Daylight Saving Has Been Fading My Curtains

Much to my disappointment, I have never been good with change.

I'm not one of those readily adaptable people that waltzed through the major upheavals of high school and university without excess vomiting and quivering lip. And the upheavals to which i refer were not insignificant... like the Pan Pacific Music Camp at the beginning of year 8 (misery, misery, misery and an Andrew Lloyd Webber medley), the Duke of Edinburgh Silver expedition in year 10 (weakness, misery and an inability to digest a freshly stewed billy-full of chicken two minute noodles) and perhaps most upheavey, being left for an only child when my two sisters went away to university (heartache, loneliness and a hallmark moment of motivation that my mother recounts so well i am drawn to tears). Had i not had the presence of mind to give myself a very good talking to on day one of college, I would probably still be sitting on that brittle mattress with a chequered history (the mattress, not me) in a 2m x 2m institutional box, listening obsessively to 'Pick You Up' by Powderfinger and wishing myself back into the family home. As it was, I only did that for an hour... and a half... on the first day.

I like to think i've made great leaps forwards since those days, but I still have a tendency towards maintaining the status quo and i still resist change (except from a vending machine, ba-dum ching!). Never has this been more apparent than in my attitude to daylight saving this year, and it's a hobby i would still be pursuing if i didn't have some monkey paying me to get out of bed.

The fight against adjusting to daylight saving is a lonely one - the world moves forward without you.... quite literally. You can't fight that in most forums, i.e. socially, but I had managed to maintain a foot in the ye olde world by neglecting to change all of the clocks in the house... specifically the bedroom. Nothing says 'hey, you're not so out of whack with the way of the people' like waking up an hour earlier than the truth and going to bed at a more decent hour by one. I've been keeping abnormal hours... but not by Queensland standards, and the drapes are the better for it!

Late last night, i conceded. For the first time in weeks, I had someplace i needed to be this morning and it suddenly became worth my while to have a reliable timepiece in the bedroom. While my little friend slept, I impatiently trialled button after incongruous button on the newfangled stereo until i found a way to add the hour that had been missing, and just like that, I was rocketed into November the 3rd.

In the wee hours of this morning, as i roused just enough to hear my little friend leaving the house at sub 5am temperatures, I wondered whether my self serving leap into the present had perhaps made me the perpetrator of an accidental practical joke, and how long it would be before he discovered what the time really was...