50 Posts! Slow down, you're a blogging maniac!

I am smartest at night.

It’s not like I’ve always wanted it to be that way, it just happened to be that way.

I have no recollection of when I was a child under the age of four, but my parents tell me that at night I would often refuse to go to bed. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same as I think right now and it’s either one of two things:
1) If I go to sleep now I’ll miss all the excitement that is bound to happen.
2) There are too many things to look at/think about/read/talk about/learn/understand right now that didn’t seem quite as relevant during the day. I must look into these things or the thoughts will fade away from my brain like a shooting star when the sun comes up.
This might not make sense to any of you “early birds” out there in the world. But let me make one thing clear: My night owl-ry doesn’t mean that I can’t be a morning person. I find it much too simple for a person to either be a night owl or an early bird. Why the duality? Does it need to be this way? Can’t a person be both? Don’t we all know that it’s really the afternoon that can’t be trusted?
All joking aside, I can understand where our need for alertness duality comes from. The fact is, many people can function in the morning, but it doesn’t mean they are doing so happily. Others can function happily in the morning but not consistently. Monday might be a good morning; Tuesday might not. Others, such as my parents, wake up in the morning and brim with excitement and energy and jokes (which I never find acceptable until after 10 AM or otherwise under extremely special circumstances). I have been known to do this when I’ve gotten very little sleep the previous night. But most of the time, I simply don’t want anyone to talk to me for an hour or two while I take the time to decide whether this day is worth waking up for.
The afternoon isn’t much better. After 10 AM I start to wake up enough to make lunch and read the paper. But after eating, and especially after 1 PM, I’m just as tired as when I woke up that morning and a nap is in order. 15-30 minutes is a good pick-me-up nap that won’t necessarily keep you up late that night. Anything over that and you can rest assured that you will be full of enough energy to power your city the entire night long. Forget about sleeping, you’ve just turned into an insomniac (congratulations).
But the night, ah, well, there’s a time to be alive! The darker it gets the more my brain turns on. When I confront myself with literary theory I don’t turn into a shapeless pile of pudding; No! I can understand and comment on many subjects. I can prove just how smart I am. I can make connections and complete goals. I can be the best I can be.
The problem with all of this—and some might call it a benefit—is that no one is around to witness it. No one except your other night owl friends (and let’s face it, no one takes them seriously either).