time bending

I really have a problem with getting up in the mornings. This, I believe, could have something to do with my problem about going to bed in the evenings.

Right now, I’m tired, I'm yawning and instead of calling it a night, I've opened up a new blog entry. I don't know why I do that. I could be brushing my teeth and heading up the wooden hill, well, not quite the wooden hill, I live in a flat, so more a wooden... plain - anyway, the point is, I’m in the throes of a compulsive delay tactic.

Quite simply, I’ve never really got past that youthful desire to push my bedtime to as late as I can get away with. I still want to stretch time and wring every valuable minute out of my evenings. Children are great believers in stretching time to suit - ever try to tell a small child that you're both leaving in 5 mins? They hear 'now' or 'not now' in fact, it would be easier to get a small child to understand the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the two-state solution than to get them to understand such an abstract construct as time.

Partly, my pushing the 'not now' evening envelope is a bit of a hangover from childhood (okay, that's quite the hangover) and partly, its just that I really, really like to potter. I can be very industrious when it comes to not doing very much. Its good thinking time. Also, there is something very delicious and satisfying about a state of tiredness when relief is imminent.

Of course, being a recovering Catholic, my delaying-going to bed on a work-night, also affords me a dose of guilt to play with. Actually that kind of guilt-hit works with many other forms of delay: shoulda, woulda, coulda gone to bed/filed a tax return/done my homework etc. (Not opened the electricity bill yet? Woo hoo!) It all adds up to the procrastination thrill. And that IS something I thought I’d grow out of.

But maybe, once a procrastinator always a procrastinator. Procrastinating about how to solve the procrastinating, I suppose. I blame Catholicism myself. Guilt's addictive.

Still, is it really such a misuse of time? As long as I get up eventually, fill in that tax form (and send it), do my homework before a given deadline, no harm's done. I know I do my best work under pressure so maybe I get my best sleep in under six hours?

And if not, there's always the chance of a power nap on the Northern Line in the morning.