It's been easy waking up lately. Not easy like "Eyes slowly opening, outside birds gently singing, I glance at the clock and it's late but that's okay" easy. Easy like "Those fucking seagulls better shut up or I'm gonna throw an Alka-Seltzer feeding party. Aw shit, might as well drag my ass out of bed" easy. With all the noise you hear in our neighborhood before the alarm clock goes off, it's a breeze waking up.
The garbage trucks. The seagulls squawking at the garbage left behind by the garbage trucks. The sirens. The cars racing down Grand Blvd. The downstairs neighbors turning on the bathroom fan and slamming the toilet seat in either direction. The gardeners with their lawnmowers and their weed whackers. The sirens. And the occasional neighbor starting their car, rolling down the windows and blasting some otherwise relatively benign indie-pop like The Shins or Death Cab for Cutie. Caring is Creepy. Right. YOU'RE creepy. Fuck off and give me back my last hour of sleep.
There's also our unpredictable roommate. Sometimes he wakes up before I do and makes a bunch of noise. Other times he gets up in the middle of the night and makes a racket, which makes it impossible to sleep much less get back to sleep when the racket is over. And then there are the times when I wake up and look at the clock and I think he's gonna make some noise soon, therefore I can't sleep anymore I might as well drag my ass outta bed.
But I know of a way to solve the problem: If you can't beat 'em, drink more coffee.