Night life
It’s dark. The sky always is clear. Wind rushes by, through the windows as I hurry home. The air is reasonably cool again; it feels more like summer back home. Always comparing to back home in Michigan.
I relax, turn up the music really loud, and try to forget whatever has happened to me this night. The drive sometimes seems too long, but sometimes, it’s too short. I enjoy belting out songs, or just mindlessly relaxing while exits whoosh by.
The drive from work is always more relaxed than the drive to work. There’s less traffic, fewer idiot drivers. I’m not in danger of being late to anything when I get home.
I like working nights. I like the peaceful drive back home. Every once in a while, I get a glimpse of what passes for rush hour traffic here, and I don’t like it.
I would have a hard time going back to working days. My body likes waking up naturally and I like staying up late after work, to wind down.
Back when I worked days, there’d be mornings I wouldn’t speak for an hour. Probably a relief to my coworkers. Can’t say that Mountain Dew would’ve helped — I’d given it up.
Working nights allows me to tool around during the day. I can run errands or practice for my next life as a cat: sleeping and lazing around. I also can continue to explore my surroundings if I’m motivated to get going early enough.
There’s a downside to the dark side. I don’t have much of a night life, but then I never did. Though I could certainly go out after work. Closing time just comes a lot earlier.
I also think there’s a terrible lack of food or shopping in the wee hours. There are a few scary 24-hour warehouse-type discount grocery stores, and maybe two or three restaurants, none of them with edible food, open.
I like grocery shopping at night. There are few annoying people taking up space with their plodding ways and screaming children. Instead, there are tons of boxes as the stores take time to restock. Often have to navigate through the stacks.
But I miss my old 24-hour grocery store, where you could buy clothes or hardware or food at any time. There’s nothing like that here.
People up as late as me, coming home from work, picking up a few things at the store. Only one checkout clerk, and every once in a while, someone has decided to do the next month’s worth of shopping right now. Did I mention you have to bag your own groceries?
Eating becomes a problem at 2 in the morning. Often fix our own food late at night. IHOP has lost its allure. The only one open 24 hours is on the other end of town, and the food isn’t that good at that location. I keep swearing off Denny’s for good reason. No one can call this good food, but it is food.
Aside from the fast food options open late enough — I gave up fast food years ago — there’s not much. A Mexican restaurant open all the time. Food: good if you’re very hungry, but perhaps not if you’re planning to sleep in the next several hours.
Another Mexican restaurant falsely advertises: there’s a sign that says 24 hour drive-thru (I hate thru! Learn to spell!), but they’re closed.
Sometimes I have a hankering for pizza, but by now, it’s too late. Or Chinese food. Why isn’t there a 24-hour Chinese buffet?
Everything is centered around day people. That’s my downside. I can do my errands, but I can’t eat out after work. I know it serves me right: you’re not supposed to eat so late. But my schedule is different, and it’s hard to give up.
Eating at night is bad for a lot of reasons, though I understand with your schedule, you can’t help it. Thus doctors say if you’re trying to lose weight, don’t eat after eight o’clock. And as you note, it doesn’t necessarily help you get to sleep if your stomach is full….Especially if its full of tacos and burritos and other heavy food.
Nice blog entry, by the way. I like driving at night, too, and I end up doing a fair amount of it. However, much past two A.M. and I sorta go into this daze where I’m sleeping with my eyes open. So at that point, it’s best for me if I just stop.
Why do you drive so much at night?
They say you shouldn’t eat past 8, but my reasoning is is that night people’s schedules are turned around. Think your schedule, rotate it 6 or 8 hours. I eat my first meal around 1, 2 in the afternoon. Supper’s around midnight–don’t most people eat around 6? The bad part, though, is that you eat, then go into low-calorie-burn mode, right?
But then again, I’m the one with a scandalous number on the scale, so I really shouldn’t be talking.
You’re probably right, but you have to consider as well that when you get off work at midnight or whatever time you get off, you probably are more likely to just sit around until time to go to bed. Nothng is open..it’s dark…what are you going to do except watch TV?
Despite our penchant for “ethnic” food (what food is not ethnic?), I really enjoy a trip to Denny’s or IHOP; in particular I enjoy that good ole American cup of joe that seems inexhaustible. If we are eating anywhere else, we always have h2o. And I do continue to love the eggs and bacon breakfast at whatever time of the day. I’m never averse to breakfast at dinner time.
Back in college, we (Dawn and I with our roomies, Thom and April), used to enjoy touring places like Wal-Mart at midnight, playing with the toys and generally enjoying the atmosphere of desertion and loneliness that clings to such enormous businesses. Anymore (now, after my first week of real work in years!) ten o’clock comes and I am off to bed. So much has changed in the last four weeks….
btw, its time we got on the phone and chatted with one another again. Its been too long. Maybe on Sunday or Monday?
As far as I’m concerned, there is only breakfast at IHOP or Denny’s, no matter what time. I got burned out on IHOP. Plus the only one that’s open here 24 hours had abysmal service the last time we went, and is halfway across time.
But there are rought nights at work where the solace of IHOP is required. Usually crepes. And again, I think the reason we go is that there are few choices.
We do need to catch up. Will e-mail you on time.
I used to work at nights until 2:00 AM and I must say that the best thing about this work arrangement was grocery shopping in the middle of the night. It is nice to have the solice and take time to enjoy shopping without the rush, rush, rush. It is the rush that makes me hate grocery shop, which is the only shopping I ever do (with the exception of the bookstore).
To make a long story short, I agree with Todd about the benefits of shopping at night and the studying at IHOP (not Denny’s — yuk!).
[...] complained about the lack of late-night food before. I didn’t really expect it to [...]