Night Owl

Rob Warnick designed this poster.
I loved it so much I bought it. You should buy one too.


I spend my nights plotting. While everyone else is falling asleep on the couch or has drifted off in bed, I am awake concocting elaborate schemes.

Schemes that allow me more time to scheme, usually. But also what fantastic skills I might learn (this week it's jewelry making), everything I'll do when I move (walk to get a newspaper on Sundays), how to get into shape (without eating less), and what things I'd like to write about. (Anything of mine worth reading - admittedly, this is little, but still - was crafted in the middle of the night. Anything I write between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. is definitely crap, which is why I write most of my stories at home in longhand.)

For a few weeks there I was spending a late night planning out what to eat for dinner every night. I was briefly successful, but then I started staying up late scheming other things, like where to put my stuff when I move, and ran out of late nights to plan meals.

I also develop training plans in the middle of these night, including what muscles to work and how to work them. (My muscles are gonna be so huge, I think.) And I decide to take up various sports, such as running, soccer and dance during these ambitious "I'm gonna get in shape" late-night schemes.

It's this night time plotting that develops all the hobbies I end up quitting - probably because I stay up too late planning them and am too tired to follow through during the day. It doesn't help that I'm also very lazy and easily bored.

One of my favorite things to do while everyone else is sleeping is to make plans for these sleeping people. Such as what they're going to eat, what fantastic hobbies they're going to start, and how they're going to get into shape.

It must be exciting for them to be awakened at 2 a.m. with the announcement of these ambitious plans.

"Hey, hey," I say nugding and pushing. "Tomorrow I'm going to start taking a metals class. I'll cast you a ring using the 'lost wax' process. And we're going to start eating more vegetables and taking regular walks. Isn't that a good idea?!"