Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Catching the Worm or Hooting?

“Women who are night owls share the same high propensity for risk-taking as men”

“Night owls, both males and females, are more likely to be single or in short-term romantic relationships versus long-term relationships, when compared to early birds”

ChicagoU-research-article  

I wonder if this means I am kicked out of the human race and risk-taking womanhood.

To begin with, the article is not all that right. For one thing, I never had a short-term romantic relationship. They were all long, some too long, painfully long. The last one is still on and has lasted 49 years. Am I a risk-taker? Yeah, somewhat. I even tried to climb Matterhorn, once, even though my face was red afterwards and I didn’t have one bone left that didn’t ache. "What Women Can Do"  But the jury is out on that, too, for in old age, I’d rather not take any such risks. Trust me, I don’t even risk cleaning my house fully.

For the researcher to save face, I am going to add that I’d love to be an early bird. When I wake up early in the morning due to some out-of-the-ordinary situation, I do get more done, but when 4P.M. hits, I am a rusty android dragging myself around. So I’d rather wake up a little late, thus avoiding the crabbiness of other early risers, as one of them lives with me and is married to me. Plus I like going to bed late, after the early-risers are fast asleep, so I can have some quality time for myself. In other words, so I can write.

Even if I were an early bird, I wouldn’t mess my diet with worms. I know people in dozens of countries eat insects from beetles to stinkbugs. I heard that UN has urged people to eat bugs, and a couple of days ago, National Geographic published an article with the headlines: “Ants are sweet, nutty little insects, aren't they? I'm not talking about their personalities, but how they taste. Stinkbugs have an apple flavor, and red agave worms are spicy. A bite of tree worm apparently brings pork rinds to mind.”

EEEEK! These guys may love the tiny fried legs with a few sips of Chianti, but this woman (moi) screams bloody hell when she sees a bug. Just ask my early-bird hubby. Come to think of it, even he wouldn’t touch those delicacies although he gets up in the crack of dawn and picks up and throws away the bugs that make me scream..

I guess I am, by choice, an owl, a hooter (no pun intended), and I’ll stay that way as long as the nights are full of silence and solitude and the writing bug in my bloodstream is not picked up and eaten by any hostile early-bird who might be goaded to do just that by the United Nations.

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Prompt: What type of person are you: a night owl or early bird?