Jennifer Brown

I don't know how I used to do this every day, this waking up at 5:30 to go to work thing. Oh, writing has spoiled me. That much was obvious the very second I pawed the alarm clock off the table and stumbled into the shower without turning on the lights.

5:30 is effing early.

But I had a speaking gig to get to at the Gladstone Rotary. Yes, I had to be funny at 7:00 in the morning. Yes, I was speaking to a bunch of men. Yes, I sweating bullets.

I even skipped my coffee because I didn't want the biggest joke of all to be that I had to stop my presentation to run to the restroom for a tinkle.

OMG, 5:30... it's so EARLY!

I didn't want to wake Scott (because he doesn't wake me when he gets dressed in the morning, something about him that now makes me appreciate him even more), so I did what I used to do every single day: got dressed in the dark. Without running into doors and knocking over dressers and cursing when I stepped on Legos and spilled earrings.

It sucked. How did I ever do this?!

5:30. Early!

The first thing I noticed? My pants weren't too tight. Uh... I was pretty sure, then, that I had the wrong ones. I squinted in the darkness, but the pants were black, so... well... whatever. At least they're not jeans, right? At 5:30, any pants suck.

The second thing? I couldn't find my flats in the dark. Which meant I had to wear my goin' out shoes:

Aw, bloody hell. Okay. Fine. It's 5:30. Any shoes suck.

My first outfit was a total failure. I stepped into the bathroom, looked in the mirror and wilted. Argyle sweater, striped slacks. Not happening. I had to go back. I'll admit, there was a part of me that wanted to wing one of those shoes at Scott's head and wake him up so I could turn on a light. But that's not nice. Not even at 5:30, when, technically, nobody's really expected to be nice. Instead I stumbled around until all the embarrassing parts were covered and hoped for the best.

So the speech was a great success. Turns out... Rotarians RAWK! They were so nice and funny and they gave me food and -- thank God! -- coffee and laughed in all the right places and asked questions and gently ribbed me like I was one of the guys. One even suggested I should do the stand-up circuit, which was kinda cool to hear. I'd pretty much winged it -- gone in with very few notes and ad-libbed. I think I found the trick to my success in public speaking. Don't try to read!!!

Anyway, by the time I got home I was sweaty, exhausted, limping... and it was only 8:30... still effing early.

I kicked off my shoes and found this inside one:

A pencil lead.

GAWD, 5:30 is effing early! How did I ever do this every day?!

But, hey, the pants were the right ones. That's a positive, right?