I am an unabashed night owl. While you are lying in bed, slumbering soundly or frolicking through dreamland, I am awake. Most nights, I keep the watch, surrendering to sleep as others start to rise.

That’s not really the right way to say that. That makes it sound like I dislike sleep. I don’t. In fact, I quite enjoy it. But I prefer it during the morning hours, a period of time I don’t fully understand the point of otherwise.

I have always been this way. I can think back to being small and hearing my parents go to bed. Not all the time, but not just the once and not just, as seems to be a common occurrence, at Christmas (although my parents will tell you I had more difficulty on that night than others remaining in my bed). Early on, my parents attempted to address my insomnia with the radio: You don’t have to go to sleep, but you do have to stay in bed. We’ll leave the radio on to keep you company. I suspect this advice is in the parent handbook. I’m pretty sure its hoped-for result is a child who drifts off to sleep listening to quiet music. Instead, it just meant I listened to a surprisingly broad array of nighttime programming — baseball, tv shows, pop music, classical music, evangelical talk shows…

As a teenager, I started pulling all-nighters. Sometimes there was an academic purpose — a test to study for or a paper I needed to finish — but just as often it was just because I enjoyed it. The fact that my room was on the back of the house and my light couldn’t be seen from my folks’ room probably had something to do with my ability to pull off as many off as I did.

College was the perfect time for me, with nearly everyone I knew awake until the wee smalls and usually another hallmate or two with whom to companionably share the pre-dawn hours. Nearly all the sunrises I’ve seen have come at the end of my day, rather than at its start.

People regularly give me (and, frankly, every other night owl) the advice to go to bed early. They offer remedies. They proffer tips. They scold. They cajole. They dangle before us all the wonderful things we can do with those accursed mornings if only we’d get up earlier. But what they don’t do is understand: I love the night.

I love its quiet, even when I choose to fill it with tv, music, a podcast, or an audiobook. I love that it gives me space to expand into it. Living in the city is hard. There are always people around, sharing your commute, your workspace, your elevator, your cramped apartment. You can use headphones to reclaim some of that space, but, just as on an airplane, a really annoying nuisance will find its way to worm its way into your consciousness. The night offers me space to think, to hear my own voices, rather than the cacophony of the thousands around me.

I also love going out into night. Some people find the darkness and the lack of crowds off-putting or even frightening. I find it invigorating. I can find myself out in all that space, in the same way that the ocean re-centers me. I even like the people you encounter in the middle of the night. (I’m not stupid: I remain vigilant about my surroundings and those who share them with me, and I exercise more caution than I would during the day or when others are around.) But the people you find in late-night coffeehouses and working the cash registers of the graveyard shift are friendlier, in a quiet sort of way, than they are when the sun is out. Maybe it’s because they, too, feel more like themselves in the night. Maybe we recognize kindred spirits.

Perhaps we all find our inner peace when the outside lights turn off.

(Thanks to Amanda for the prompt.)

Today was a Wednesday and might have merited a Yarn Along post where I could share with you what I was reading and knitting.

Except I’m not really knitting or reading anything at the moment.

Oh, there are projects and books all over the place in various stages of completion, but none of them are things I want to be spending my time on. This wouldn’t be a problem if I were spending my time in some other constructive, positive way by, say, writing or learning the ukelele or parsing irregular French verbs or dealing with the 20 pounds of apples sitting in my fridge or hanging out with friends. But I’m not doing any of those things either.

Instead, I’m spending a lot of time curled up on the couch, watching tv and playing games on my phone. Well, and feeling irked about the fact that that’s all that I’m doing.

I totally know that this is a cyclical stage of depression that arises around this time every year. I know the steps I need to take to combat it, such as going to bed at a more reasonable hour and making an effort to see or phone friends and spending lunch hours in the sun, but it’s far too easy not to do those things. Staying stuck doesn’t require any effort, but getting myself unstuck does.

