Routine, who's that bitch?

The fantasy of a perfect day.

My bedtime is alarming

I love sleeping. But I don’t love going to bed. As an adult I live out my childhood fantasy of having no bedtime every day. I was raised by a mum who got up at 6am and a dad who woke up at 1pm. A and B people. It was clear from the start which category I fell into. The Bees. Alarm clocks buzzing, singing or shrieking at me do nothing to wake me up. In fact they make me fall into a deeper sleep. Alarms trigger a pavlovian response all of my own. My brain goes into fight and flight, short circuits, cancels itself out and turns into soup. I’d be the first to die in a war - the air raid siren would put me in a coma.

Training for a peaceful death

I can remember very clearly the times that I have woken up with a clear head. I can count them on one hand. They were times that I had, for some reason, had a good night’s sleep after going to bed at a reasonable time. I felt ready for the day. If only I could recreate them. But I just can’t, after 30 odd years of training my body to sleep through anything; I once slept through an engine failure in turbulence on a plane after saying to my panicked dad, “stop panicking, we either live or die, I’d rather die sleeping than screaming” I closed my eyes and went to sleep. I woke up on the tarmac. The plane in tact. My dad shook for days, his nervous system went into overdrive if we so much as crossed a bridge with potholes in it. The number of cigarettes he smoked in response to my insensitivity probably took a few years off his life. 

Telling Anna my wildly unrealistic plans to be on the A team and become a wellness guru

Feeding the machine

I am very aware, from all the wellness media that I consume, that I am a lesser person. Every day I tell myself, this will be the day when I get in my pyjamas, drink a cup of tea, put a sleep podcast on, close my eyes and fall asleep so that I can get 9 hours and wake up at 8am. Every night I end up watching one more episode of Real Housewives (until I complete the series), eating cheese and listening to podcasts about the world ending until 2am. Maybe I’m just not cut out for this life. The freelance life I mean, I am shit at the self imposed routine, I need a job that relies on me being there at 7am to or else there are serious consequences. I need pressure. I need to work within a capitalist framework where my time is dictated by someone else and even if I’m not being productive, somewhere the machine can feed on my freedom.

All or nothing

So when I told Anna, one of my closest friends, that I needed to get up at 6am from now on, have no screen time for 2 hours at least, do yoga, vocal exercises and journal in the morning before going out for a walk every day and write and produce my play she laughed at me. “That’s so you, Alfie. All or nothing. Why don’t you just start little by little.” Sigh. That’s so easy to say, but hard to keep up with. I’d rather just do everything until I burn out. It gives me an excuse to eat pizza at midnight and numb my feelings of inadequacy the next day with exhaustion. 

Midnight is for hotdogs

This Easter weekend, I found myself buying a hot dog at 11.30pm after forgetting to eat all day. I was writing a Substack, instead of my play. Good producer, bad writer.I had sat in my coat and shoes at the kitchen table all day, each time I got up to go I remembered that I needed to add a link somewhere or italicise something. When I finally went outside, I realised I didn’t have my coat on anymore. It was 9pm, I had to write something, anything. And I really had to leave the house. After scouring the house 5 times, up and down the stairs, turning it all over, looking in the fridge and the bin, I found my coat in the bathtub. Who knows why. At least I hadn’t flushed it down the loo. 

Toxic listmaking

I have spent the last hour, since I spoke to Anna, writing potential routines. That wasn’t part of the plan. I suppose I have a slightly obsessive nature. I seem to have forgotten my rule: I don’t make lists. It’s my toxic vice. I can keep adding to them for hours and not get one thing done. But oh boy, it feels good to write them… it’s a wholesome, almost religious experience. I’m a list zealot. And a schedule sinner. A false believer.

Today’s routine (allegedly):

 

I’ll let you know what really happens later.

The link to my work in progress date in London on July 16th is live. Click here to buy tickets: https://www.unrestrictedview.co.uk/dead-air/

Click here to see when and where I am performing: https://alfrunrose.com/dead-air/

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