Routines

Midnightlight · Wed Oct 21, 2009 9:49 am

At 5:14 in the morning, I’m sleeping. It’s a nice peaceful sleep which seems like it could last forever. And it does. A single minute can last such a long time when you’re not in a good mood. It’s a well known fact that a single minute can seem like hours when you’re in between a rock and a hard place. And, as soon as my electronic alarm clock goes off, the red LED numbers changing from 5:14 to 5:15, the annoying sound that happens to be my wakeup call violently shakes me awake. But, in reality, it’s just me getting up in the morning. My bed, as pitiful as it is, has granted me a decent night’s sleep, and I feel slightly refreshed. The springs poke at my skin sometimes, and stab them with their sharp coils. The cloth on the bed is ripped in some parts, large and random in some places, while others are small, and just beginning. It reminds me that I’ve had it for a long time.
The constant beeping is really beginning to bother me, much like an annoying, yappy little dog. You know the kind of dog I’m talking about. The one that tends to bark in that little annoying voice every time you pass by, and it never, ever shuts up. It makes you want to just strangle it sometimes, just so it’ll shut up, and you never have to deal with it. But, I’m not a dog killer. I don’t hurt animals on purpose, if they do get hurt. It’s almost like…
“Mathew, get up!” a voice, somewhat familiar to me calls out in the blank darkness. It’s my father, who seems to be a constant in my life. And I don’t say that as a complaint. He’s always been a good parent, despite some flaws. Besides, people compare me quite a lot to others, and they claim that I was raised much better than others. But, I don’t think so. A person is made by their environment, and interactions with others. Nothing can really change that, but it’s not an absolute truth either.
I reach over, shutting the yappy alarm up, and I stand up, and turn on my light. What a mess I’ve made of my bed. After quickly making it, I head to the bathroom, and I’m surrounded by 4 (what some might call adorable, or cute, or amazing, or something of that nature. I really can’t say, fill in the blank yourself) cats, who all seem to notice my presence, and start to beg for food.
Cats. Oh man, can I talk about cats. I can tell you all about how they’re that friend that you have, you know the one, whose always asking for something for free. And, you know he’s quite capable of providing for himself/herself, but doesn’t because s/he’s lazy? It’s like a certain kind of genius, one that knows there are two solutions to one problem. That problem being (at least for the cat, with your friend, again, I say fill in the blank) hunger.
They meow, a reminder that I should stop standing there, and hurry up and give them food. I give one a pet, but I ultimately decide against it. They can wait. I undress (if you could actually call it undressing, since I was hardly clothed to begin with), and step in the shower. The warm water is soothing, as it is gentle, and I spend more than 15 minutes in the shower. After I get out, the cats still demand food. I admit, I sort of like how they whine sometimes. But, that’s a bit cruel. So I feed them, and I step out, toweled, dried (for the most part), and ready to get dressed.
Heading back to my room, I’m reminded of how hard it actually is to move around the house, and that restriction of movement is something I’ve grown used to, much like being handcuffed, or bound to something. You eventually get used to being able to move with restrictions, and it’s amazing how easy it is for someone to adapt. It’s time to get dressed.
My selection of clothes is as always, laughable. A mention of how poor someone is doesn’t actually bother me, since I am poor, but I always found it funny how quickly a wealthy person is quick to dispute such a claim, but nothing else than flaunting their wealth around. Picking some random clothes, I get dressed, freshen myself up with deodorant, body spray, and I comb my hair. For some unknown reason, I’m losing hair. Maybe it’s normal, maybe it’s not, but I don’t really question it, or bring it up to my doctor for review. After all, I get sick easy, and it’s hard enough to keep up with illness, than it is to deal with something so trivial like losing a little bit of hair.
Getting dressed, I take care of the white animal by the door. He wants out, of course, so I leash him up, and as soon I open the door, he darts out. He always darts out. He never wants to stop, and it’s demanding from a teenage boy to keep up with him in the morning. Or, at least for myself. He’s a good dog, though, and I like him. He sometimes sleeps with me, and it’s nice to be able to have something to push off the bed. But, he’s persistent as he is loyal, and he always comes back. He’s the true definition of man’s best friend.
I waste the remaining time waiting for my father to get up from his bed, and start getting ready for his day. It’s a boring wait, so I start read. E-mails, Wikipedia (despite if it’s true or not, I usually look into gaming, or history of gaming), and I IM people who happen to be awake at the time. Glancing over at the clock, it reads 6:30. By the time I finish, it’s 7:20, and it’s time to head off to breakfast.
