Ships colliding in the day.

Twila and I have gotten along wonderfully for 35 years, but that hardly means we're the same. She's highly productive with laser-like focus, while I'm generally useless but observe almost everything. We have the usual female/male thing when it comes to temperatures - she's always cold, I'm always hot. And then there's the day vs. night issue that she mentioned.

It's true that I like the night. It's quiet, cool, and most of the rest of the world is asleep. I used to stay up until at least 1 AM on a regular basis, until Twila came into my life. When she gets into bed, it's too hard to stay out of it, so in our "normal" life we usually go to bed at 9:45 PM (which is practically daytime for me), read, watch the news (I love news, but not at night), then sleep. In that life she hops gleefully out of bed between 6:00 and 6:30 AM. I was a 7:00 riser for a long time, but gradually I got to 6:30, so my coffee wouldn't get cold (yes, my wonderful wife makes coffee for me).

All of that is fine, but what's annoying is how chirpy Twila is in the mornings. After I've dragged myself out of bed, we have coffee (a TwiLatte for Twila, the best lattes EVER - I have one each week on Latte Sunday, and enjoy it greatly), eat fruit, and read newspapers - The Wall Street Journal for Twila (or New York Times on Sundays), USA Today, CNN, Washington Post, and Huffington Post for me. While I struggle to focus, Twila likes to say what a beautiful day it is and how many plans she has. And I'm like OMG! We have an agreement, built over the years, that she will keep the joy to a minimum and in return I will try to bury the gloom.

The nights are a different story. I come alive, and Twila gets uncomfortable. She *really* doesn't like nights. But we have a pleasant routine that includes watching TiVo for an hour or so, about the only time we watch TV except for the (sigh) Ten O'Clock News, then read until Mr. Sandman appears.

Getting up at 4 AM really isn't hard for me, even after I went to bed at 12:30 following the recent 49ers game on Monday Night Football. It's like night. I don't think about it, I just hop up. Going to bed at 9 PM is an entirely different story, though, and it's the most difficult part of my job. Not that I've ever actually gone to bed then. It's theoretical.