I’m willing to admit that I am nocturnal. I was raised by a nocturnal family. My body kicks into high gear and my brain starts pumping out rapid energy after sundown. Funny this feels a bit like a source of shame. Nocturnal people are far less socially acceptable than morning people.

Members of team early bird watch the sun emerge and brim with satisfaction over how motivated their morning schedule is. They schedule 7:30 AM meetings and smile smugly as people like me struggle to sound coherent when we attend. They send out bright and chirpy daybreak email messages, and wear the time stamp with pride. While we save our 1:30 AM drafts to send later, so that people don’t think we’re manic. Night people bear the stigma of wannabe rock stars or infomercial addicts.

My strategy for compensating has been to attempt major sleep deprivation: struggle to go to bed early, fail, then set the alarm clock at a completely unrealistic hour, press snooze repeatedly, and wake up with inadequate sleep. Sometimes my hand seems to reach for the snooze button by its own will. I don’t even remember doing it. Other times, I justify that I am doing something productive during each snooze window, like planning what I want to wear.

Anyway, it must end. The snooze button dependency must end. It’s like sleep dieting, and sleep, unlike food, is not healthier in smaller portions. For creative strategies on snooze avoidance and a device created by an MIT student that actually makes your alarm clock run away from you, so you can’t disable it, check here.

Many moons ago, I visited Madagascar. The place and the people touched my heart. It remains very strong in my memories. Here is footage of a talented street artist, Jace, creating a delightful brigade of images in a coastal Malagasy village. This brought a smile to my face and kind of made my day.

Thanks to the Wooster Collective for posting this.

So, I’m shopping for ice cream (one of my weaknesses) at the local grocery store. Two women and a young man are walking through the aisles. The young man is wearing a surgical mask. One of the women announces, “Everybody, he has swine flu.” And they continue shopping. He’s picking stuff up, browsing, etc. Seriously? Is anyone supposed to be reassured by the mask and the announcement? Did he really need to be at Kroger that bad? Bad swine flu etiquette.

This Saturday is a great opportunity to get your strut on at the quirky, indie, cuteness mecca that is East Atlanta Village. Come one, come all – unless you’re saddling up with the techie mavens at the sold-out Drupal Camp. Big things poppin this weekend. I love the little Drupal Peach logo, by the by.

I was able to get up close and personal with Google Wave this week. The jury’s still out on whether this new open source platform for online collaboration is building a quiet revolution in web life. The skeptics say this is just a case of the “emperors new clothes” or much ado about nothing. Cynics worry that its another mark of the beast in Google’s plan for global dominion. Enthusiasts believe that we’ll all be riding the Wave into the promised land of Web 2.0.

The potential that Wave presents is outstanding. Although no one yet knows exactly where it will take us, the possibility is tantalizing. Will we be communicating in real time with infinite layers of sophistication? Probably not overnight. Google’s offered just enough of a glimpse into its vision to make open source developers start jonesing for sexy new applications. Anticipation is mounting but who knows how long it takes for the hype and our hopes to materialize into something we can sink our teeth into.

Everyone wins lots of free publicity and money from Kanye’s outburst (any of us could probably make some quick cash right now selling Kanye dart boards at the nearest suburban mall).

On the other hand, Joe Wilson’s outburst sets back 46 million people hoping for health insurance. Kanye may be music’s Lex Luthor but MTV is grinning from ear to ear and at the end of the day, no real harm is done. I’m sure Taylor Swift’s agent is amped. The phone is ringing off the hook, no doubt. And like Lex Luthor, Kanye ‘s antics may be the work of a  fictitious character, whereas Joe Wilson and his supporters are all too real.

Living with a bit more nature in my life (granted, Atlanta is a city but compared to New York, I’m in nature), I feel a bit closer to the cycles of life. Spring and summer mean work, yard work. Lots of it. Its feels sometimes like you are relentlessly working to tame nature into something you can use. Feverishly trying to exert control over a rambling chaos of growth and destruction. (Mind you, I’m just talking about my backyard.)

Then along comes autumn. The wind down. The moments of thought, transformation, planting seeds in preparation for dormancy and rebirth in warmer seasons to come. It’s time for reflection, taking stock, reserving your strength, praying for mercy in the colder days, and dreaming of the next opportunity to shine in the sun.

My loved ones who have passed on always seem to log off of planet earth in the fall. So this season also means mourning. Autumn is when I have gotten my deepest personal challenges. I get a bit shook and spit out again into winter and spring. It’s a love/hate relationship that I have with this season.

I was born in autumn. Two major shake-ups in my country’s recent history happened as fall emerged in the background. Hurricane Katrina and the September 11th attack. Both of them cut deep into my consciousness as a U.S. citizen, and left me feeling like I was staring into a familiar face that was horribly scarred.

Often I find myself walking out of autumn older, wiser, and unfortunately, sadder and a bit more cynical. There it is. In an effort to channel this energy into good, I have promised myself to focus some of my writing in the coming weeks on reflecting on autumns of the past and their lasting impact. Change is painful and this season brings uncertainty but change is life.

Thank you for this…

“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and your discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”

santiz Patanjali

All the nonstop attention on Chris Brown and Rihanna drama once again begs the question about why there isn’t a broader discussion about relationship abuse and teens. Here’a a British study showing that 1/3 of young women in the study have been abused by their boyfriends. In the US, relationship violence is a major cause of homicide amongst teens.