or at least some well-reviewed modern novels that don't have the words "Harry" or "Potter" in their titles...unless it's "Harry Potter and the Confederacy of Dunces."
But speaking of The Nanny Diaries, I can tell that I'm in a precarious state of mind with regards to my "female troubles" due to the bizarrely personal reaction I had to certain passages of the book. In case you're unfamiliar with this addictive modern-day Mary Poppins tale, let me sum up the plot thusly: "OMG!! Rich people are spoiled, inhuman robots who care so little about raising their children that they hire people like me to raise them, all while I use my trenchant wit to complain about my chosen profession...and they got me EARMUFFS for Christmas?!?!" However, if I were sitting on a plane or waiting in a doctor's office while reading it, I'd probably nominate it for a Pulitzer.
Anyway, in the book, the main character, Nanny (by the way: I sort of get the sociological cuteness of using "Nanny" as the main character's name and "Mr. and Mrs. X" as the family's names, but it's a little distracting, too, and seemingly unnecessary...just give them normal fake names and I wouldn't always be noticing this "adorable" stylistic choice), encounters some long-haired douchebag that she dubs "Harvard Hottie," or some such nonsense. So for the first half of the book, they have a protracted meet-cute, wherein she makes excuses to see him and sets the ray gun of her mind to "Date." Eventually, he ends up kissing her and then they proceed to engage in puppy love dialogue for the next eighty pages (I'm only a little more than halfway through the book...but unless he explodes in a fiery midtown taxi crash, I don't think it'll get less irritating). Oh, and here's a late-to-the-party "spoiler alert" for those of you who haven't read the book....
But it's not this fictional character's love life that got to me (well, it was a little bit...for someone who complains so much about her life, this character still lives in Manhattan, has a fun circle of friends, goes to NYU...aka Jeremy's life circa 2003) so much as it was her mindset when it came to this "Harvard Hottie." While these thoughts may have been those of a fictional character, they were written by two very real women...so they're not even just the thoughts of some random woman, but the agreed-upon conclusion from two (and possibly more) women. This book is a virtual male guidebook through the female psyche, and I think I'm off the map.
The way Nanny thinks about this guy and focuses on getting a date with him seems to be completely at odds with how my own "Brentwood Beauty" (ie: Jamie) reacts to me. Rather than making up coincidences to encounter me or unsubtly hinting that, hey, we should get dinner or drinks or whatever, she treats me like...well, like a friend. To that end, there's another guy in the book named Josh who, at the beginning, helps Nanny lug an air conditioner from her dorm to the third floor of an Upper East Side walk-up apartment. He then gives her helpful advice about which nannying job to take and, later in the book, helps Nanny out during a key crisis. At the beginning of the book, I was confused: is this "Josh" her boyfriend? He seems to be something like that.... Of course, by the time she's hooking up with the bastard from Boston and telling her best gal-pal and Josh all about it, it was pretty clear that Josh was, ostensibly, just another gal-pal (I should have been clued in when she let him see her sweat as they were lugging the air conditioner...that never would have happened if she had been interested in him). So yeah, it's pretty clear that I'm Josh to Jamie's Nanny...which leads me to wonder who will be her "Harvard Hottie." I probably won't know him...but I won't be able to help knowing of him....
I think I deserve some sort of medal for segueing from Daylight Saving Time into a lament about my situation with Jamie. It should almost be a challenge of sorts: people give me completely random topics ("the sun," "that extra button on shirts," "my imaginary childhood friend") and I bring them back to Jamie. That would be a fun game...right?
But anyway, who knows? This book is pretty predictable and I am only slightly more than halfway through it...it seems too pat and boring for them to spend all this time building up the meet-cute part of the relationship only to have it continue forever into a happily ever after scenario. Maybe the "Harvard Hottie" will reveal that he's a cheating asshole or is ultimately boring and pedestrian and good old standby Josh will be there to clean up the emotional mess...only this time, Nanny decides to go against her intrinsic desire for muscles and dominating personalities and kisses Josh, only to find exactly what she's been missing: an interesting, unique friend who cares deeply for her and with whom she can create a strong bond based on actual love and trust rather than flash and glitz.
Yeah, right.
