Hey, America! Wait up!

As disoriented as I’ve been at times in Los Angeles, there is one riddle that still stumps me – throughout the days and nights.

It's a question I struggle to answer constantly:

What time is it??

My brain knows the answer but just can’t put its heart into it.

When I wake up, it’s still dark. The clock says 6:30 a.m. But most of the people I know are halfway through their morning already – on the East Coast. They’re already in their cubes, on their second or third cup of coffee, already read the papers, already logged into Facebook, already making phone calls, already taking on the day.

And I’m already behind.

By the time I stumble over to my laptop, The New York Times and Washington Post’s top stories already have hundreds of comments and probably millions of views. Every single one of these people knew what was going on today before I did.

It’s a true time warp. Every single day. It’s like the East Coast is the sun and we’re on Pluto.

Think about it. Sunday football comes on at 10 a.m. I’m still frying bacon, for chrissake. And I haven’t seen the Sunday news shows in four months.

Saturday Night Live is NOT live. The whole world was laughing its ass off at Tina Fey-Palin before I could dig it up on YouTube.

I missed the first half-hour of all the Presidential debates. I watched those parts later. After everything already had been debated.

I sometimes have to interview people for stories at 6 a.m. Every answer they give automatically pisses me off.

But today… today is the unkindest cut of all. We will still be voting here while ballots are being counted over the other three-quarters of the country. It may all be over before they even close the poll doors here.

At 7 this morning, I fired up my laptop and read on The New York Times that polls and parking lots had been packed all day.

Oh no, I thought. I must have overslept.

What time is it??

Comments

[Mitch]

I used to go through the same time thing living in the UK, which is five hours AHEAD. I remember one year watching the World Series games starting at 1 a.m., trying to stay awake and then getting a few hours sleep before work. There wasn't one day I lived there when I wasn't still living in Eastern Standard Time and thinking about what was going on back in the States. Hang in there. At least Anthony is used to those 10 a.m. NFL games.