At 5 am

I'm awake at 5 am again. But today, for better or worse, it's not because I procrastinated. And it's not because I want to be, either.

I woke up with an unbearable stomachache after dreaming of meeting up with my atheist ex from high school. He had given me headaches before, but this was the first time he prevented me from sleeping. Which is saying a lot, because few things can prevent me from sleeping other than 1) feeling gassy, and 2) having too much on my mind.


But I admit, it wasn't really because of my ex. I hadn't even thought of him in ages, and the subconscious revival of his face almost made me puke in my dream. I hope he never reads this so he doesn't appear again in my mind, subconscious or not.


Today, the real culprit is my former boss from Hawaii I had dinner with last night. We decided on normal Korean food, but I forgot his standards are a little higher than mine. The meal ended up costing 50,000 won per person for what would normally be 10,000 at other restaurants. Rice, soup, and a couple of side dishes. Add a little steamed pork, spicy octopus legs, tofu with barbeque--and tag on an extra 40,000 won. I felt guilty, so I ate it all. To the very last bite.


I must have eaten a lot faster than I could digest, because I am still tasting the aftermath of the barqueque and octopus legs. That, and my twisting stomach, which by 4:30 in the morning was screaming out in pain, were the only things that could got a rock like me to come out of bed.


So here I am. And I'm noticing things I never had time to notice before.


You have a heightened sense of awareness at 5 o'clock in the morning. All of a sudden, you notice the way shadows fall across your room in haunting ways or how normal things in your rooms morphed into characters out of a horror movie. All crazy things that seem perfectly normal when you're delirious.



Or how it's already 5 am, yet the color of the sky outside is still the same dull shade of reddish brown that it was at 11:00 last night. Before I fell asleep, I remember looking through the window and blaming the yellow dust.


It must have heard me. As I took a sip of water from a cup that had been sitting on my desk since yesterday, almost instantly, I tasted the knawing bitterness of the dust that had somehow seeped into our apartment. Bah! I wanted to spit it out but had nowhere to do it.


I realized that sometimes you don't have a specific reason to write. Writing is a window to your soul, and you leave it open because you need some fresh air once in a while.


It's 5:15 now and my day starts in exactly 2 hours and 45 minutes. From then it's war--here, in the tiny yet bustling, busy, and way too complicated city of Seoul. But being up this early makes you a lot calmer than waking up 20 minutes before your next appointment. Maybe it's something I should try on a regular basis. To keep me saner than I would be in my delirious state, that is.