So I woke up, and now I can’t fall back asleep.

It’s 3:30 AM and once upon a time this was my favorite time of day. Sitting in my room in Hick A, watching the lights in Tower dorm go off, one by one, till the building stood dark, smoking Cloves on my front porch, and watching the sky get light, and then falling into bed before the rest of the campus began to wake up. There’s a romanticism in watching the days turn like that, and I, realizing lately there’s no point in denying it, am a romantic. Walt Whitman eat your heart out.

This is the first time I’ve been up at this hour in a very long time, and I can’t say I’d want that lifestyle. It’s just an unexpected waking state, where for a moment, I miss having a voice that late in the night, even though I’d crawl into bed with nagging dissatisfaction, I’d still find myself in the same place the next night at 3 AM, and so there was something addictive about it.

I’m such a drama queen.

Favorite time of day now: There are two, I think. The morning. I get off the PATH around 7:45, and walk to work. The route has become so familiar. Times Square literally vibrates some mornings alive with real and figurative energy. I feel so awake and optimistic on these walks. I hate having to go upstairs. I hate when I get hit with a wave of sleepiness that I can’t shake, and caffeine doesn’t help. I miss whatever crazy energy I used to have that got me through spring of 2004 with little to no sleep. I feel old.

The second is quittin’ time, and walking out of work with Charice and whomever else we’ve caught the elevator with. Charice and I are usually out of our minds at this hour. (Thursday for example, I was singing songs from How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying ((hey, it HAD been a really long day)) and she was doing impressions of a butler) It’s wacked out stress relief, and getting on the PATH to go home is almost a downer. (Waits for someone to chime in “That’s because you’re going back to Jersey!”

This has been a completely wasted week and I am fighting a low-grade bad mood. I will feel far better when the GREs are over and I’ve spent the weekend productively chipping away at the pile of grad school applications. I have jury duty next week.

I’m headed to Saratoga for Columbus Day weekend to spend some quality time with The Misanthropes, get a beer and grad school advice from a professor, and see various transfers who are still in the Saratoga area.

And then by mid-October, things should be closer to completion.

I’m also thinking about moving. Long story, involving irrational things like “vibes,” and grittiness, and softness, and epiphanies had on bus rides through Essex County. Maybe Washington Heights. Maybe. I’d have to give up the across the river on the jersey side moniker. And my pretty, pretty view.