Morning People are Better People

sorry but it's true

I come from a family of extreme night owls. They make vampires jealous. Never has a family more enjoyed sleeping until the day is gone and then staying up until well past the witching hour. I have frequently considered signing them up for a study because there is truly something wrong with these people. I, on the other hand, have always been a morning person. When I was an infant I went to sleep at 8pm and woke up promptly at 8am like a normal person. Needless to say, I do not fit in. Even my 94 year old grandmother makes fun of me for going to bed so early! But, like it or not, morning people are just better. It’s true.

After moving from Los Angeles to Arizona I had a really hard time getting to sleep. It is so quiet in this small town. In LA I lived on a moderately busy street close to the beach and the airport and across from a school. There was always noise. It was wonderful to fall asleep to. Then I moved to this quiet little street in this tiny little town and at night it is extremely creepy. Have you ever seen that scene from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil where John Cusack is a New Yorker in New Orleans and to fall asleep he puts on a tape of New York traffic noise? I didn’t understand that until I moved here. Who can sleep with all of this quiet?? For the first year that I lived here I went to bed really really late because I just could not get to sleep in this desert vacuum. But I missed my old morning person self.

There is nothing worse than waking up hours after sunrise, knowing that half the day has already passed you buy. The best feeling on a Saturday morning is getting all of your workouts, chores, and errands done before the stores open for the day. And here I was waking up at 9am like a noob! Baby me was severely disappointed. So, when I got back from my vacation I was determined to get back to morning me. This coincided with wanted to get back to runner me, which was impossible when I was waking up so late.

Running is my favorite thing in the world and after years of not running because my doctors freaked out when I told them I ran a half marathon every weekend during all of lockdown they made me stop. Well, poop on them, I missed running and wanted to get back to it but that required getting back to my 6am self. And having jet lag is the perfect way to rearrange your sleep schedule.

So, this week I have been going to bed by 10pm like a virtuous person, popping out of bed at 6, and turning on my best friend, Nike Head of Running Coach Bennet, and going out for a run. And I am so much happier! I have been more productive in the last few days than in months. I’m finishing my to do list before lunch, getting things done around the house, and yesterday I even had time to sit outside and read Emily Watson’s translation of the Illiad which is so incredible. I forgot how hilarious Homer is.

There are certainly moments when staying out late is totally worth it. I had plenty of 4am nights on the cruise. But for feeling your most healthy and productive, I’ll always be an LA devotee (I am obsessed with how unhinged this music video is)- early to bed, early to rise, and I don’t care what anyone says, juice cleanses are amazing.

Choose the Bear

We have all heard the drastic statistics about maternal mortality in this country and for a long time I believed what I heard at face value, which of course was dumb, nothing at all is as simple as what we hear. Luckily, I met Jeremy Ney of

American Inequality

, a phenomenal Substack that dives deep into the data to find out the truth about American economic narratives. His two part series The Truth About Maternal Mortality blew my mind and I knew I had to have him on the pod. This is an episode you’ll want to hear, and then go read the posts on AI, and then probably listen again and share with everyone you know.

What to do with yourself

Watch

Adult Best Friends (HBO)- Writer/Director/Actor/Producer/Everything Delaney Buffet will be on Choose the Bear in a few weeks talking about her fantastic film, Adult Best Friends. Get a head start now and watch it on HBO (that’s the name I’m sticking to from now on) so you’ll know what we’re talking about when the ep comes out.

Man on the Inside (Netflix)- Ted Danson is a secret spy in a shmancy San Francisco nursing home! Hijinx ensue! This show is sweet, funny, and adorable. Worth a binge.

Section 31 (Paramount +)- Star Trek set in the Hunger Games capital starring Michelle Yeoh. Is it good? No. Is it fun? For the first hour. Is it beautiful and worth watching on a random Wednesday night when you have nothing else to do? Absolutely.

Listen

All I Can Tell You Is… (podcast)- My dear friend Esther has a new podcast with a really phenomenal premise. Young people have questions about life, elders have answers. So each episode she pairs one young person with three elders and let’s them dig deep. The first episode features a young woman trying to decide between getting a job and pursuing a career in art and the three elders all took different paths in their artistic careers. It was truly a wonderful thing to hear them tell their life stories and give her advice and to see how she took that advice into account when making her decision. I really love this podcast and this whole idea. Let’s make this a thing! Let’s bring elders into schools!

Read

I read three books on my cruise, one was a Golden Girls mystery which you should only read if you want a truly meaningless and terribly edited book to read on vacation, the other two were excellent.

The Terror is about the lost ships HMS Terror and Erebus who went out in search of the Northwest Passage and never came back. This is a fantastic show on AMC and the book is so much better and more exciting and more interesting than you think it will be BUT you do have to get through the first part which is brutal. I promise it’s wroth it.

Alien Clay is this really fun story about a dystopian future in which political terrorists (ie people who disagree with the authoritarian rulers of Earth) are sent to do hard time on far distant planets and what happens when one of those workers encounters an alien species that operates unlike anything ever seen on Earth.