Life Before 9am

It is 8:24am. I have been up for 4 hours. Many of you are thinking, "Yeah, so what? I get up at 4:30 or 5am every day!" Or like this exchange with my mother last night when I told her I had to be at a conference breakfast for work at 6:30am:
Mom: I work EVERY day 6:30 to 6:30
Me: Yea, well you're an adult
Mom: You're an adult now too sweetie
Me: No, I'm a FAKE adult

Or like my dad said to me a few days ago about an unrelated issue:
Dad: You know Liz, outside of your little bubble of Manhattan people get to work at 7 or 8am
Me: Yea, well, inside the bubble people work until 8 or 9 PM or maybe later, so when that stops happening, maybe we'll get to work earlier. K, thanks

I do not consider myself a lazy person, but I do consider myself a person who requires 8 hours of sleep to be a functioning human who can contribute meaningfully to life. I don't particularly enjoy the effect that coffee has on my body, so I like to have enough sleep so that I don't require it.

Today all bets are off.

When you're up at 4:30 after going to bed at 11:30 after a wonderful birthday dinner with 7 of your friends, and attending a breakfast with breast surgeons, you need something to keep you going, in a major way. Can we just discuss the fact that I was utterly unprepared to watch a video of a breast cancer surgery demonstrating the insertion of catheters and the whole shebang for radioactive seed placement, sucking out the seroma and all?!! At 7:15am. And it's not like I could look away or cringe or, say, hide under the table. I was in a room of surgeons who do this. Every day. Probably at 7:15am.

So then I left the breakfast and headed to the office, because that seemed the natural thing to do at 7:55am. Seriously? People are up and functioning and flittering about at this hour? More caffeine.

I arrived at the office to find a few other early birds bleary-eyed about the office. Including one Mr. Darren and one Mr. Jables. Who both seemed concerned for my mental state at the time of my inevitable crash from the caffeine overload. Must. Schedule. More. Interviews.

Rock on breast surgeons, you are far more dedicated than I. Although, now I suppose by default I become hardcore, joining in their ranks of early early risers. How many of y'all can say you have watched breast surgery at 7am? Yeah, that's what I thought.