Nightcap anyone?

After an extended period of wakefulness, I have succumbed to the Dark Triad.

And what are you going to do about it?  Scatter!  Be gone! 

You early birds.  You sound sleepers.  You refreshed ones all in your places with bright shiny faces.  Boo!

And here’s the deal:  I am not accountable for any unscrupulous or crabby behavior.  You couldn’t prove it anyway.  I’m smarter than that.  I have left no clues.  Take it to court if you want.  I’ll be there with my attorney and my Twinkie.

But Carolyn, what have you done?  You seem delightful – mostly.  You have such a charming way about you, generally speaking.  So far as we know, you’re a good person…?

Don’t worry.  It’s not like that.  And if it were, what am I going to do?  Confess?!  Please. 

Admit it Dear Reader.  Even you have thrashed your way through the wee hours, wrapped in your Wamsuttas, damp and desperate. 

Tell me you never entertained a treacherous thought after you missed your bedtime, woke up angry and found your dog there smiling at you.  All that incessant canine cheerfulness!  Right.  Right!  I love you too!  Now go outside by yourself for once and pee!

We each have an alter ego.  No one knows how shadowy it might be or what will bring it to the forefront.

For me it began innocently enough, happily even:  I retired and didn’t have to get up early any more. 

There.  That’s it.  That’s all there is to it, really:  I no longer had to wander upstairs in a foggy haze at 9:30PM, fall like a redwood onto the Tempurpedic, only to leap up again at five the next morning preparing for work in a frenzied stupor. 

Staying up late seemed the most harmless thing.  Like a sleepover party.  Like the Stay Puft marshmallow man – it could never, ever destroy me.  But that’s where the downfall began.  Don’t let this happen to you:

I stayed up later and later.  I watched Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. 

A dash of political cynicism; a pinch of buffoonery.  That’s all.  How could that possibly turn against me? 

But the laughter brightened me and I extended my nights into Jimmy Fallon and Indie flicks.  I felt so urbane.

Next thing I knew it was 2AM and I realized I’ve never seen Edward Norton and Naomi Watts in “The Painted Veil.”  Sounds intriguing.  And it was. 

Now, I’ll just turn on my side and slip off to …wait!  What’s this on my phone?  An internet connection…

Did I mention I’ve had a spate of sleeplessness?

No need to be concerned, I thought.  It’s a passing thing, owing to the You-Just-Can’t-Have-Everything-Going-Well-All-at-the-Same-Time syndrome.

And I put the shift in my sweet nature down to the Sleep-Deprived-People-Tend-to-Be-Cranky-and-Make-a-Lot-of-Errors-in-Decorum disorder.

But now I know:  My name is Carolyn and I’m an insomniac – a person most likely to become a manipulative, self-admiring psychopath.

That’s right.  Research published in the journal “Personality and Individual Differences” shows that people who have a tendency to stay up late are more likely to exhibit anti-social personality traits.

I’ve been initiated into the Dark Triad – the Machiavellian, the narcissist and yes, the psychopath.

I didn’t know!  Please believe me!  I didn’t know!! 

A psychopath: Characterized by reduced empathy, antisocial behavior and disinhibition. 

A narcissist: egomaniac.

A Machiavellian: One who manipulates and exploits others without regard to morality.

Where does it go from here?  Oh, where will it end?!

Dr. Peter K. Jonason, the study’s author explains:

“Those who scored highly on the Dark Triad traits are, like many other predators such as lions and scorpions, creatures of the night.”

OMG.  I can’t believe it!  I’m a predator??!!

Jonason explains, “For people pursuing a fast life strategy like that embodied by the Dark Triad traits, it’s better to occupy and exploit a lowlight environment where others are sleeping and have diminished cognitive functioning.”

Oh no.  Just last night I watched “Interview with the Vampire”!  Or about a third of it.  Even for us Dark Siders, it’s pretty hard to take.

Protect yourselves Dear Readers!  I may not be able to stop myself – there’s a Breaking Bad marathon tonight.  But it’s not too late for you!

Unless of course, you’d like to stay up and join me.  

Black, white and gray

As is well-established by science, there are two types of people in the world.  There have only ever been two types.  Two types alone.  Amen.

Any effort to define and sort people into a third group is futile.  A fourth?  Abomination!

People love the binary and in fact will self-sort.

You’re either built for comfort or built for speed.  You declare yourself a lover not a fighter. 

You recognize the universal duality as you go about your daily life:  There are those who signal and those who blithely change lanes.  Those who listen and those who merely wait their turn to talk.

Cat people.  Dog people.  Wallflowers and dancers.  Math people and the rest of us.   

Don’t mess with the order of the universe.  Coke or Pepsi, man.  Make your choice!  Commit!

It’s been true since Noah built the Ark.  Two by two, dude.  Two by two.

But the wise guys at Personality andIndividual Differences just couldn’t leave it alone.  They just had to tinker.  Guess which of these two groups they fall into – those who make things simple and those who make things complicated.

And the result of their meddling?  The title of their research tells it all:  “How many diurnal types are there?  A search for two further ‘bird species.’”

First of all – Diurnal?  Diurnal?!!  That in itself is a tipoff.  Who says ‘diurnal’?  These aren’t red-blooded American lab geeks. 

You’re not a ‘diurnal type’!  You’re either an early bird or a night owl.  Period. 

But evidently, if your family names are Putilov, Donskaya and Verevkin, you just had to investigate.  You had to fiddle with the American way of life.

Sure, Mr. Putin’s emissaries start with larks (early birds) and (night) owls, like normal people.  But they immediately get into unnecessary subtleties.  What does it matter if you don’t fit the pigeon hole? 

Because you do fit it! 

Do not attempt to resist your label.  You lark you.  You owl.

Admit it.  You’re in one of two sleep-over camps:  1) you prefer to get up early and prance around cheerily as though you are something special.  And so you go to sleep early because even you, in all your insane optimism, cannot sustain that level of irritating merriment past dark.  Thereby you are an early bird – a lark.

 Or, 2) you prefer to rise according to the prophecy – when the mid-morning sun is on your face and the cat is desperate for nourishment.  You go about your business like a sensible human being and get your news of the world from Jon Stewart and StephenColbert, thereby demonstrating your night owlishness.


Don’t fight it!  Resistance is futile.  And rough on the feathers.

But here we go:  Thanks to the Ruskies we now have two more types of sleep/wake patterns to cope with somehow.  They identified a third group of extremely annoying people who feel high energy in the morning as well as at night. 

Where do these people fit in?  What are we normal dichotomous folks supposed to do with Diurnal Group #3?  They probably put ketchup on their hot dogs for God’s sake. 

I’ll bet they unwrap packages by slipping their fingers along the edge of the seam, loosening the tape, just so, saving the paper and ribbons for reuse.  I really hate these people.  Really, I do.

What shall we call these giddily energetic folks?  Why hummingbirds of course!  They’re probably high on sugar water.

And then there’s the fourth group who feel lethargic all day.  These guys make us night owls look bad.  If we nap during in the afternoon to make up some REM time, the logic holds; but Group 4 sullies that fine institution.

There, there.  Poor weary you.  You’re too worn-out to eat the crust of your pizza.  You don’t have the strength to sort your Skittles.

Look, just because you lay about heaving heavy sighs, back of your hand to your forehead all day, doesn’t mean you deserve your own avian appellation. 

But it’s too late now.  The damage is done.  Patterns detected and documented.  The only thing remaining is the moniker.  And the Russians don’t disappoint.

What better name to call such a ringer?  Number 4 in a two-category world?


Turkey!

So Many Heroes, Such Tiny Stamps

You don’t have to be dead to be appreciated.  Not any more anyway. 

Up until January of 2007, the US Postal Service required that a person be deceased for 10 years before appearing on a commemorative stamp.  That year, the rule was relaxed to five years deceased before such an honor.  (By USPS tradition, former presidents have always been remembered on stamps the year following their deaths.) 

But now, hoping to boost its sagging revenues, the US Postal Service has abandoned its long-standing rule that stamps cannot feature living people.  It’s a first.  It means that living sports stars, writers, artists, and other prominent people could take their places in postal history along with the likes of George Washington, Martin Luther King Jr., and Marilyn Monroe. 

The postal service got into its financial bind at least in part because of the near complete abandonment of “snail mail” in favor of email.  So there’s irony in the fact that the USPS issued its invitation for nominations of living people to be depicted on new stamps on their Postal Service website, as well as Facebook and Twitter.   

Suggestions for commemorative stamps already came in via traditional pen-and-ink submissions at the rate of 40,000 per year.  Now that the electronic call has gone out for suggestions as to whom Americans think should appear on the next round of commemorative stamps, it’s hard to imagine how many ideas will stream through the newly opened automated floodgate.  Who’s going to sort through all that stuff?  Maybe that person should have a stamp! 

On-the-street interviews and my own informal survey drew ideas for honorees from across the spectrum:  Michelle Obama for her work on childhood obesity.  Charlie Sheen, “an American icon.”  (Uh, winning?)  Lady Gaga for her creativity and individualism.  Jimmy Carter for his humanitarian work.  Alice Waters for all that good food. 

Steve Jobs.  Of course!  So sad that he passed before he could receive this particular recognition.  The thought that follows immediately is Mark Zuckerberg.  Life-on-earth changing guy.  Bill Gates.  His philanthropy may be the legacy that gets his face on the forty-three cent-er. 

Comedian Stephen Colbert has already begun his own campaign to become the first living person depicted on a government-issued postage stamp.  He has proposed a “Farewell to Postage” stamp sporting a photo of himself holding a smartphone with an email message to the Postal Service: “See Ya!” 

If fake newsmen are allowed, I’ll vote for Jon Stewart.  George Carlin should already have been “stamped,” along with Richard Pryor.  Other entertainers might be shoo-ins:  Meryl Streep, Halle Berry, Ron Howard, Francis Coppola, Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney.   

Perhaps the opportunity presents itself not only for those living folks who already get lots of attention and accolades to get even more recognition, but also for the rest of us middle class schmos to be acknowledged for the following the rules and doing what’s right.  We make the country work.  Put a face on us and that face on a stamp, because gosh darn it, we deserve it. 

Seems like categories of honorees are called for:  Educators, of course.  It might be amusing to show a frazzled middle school teacher trying to coax a seventh grader’s homework out of a dog’s mouth.  Or how about a high school principal throwing a wet blanket at a Homecoming Dance?   

Moms!  Without question moms should get a stamp.  I’d like my mom to represent all the single moms who struggled to provide for their children.  Dads too.  Modern dads engaged with their kids.  Nurses and doctors deserve a nod for their devotion to others. 

Why not stick representatives of American life and cultural phenomena on the corner of an envelope:  Someone who danced with the stars, got lost, hoarded, picked, or remodeled.  No!  The Biggest Loser!  Perfect.

Don’t overlook the over-looked:  sanitation workers, baristas, dry cleaners, and convenience store clerks.  Postal workers themselves! 

What about those who are so often maligned?  Lawyers?  DMV clerks?  No?  Oh well. 

Today the early commemorative stamps are prized by collectors.  But back in the day, the appearance of commemorative postage stamps caused a backlash among some stamp collectors!  They balked at the prospect of laying out ever-larger sums to acquire the burgeoning proliferation of stamps.  So in 1895 they organized to blacklist what they deemed to be excessive stamps, forming the Society for the Suppression of Speculative Stamps.  Really.   

We might need a curmudgeon stamp.