Making your home livable sometimes is all a matter of keeping the bad elements out.
Heat and cold are the two most common problems people face at home. When it comes to comfort, anyways. I find I don’t mind them that much. Too hot? Take off your clothes, buy a fan or crank up the AC. Too cold? Put more clothes on, fire up the heater, take a hot bath or crawl into bed with somebody who’ll warm you up. I can fix those two easily.
The sun, on the other hand, can be a bit of a bother.
I don’t know if I’ve brought this up before, but Japan is in the wrong goddamned time zone. How can I be so sure of this?
The sun isn’t supposed to rise at 4:30 in the morning – even if this is called “the land of the rising sun.”
Seriously, that shit’s just out of whack. I guess maybe it’s so far out of whack that people just see it as the way things should be.
But that doesn’t change the fact that they’re wrong.
Most nights I’m a heavy sleeper, but as dawn approaches, it becomes easier and easier for little things to wake me up. Okay, the sun’s not all that little, but I think you get my meaning. I’ve got dark curtains, and they help some. Keeping my room cool helps too. (Fewer irritants means it’s easier to sleep longer.) But once those first pesky rays of light find their way into my room….
It’s all over.
Now, I suppose I could buy blackout curtains or put aluminum foil over my windows (don’t laugh, I had to to this in my kitchen, since there’s no way to put curtains over the small windows above the sink and stove), but those options had to be rules out as either too expensive or problematic. I do want some light now and then – just not first thing in the morning. Really, there is no ideal solution. So I’ve basically had to surrender.
Damn you, Mr. Sun!
I’ve adjusted my sleep schedule (going to bed earlier) to compensate for getting up earlier, and while that works, it doesn’t suit me as well as I’d like. So what’s the ideal solution? There isn’t one. So I’ll just say it again:
Damn you, Mr. Sun!