This American's life

5:30AM EST. I hit the alarm snooze for the seventh time, ending all hope of arriving at work anywhere near my goal of the night before we open. Rough night last night, had to hang around campus much longer than I planned due to a last-minute change of instructors in my most recent class.

Glasses: grabbed. Survey of situation: workable. With a whore's bath and a brief brushing out, I should be thru the door at the copy shop by 6:05. Thank God I thought to take some snackables to work or else it'd be more mall food for lunch.

To my left I see my wife, although I won't really see her until the weekend. She's not invisible, mind you, but her second shift work schedule and my first and second life aren't meshing well currently. We're sleeping on each other's time, I'm in bed long before she gets home and she's unconscious when I wake up. With luck, this will be one of those weekends where my days off will intersect with her days off and we can collapse together.

Got to get moving. Fifteen minutes later, I'm husling down the stairs three at a time to beat out an notoriously slow elevator. Out the door, into the car and on thru the predawn murk of extreme suburban Atlanta, on my way to the practice Purgatory: American retail employment.