Nightline Nightfly

I was in college when I found it.

One night, after the regular 10PM newscast (that's Central Time; I lived in Texas, where prime time began at 7 and the news came on at 10), there was Ted Koppel and this news show, Nightline. The show actually started in 1979, when the Iran hostage crisis began. When that event ended, the show lived on. I never stumbled upon it until I went away to college in Lubbock, Texas in 1981.*

I remember sitting a a round table in a tiny apartment, surrounded by friends, catching this guy on the news talking to us like it was normal that we were still awake. He was sharing news - interesting, relevant information, and it was for normal people.

I've always been a Nightline fan. And I loved CNN when it started because it was news all the time. So I could feel normal any time, day or night. Because most of the time, I don't feel so normal when it comes to my work schedule, my life rhythm, my energy levels.

It's 11:13PM and I just started a load of laundry. I function best at night. I'd like to stay up until midnight or 1AM every night and sleep til 8.

These days, life won't work that way because I have a 6th-grader whose bus pulls up at 6:45AM.

Which is just wrong, I think. WRONG.

But anyway - I don't function like that today due to school schedules. But someday, that will change.

(Insert happy dance.)

In fact, part of my "Future Plan" includes how many more years I have to get a kid on The Early Bus. (Two and a half more years, if you're counting. And I am. Since I've been doing it since we moved here, eight years ago.) 

When I can, I wonder if I will. Stay up late, that is. And sleep until I get eight hours. I'm not sure I'll ever feel like I'm not about to get in trouble. From my mother.

Time will tell. 

*Are you one of those people who grab a date - like "I went to college in 1981" - and begin to do the math? "Hmmm....if she was 18 in 1981 when she started college, and it's 2012 this year, two minus one is one and 11 minus eight is three, carry the one, that was 31 years plus she was 18, so add those together and then she must be in her late forties...." 

Yeah, give it up. I'll be 49 this year.

**I'm one of those people. 


And for your listening pleasure: