Night owl

I am a notorious night owl. I rarely go to bed before 1:00 a.m. More often than not it is close to 2:00 when I finish up the night's work, usually writing. In my younger days, I sometimes stayed up all night of necessity, trying to finish writing a lecture for the next day or the paper to present at a meeting. This is a carryover from my student days in architecture when we learned to "charette" to make the deadline for a project. We were told that the word refers to the cart on which the painter rode with his or her submission to the exhibition being hauled to the Salon. The longest stretch of time I stayed up without any sleep was three nights straight. The intensity of work was always exciting, and the camaraderie in the studio among the charetting classmates was uplifting. There is also something thrilling and very special when the sky starts to lighten up at dawn and birds start chirping. The whole town is asleep, and you are alone working. It is so quiet. There is a feeling of claiming the world all for yourself. 03.01.02