time

I am never late. I have a very precise sense of time. For example, if I must be at 92nd and Broadway at three, I will leave my apartment and arrive at that spot precisely on time (barring subway complications). If I am meeting someone in nearby Cobble Hill, I will leave my place and arrive at our meeting spot at exactly the time agreed. This timeliness is not driven by neurotic obsessiveness. Rather, it is some kind of sixth sense that I have. I don't calculate the time it will take, or leave at some precisely planned moment. Also, if I am working, and I say to myself that I will stop in ten minutes, I will look at the clock exactly ten minutes later.

I am not oblivious to social etiquette, though, and am late when it is appropriate: for a party, for an art opening, that sort of thing. And with friends who are habitually late, I have learned to show up late myself, so that I don't waste my own time. I had a lot of practice because my brother and sister are both late almost always.

I think that this skill, or proclivity or whatever it is, comes from being a musician. After all, a musician without an acute sense of time would not get very far.

Perhaps this is the reason that I keep waking up every night exactly at 4:39 am. The problem is, it is driving me crazy. I need to sleep, at least until 6.