Neither I, or my father cook (though, that’s not always true, I sometimes eat a healthy amount of rice in the morning, or if I want to be different, I eat cereal, but I usually finish milk rather quickly), so we head off to Subway, where we always go to eat breakfast, in the occasion that nothing is available at the house to eat. Tiger protests us leaving by barking like the yappy dog he is, but he can’t stop us, oh no, and no one can. We are well on our way.
Arriving in about 5 minutes, we order the regular; A foot long breakfast sandwich (6 inches for me, 6 inches for my father), and we wait. I order lettuce, tomatoes, black olives, mayo, parmesan, oregano, and salt and pepper. With an egg, ham, and shredded cheese, it’s a breakfast for me, and I’d even go as far as to call myself a champion as to eating such an awesome thing.
My father and I don’t usually talk that much, but sometimes, the odd conversation is stuck up, either by desperation, or by the fact that we have nothing better to do. This time, it’s about the old woman who spreads rumors about my father. We talk about how she lies about how he’s a drug dealer, and how he works for the mafia, and how he kills people.
It’s boring, and I actually hate it, if there’s anything I hate. I don’t mean my father, by any means. God, no. How could I hate my own father? It’s that lady. She’s old, and she seems to want to talk to people, and gossip all the time. I think she should be in a home for the elderly. Not because she’s a liar (and slanderer), but because it seems like it’s the best thing for her.
“I’ll make sure that you never end up like that, Dad.” I say, jokingly, but he doesn’t laugh at it. He then gives me a long lecture about how I better not put him in a home because of all the great things he’s done for me. Yeah, they’re great. Yes, he’s provided for me. Yes, he’s raised me well. But some things, I just think he missed. And it’s at 18 years old, in Subway, eating breakfast with my father, that I learn the fallacy of good parenting. And that fallacy is that it’s never a perfect job.
8:00. Time to move. We get up, head to the car, drive out to the school, and we stop for a moment. I get out, taking my lunch with me (bought from Subway), and I tune out everything here. This, I really don’t enjoy, but I seem to sometimes turn into a mindless robot. As much as I don’t like it (and I really don’t like it), I am forced into it because of the many people I face and meet inside the school. I don’t like to classify them, but a lot of people are very stereotyped. And I guess I am too.
It’s easy to get through a day, when you’re tuning everything out. At first, it might seem like a big thing to do, but it’s not. It’s only as hard as you want to make it. At first, you simply listen to yourself. Anything anyone else says, at this point, as no meaning whatsoever, and that’s perfectly fine. If you like, it’s best to imagine them as those little voices on the wind. Not exactly there, but it’s easy enough to know they’re there if you listen to them.
The next step is paying attention, without having to pay attention. This is where most people get stuck, and just tone everything out. When a teacher calls on them, and they act all dumbfounded because they toned it all out, and the teacher gives them hell, or makes fun of them, or laughs at them, or something? Yeah, it was because those people didn’t do it properly.
You listen. But you don’t. It’s all about finding the right balance between actual listening, and passive listening. Actual listening is such as me talking to you on the street, and we both participate. Passive is done by listening all the time, and plucking the less important words out. Anything remotely related to the class has to stay. You can piece everything together yourself, because you already know all of the basic words.
The last, final, and hardest step is speeding past it all. And I don’t even know how I do it sometimes, so I’ll just leave this be. But, I’ll say this. It’s probably best described as initiating a warp jump in a sci-fi movie, if anything. It takes a while to warm up, but when you’re ready, you can jump directly home, or to another class, or at anytime you want.
But you can’t idle. If you do, you lose that valuable time to nothing. You lose it so quickly, it isn’t even funny. Seriously, plan out your day in your mind first. That way, you at least have some kind of plan to do things. Otherwise, you sit like a vegetable.
So, I do my usually jump. And I escape home. Homework done, slightly tired. Not that big of a deal. So I start reading. I read about Great Cthulhu, who sleeps in R’yeth. I read about the queer looking town of Innsmouth, and I’m reminded why I don’t like small towns, deep water, and fish. I read about random things on the internet, and I can’t put a finger on a lot of things. Did you know the bullet ant has the strongest sting in the world? Stuff like that.
After reading gets boring, I’m tempted to play some games, but it soon gets passed over. I think I’ll write. I write about how to breeze through school. I write about my escapes. I write and write, disturbed by random things, such as my dog barking, or my father asking me for help with something computer related.
I then start to game. I play. And I play. And I play some more. Then I take a break by sleeping. And, eventually, again, at 5:14, the day is soon to start again. And, as much as I like it, I think I’ve fallen into a routine.

Routines

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