A bright spot is that usually by the time I realize this has become a problem I’m on my way back out of the doldrums. Tonight, I tackled the echoing cavern of my blog and a languishing writing obligation.

Tomorrow, I’ll see about the reading and the knitting. I’ll clear off the table and wind up a fresh ball of yarn to start a new project — maybe a hat or some socks in stripey Christmas yarn. And I’ll hit the library to borrow a cozy, possibly by M.C. Beaton, since I’ve found her Hamish Macbeth mysteries a satisfying (and quick) way to combat the listless feeling I get sometimes after reading several good books in a row.

That way, even if I’m still stuck next week, at least I’ll have a book or a project to tell you about.

I was really looking forward to this weekend, having just worked four straight days that seemed more like 40 after returning from vacation. And, yet, I filled it right up.

On Saturday, the alarm actually roused me mid-morning, allowing me time to loll on the couch with the cats with some tea before deciding how to spend the afternoon.

Laundry was washed and hung.

Floors were vacuumed.

I ventured down to Clinton, Maryland, to check out their cider doughnuts and, because they were fresh out of the oven, came away with a dozen for me and a dozen for Sarah. (My box may have been shorted slightly, since there definitely were not 12 doughnuts in there when my cinnamon-sprinkled shirt and I arrived home after dropping Sarah’s box off at her place.)

I also picked up adorable wee pumpkins, giant globular grapes, and a three-pound log of butter.

While Rudi went out to a party with cycley friends, I stayed home to knit and preview a couple of the new Christmas cds I picked up during vacation. At least a couple of tracks are possible contenders for my annual holiday mix.

This morning we were up and out early. A friend had flown into town to run the marathon and we were determined to catch him as he ran near our house. He was pleased (and probably a bit surprised) to see us.

The farmers market netted us a basket full of vegetables — the last of the green beans, ginger, leeks, and lots more — for tasty fall dishes.

After returning home for second breakfast (and a nap on my part), we ventured down to the garden. Rudi had pulled up the basil midweek when temperatures dipped into frosty territory, but we’ve left everything else. As you can see from the shot at the top of the post, we still have tons of tomatoes on the vine, and our lows are supposed to remain mild this week, giving them (and the peppers and tomatillos) a bit more time to ripen.

Then it was up to the local park, where a Halloween party was being held, and where our friends Susan and Phillip and their two children had agreed to meet us. We hung out and talked and played with the kids for a couple hours.

Then down to collect our bikes for the weekend’s coffeeneuring trip. My original goal for this event was to explore unfamiliar shops, so I suggested we head to Bar di Bari (1401 R St., N.W.), which opened over the summer on 14th Street.

Rudi picked up a latte and I some Earl Grey tea and then we remembered we hadn’t eaten in a long time and decided to add some food to our excursion. I opted for a cheese plate and fresh bread, while Rudi picked out a mushroom turnover and salad. It was all delicious, and the waitress handled our desire to sit outside with good-natured poise, even though I’m sure her arms chilled every time she came out to the table.

We read a bit, then biked home: a total of 3.2 miles over 21 minutes.

We concluded the weekend by listening to the Red Sox game after we tracked down an online stream. A nice come-from-behind victory proved they needed our support.

This was a weekend full:

• of colors natural and manmade;
• of laughter and tears;
• of roadtrips;
• of quests;
• of relaxation with books, knitting, and cats;
• of people I love.

Also, I thought weekend roundups were a nice place to share my first ever bicycling challenge:

I am taking part in Chasing Mailboxes’ Coffeeneuring Challenge, which began this weekend and continues over the next six weeks. In it, I agree to accomplish seven weekend bike rides of at least two miles each roundtrip to different establishments that sells warm beverages and to consume one.

Yes, that’s right: I have to ride 14 total miles over nearly two months and to drink seven tasty beverages. I have found the perfect bike challenge!

