Morgenmuffel

…also, snerdle. Two vocab words in one today!

Man those Germans really know how to compose a dynamite compound word, don’t they?

Each morning, I move through nearly the same sequence of events, depending on people's work and school schedules, if the stepgremlins are home or at their mom’s, and etc. But what basically happens each morning is the following:

I usually wake up between 6 & 7am, naturally. My partner is often awake earlier as he is a morning person and a songbird lark; I’ll often hear him quietly playing something new or practicing something old on an acoustic instrument before I’m fully conscious. If the kids are around, I’ll hear them emerge and shower and galumph around on the other side of the place around 7 as well. They’re both teenagers now and so have their own fully individual morning get-ready routines they both do, navigating their shared bathroom and timing. My partner then brings me coffee and I stack up my pillows into a reading situation as he swoops around to gather his clothes for the day and shower towels for the kids, and he’ll do his morning ablutions as I take my morning pill and scroll through my morning phone.* Once he’s ready and either taking a kid to a school or to another thing, or starting his own workday in the dining room, I’ll then get up, ablute myself, and set myself a work itinerary. I’ll usually preface my job-work with a little house-work: laundry or dishes or both. But it means I’ll be getting up and at ‘em at least an hour after all the men in the house do. But that’s how I do mornings best, and it works with the rhythms of four people trying to get ready at the same time. I’m perfectly happy letting them get all their needs done first, before I enter the morning fray.

The main reason I’m so often a Morgenmuffel is that I reach my most creative pinnacles at night, as a rule. At least I used to. But in these post-pandemic, perimenopausal days, I also go to bed early when I’m not in or at a show. So I’m not an early riser still, as that’s not my way (night owl, not early bird). But I’m not late abed usually these days either, because I’m just far far too tired for a nightlife. And the more my hormones tank, the more sleep I feel like I need. Maybe once I actually pass through menopause itself, I’ll get a little more spry. 

But also:

I do appreciate a bit of a snerdle in the mornings as everyone else is getting ready.

Unrelated: I first caught a crush on Susie Dent during my brief binge of ‘8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown,’ which was a mashup of two comedy game shows from Britain, consisting of comedians being snarky and an exTREMEly hot blonde doing impossible math(s) puzzles as well as the above hottie who was in charge of the residential dictionary. Brain food of varying kinds.

*Most days, though (particularly during the school year of the stepgoblins), my snerdling doesn’t really consist of holding off the day, as cosily wrapped in covers as I may be. Instead, what I’m usually doing is: emptying my two email inboxes and replying to anything I can reply to on the fly; going through my reading list and reading through those pieces I think will jumpstart the brain in the right way, and posting any promos for any upcoming show I’m in the midst of promoting, on those socials that I only have on my phone, not on my tablets or computer. Unfortunately, live theatre still uses Facebook and Insta almost exclusively for promos and publicity and even ticket sales to some extent. I woudn’t be using these still if that were not the case, and even so, I don’t have those apps on my tablets and don’t use them on my old creaky computer either. I do have Threads on each device, but it’s so phone-shaped that I tend to only use it during these morning sessions as well. Man, it’s a part-time itself, just to keep oneself publicized, isn’t it? No wonder some people do it as a job. But I digress.

So this morning period of an hour or so each day that looks like a snerdle, with coffee brought to my bedside, no less! is not in fact a snerdle but the actual beginning of my work day. It’s just a particularly comfy one. Too bad I don’t get paid hourly.

Oh! Fun fact: my partner first started bringing me morning coffee in bed very early in our relationship, on account of a silly t-shirt I shared with him back when we weren’t living together. It said: ‘I just want someone to tell me I’m pretty, and bring me coffee.’ We chuckled about it, and then the next day (I happened to be spending the night) he brought me coffee in bed, said, ‘Darling, you are so pretty,’ and I expired from heartwarm. Now it’s such a normal part of our morning routine that if I happen to be awake enough early enough that I venture out of our bedroom and go towards the kitchen to fetch my own coffee, he’ll launch off the couch as I revert to TV replay slo-mo, imitating his best Chariots of Fire impression, to slo-mo rush ahead of me and give me my coffee himself. It’s adorable, and yes I don’t care that we’re both middle aged, it’s freakin cute, thank you very much.

So truth be told, I’m not much of a Morgenmuffel after all, as much as I’m not a morning person: I don’t tend to get cranky in the mornings, because it’s such a pleasant atmosphere. The gentle bustle of men getting ready for their busy days is a comforting energy for me (witness how often I have to work at my 3rd place to soothe the brain similarly), and it’s actually quite helpful for my own busy days, that I can get the first phase of to-dos done in bed over my first coffee. It helps me enormously to do that, in that it allows me to get the rest of my tasks finished in a timely fashion once I’m up.

I feel like working from home has been a mixed bag for a lot of professionals, especially in the corporate faction. What used to be a 9-5, 5/7 office grind is now much more flexible, and at home. And teaching online can be even more flexible than that, depending on whether it’s an asynchronous class or whether there are Zoom meetings. Either way, though—there seems to be a lot more elbow room, schedule-wise, as much as there might be a lot less literal physical elbow room: Partner working at the dining room table with a strong and beautiful art print behind his head, and me plugged into my little ancient laptop on the long part of the couch, facing him across the living room. But we’ve also found that we appreciate having each other there, for moral support on bad days, for all kinds of support when we’re sick or otherwise in need, and we can do some quick lunchtime yoga or take a much needed middle-aged nap together if we need a midday recharge. Of course, this is all lovely and possible because both his kids are teens and in a shared custody situation, which means both that they have their own school they’re at all day during the year, other summer activities and socializing over the summer, and also that they’re fully self-sufficient on the weekdays they’re home while we’re ‘at’ work. 

But it’s funny too—often he and I will meet across the street at IC or on the couch on a Wednesday evening after the boys are gone, and we’ll feel like we’ve been away at work all day. “How was your day, dear?” I’ll quip, even though I spent the entire day in the same room as he did. But a debriefing is often still necessary. And nice.