{"id":91619,"date":"2015-11-04T15:56:08","date_gmt":"2015-11-04T20:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=91619"},"modified":"2015-11-05T11:43:51","modified_gmt":"2015-11-05T16:43:51","slug":"one-upmanship-in-the-morning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/04\/one-upmanship-in-the-morning\/","title":{"rendered":"One-upmanship in the Morning"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"1900_The_Awakening\"<\/a>

The Awakening<\/i>, 1900.<\/p><\/div>\n

Back in the bad old days, wags used to say the streets of Alphabet City stood, from west to east, for Adventurous, Bold, Crazy, and Dead. I\u2019ve long thought that we need a similar system for categorizing the different hours at which one wakes up. I suggest:<\/p>\n

\n

Nine \u2013 Nonchalant<\/p>\n

Eight \u2013 Effortless<\/p>\n

Seven \u2013 Sensible<\/p>\n

Six \u2013 Self-motivated<\/p>\n

Five \u2013 Fantastical<\/p>\n

Four \u2013 Fast-living<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

These are, obviously, encumbered by their alliteration. Of course I\u2019d rather have substituted a slatternly<\/em> here or a debauched<\/em> there, but that would defeat the purpose, and this gets the idea across. Unless your job or lifestyle demands unorthodox hours, this seems to me a rough guide to such things.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been sleeping poorly and so, as one does, thinking about sleeping poorly a lot lately\u2014telling myself it is\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0acceptable to rise before five, that five is the absolute limit<\/em> between neurosis and madness. Keep in mind, there\u2019s no running or gym involved in this morning routine, just hours of sitting around. If I got up at six I might qualify as \u201can early riser,\u201d but anything before that marks dangerous territory.<\/p>\n

My family knows what I\u2019m talking about. At my grandparents\u2019 house, there was a strange, passive-aggressive competition to be the first one up. To do\u00a0what<\/em> is unclear. Not sleeping was the thing. And with it there was always the implication of moral superiority.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been up since four thirty,\u201d someone might volunteer.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, really?\u201d Complacently. \u201cWell, I didn\u2019t go to sleep\u00a0at all<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The net result of all this not-sleeping was that anyone else was jarred awake by the competitive commotion, and so went around heavy-lidded and cranky, only to repeat the cycle again the next morning.<\/p>\n

And so, although everything in me told me to leap out of bed at four forty-five the past few mornings, to give in\u2014hey, I could just go to sleep at seven!\u2014to read or \u201cenjoy the peace\u201d or whatever people do, I clung to sanity with everything I had. I put myself to sleep by inventing acronyms, and managed to drift into restless dreams until the special-permit jackhammers started to roar just before seven. No one wins.<\/p>\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review, and the <\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in the bad old days, wags used to say the streets of Alphabet City stood, from west to east, for Adventurous, Bold, Crazy, and Dead. I\u2019ve long thought that we need a similar system for categorizing the different hours at which one wakes up. I suggest: Nine \u2013 Nonchalant Eight \u2013 Effortless Seven \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[20094,20096,14918,14021,20095,12869],"class_list":["post-91619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-awakening","tag-early-risers","tag-family-life","tag-insomnia","tag-rising","tag-sleep"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Perils of the Early Riser<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on getting out of bed early\u2014too early.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/04\/one-upmanship-in-the-morning\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"One-upmanship in the Morning by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"November 4, 2015 \u2013 Back in the bad old days, wags used to say the streets of Alphabet City stood, from west to east, for Adventurous, Bold, Crazy, and Dead. 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