Unemployment Redux

It’s Monday morning. In the days when my job had not been misplaced, that would have meant many things. Now it means that if I went to Whole Foods at lunchtime I would have to wait a long time for my sandwich. But the most striking difference between employment and waiting to see if they find my job, oddly perhaps given the high level import of earning a living, is that I no longer wake up to my cellphone alarm. Alarmlessness has changed my experience of waking up. Alarms introduce adrenalin before consciousness even has a chance to prepare. They don’t call it an alarm for nothing. You shoot into awareness, "Iyeeee!", there’s a noise. Noise first, thought after.

From a user experience site...get the irony?

Now when I wake up, I feel my consciousness before anything. It tickles. Yes, tickles is as close as I can get. If waking up were a noise it would be a little bit like a baby making exploratory vowel sounds, “Aaah, aaah, oooob, oobb.” It’s a little bit like my awake self says “Hi there” to my asleep self. Like they are both there at the same time for a brief minute.

Now when I wake up I look out the window and guess what time it is. Although it no longer matters. I do it just because when nothing has happened yet in my day I like the meaning of the light coming through the Chinese elm into my window.

From someone's backyard on Flickr