Deconstructing Obama

I woke up this afternoon, put a clean shirt on over an unclean torso, and read this article speculating about how Obama's personality works: "When you are President, you can make your staff follow your schedule (until you burn them out), but you can't do public events in the wee hours of the morning. If you are going to give a big speech at the National Convention of Whatevers, they'll want you to give it some time between 9am and 9pm. Another problem with being a night person is insomnia (which is common among people who get more energetic as the day goes on), which doesn't fit well with living a Big Life with a Big Schedule."

It's true. My life isn't nearly as big or as scheduled as the Commander-in-Chief's day-to-day routine, and when I go for a burger run it isn't a 13-car motorcade of generosity. The man is under a ton of pressure, chief, and now we're all wondering how long he will be able to continue prolonging the magic.

Fashion nugget.

I can speak to the problems outlined of insomnia and a difficulty synchronizing with a world that seems to have no problems getting up between 6 and 9 AM. At work, I am universally known as not being in the office before 11, a fact that causes my managers a decent amount of friction. It's not that I'm lazy or tired, it's that I'm up until the wee hours of the morning (last night: 4:51 AM) and I am totally unproductive before noon.

Despite my busy schedule and high workload there is, to be frank, nothing for me to do at the office at 9 AM. The point of coming in at 9 is to justify that you can leave at five, which most people do where I work. Yet I and a contingent of other workers routinely stay until 6 or 7 PM, and often later, or we will go home and continue to work from the comforts of our couches.

I'd prefer to go to bed at a sane hour like 11 PM, but I've got too much going through my head at that point to be able to fall asleep without some sedatives to help me along, and I often find myself working on a problem at 1 AM that really isn't worth my staying up (Perl's "use Inline", anyone?), yet it's a problem, a puzzle, and it interests me to the point of denying me sleep until I get to a good stopping point.

I feel bad for Obama if he is limited by the sleep schedules of the citizens of his country. I kind of like the thought that we have a night owl in charge.