Coffeeneuring Ride #1: Teaism
Saturday, Oct. 5

I started the weekend slowly, having slept past the event I’d planned to take part in on Saturday morning. I puttered for a while, did some chores, but failed to find any food that appealed. So, I thought, I could tie in my bike ride and coffee shop quest with a snack. By this point, it was later in the afternoon and my ride also had to include a stop at the garden, where my plants were awaiting water, parched after a week of sun and warm temperatures. Watering and picking vegetables takes time, though, even for such a small community garden spot as mine and by the time I finished up, it was getting close to 5.

My original hope for the day was to visit a coffeeshop nearby that I hadn’t yet tried. I took the L Street cycletrack over to L, but they’d put away their food. No worries, I thought. There’s a second location of Filter over by GW, and my phone suggests it’s open until 6. Not, apparently, on weekends, when it isn’t open at all.

Fine. I can start this week with a known entity: Bread & Brew is on the way home and they have a nice outdoor deck and tasty bread pudding (even if their tea leaves something to be desired). As I pedal up the hill, I notice the windows are dark and the patio deserted. They, too, were closed.

By this point, I’d pretty much given up hope, but then realized sometimes your heart’s desire can indeed be found in your own backyard: Teaism in Dupont Circle is 1.5 blocks from my house, but after all the other shops I visited, I completed the day’s ride with 3.11 miles under my belt.

I celebrated with chai and naan, my teahouse version of tea and cinnamon toast:

(Weekending along with Amanda.)

On Friday night, since no one else could join us and since the music has ended at The Yards for the season, we opted to spend the evening at our local park with books and snacks. Rudi brought our travel hammock up there and I joined him in a beach chair. The temperatures were cool, as you might be able to tell from our needing to wear pants:

Yesterday, as I mentioned on the blog earlier, I biked up to Hyattsville and Julia joined me there for an arts festival. The festival was smaller than those we’re used to in D.C., but we still found jewelry we liked. We also made our way to Franklin’s for conversation over drinks and the first apple crisp of the season.

This morning after watering the garden, we drove up to Delaware to spend the afternoon at the beach. It was a lovely day for a drive: we turned on Rudi’s iPod and I knit on my shawl and we sang.

In Bethany Beach, we picked up some fish sandwiches, birch beer, and fresh, hot fries and ate lunch on the sand. A brisk, off-shore breeze made air temperatures in the mid- to lower-70s feel ten degrees cooler, but the water was temperate, if a bit choppy. Machinery surrounded us, as construction teams worked in the ocean and on shore, dredging up sand to replenish what washes away from the beach.

After the sun slipped behind the shoreline rentals, we decided to call it a day. With local businesses in the sleepy hamlet closing early, Rudi suggested we drive north to Rehobeth Beach to check out their downtown and see if they had a coffeeshop that was still open.

I sighted the sign for coffee tucked into an alleyway, so we stopped for half an hour to partake in hot drinks, a bookshop/toy store, and the most breathtaking sunset (my photo does no justice to it) before beginning the three-hour trek home.

(Weekending with Amanda)

Saturday I slept in and did far less than I hoped to or should have. I did get a load of laundry done, floors vacuumed, and bills paid, but no writing, knitting, cooking, or reading. I harvested tomatoes from the garden, admired the seedlings coming up already, and gave everything a generous dousing. Rudi and I concluded the night with a picnic dinner while watching Casablanca al fresco in a nearby park (where I also reached the disappointing conclusion that the new sock I began earlier in the week needed to go down a needle size). Oh, and I came up with an idea for a much-needed trip for me and Rudi.

Today, we hit the farmers market (plum jam!) and the local book sale (Jasper Fforde novel!) and the somewhat overrated Adams Morgan Day Festival. We met up with John and Nicole and ate cupcakes and had drinks (beer for them, hot chocolate for me) and dinner. Rudi and I finished the night with an episode of Doctor Who, while I worked on the sock I’d expected to be be finished with by now.

How was your weekend? Did you do fun things? Tackle projects you wanted to get done?

(weekending with Amanda)