Morning is Broken into Tiny Pieces

One of the more acute tragedies of working life is that whole hours, whole blocks of time, go missing. 11:00 AM, 2:00 PM, 3:30 PM: it's as if you've misplaced pieces of your body, as if you're suddenly living life without your gall bladder or your second kidney or the third finger of your left hand. The days mutate into strange, shuffling creatures. You wander dazedly in the half-light. Some trick: telescoping life into endless dusk.

I know I'm spoiled. I know I'm privileged beyond ken. But isn't there something essentially human in tracking the hours, in bearing witness to the way the light moves across the sky? Thanks to an arcane bit of state law, my work schedule this week is irregular. All I can say is, 9:00 AM, you're looking pretty sexy to me.