Extra, Extra

 Waking up to the news is sometimes a little too much for our collective systems. Myself, I usually take a peek at the headlines just before dawn, as I am downing my orange juice and vitamins, preparing to take on whatever comes my way. A lot of things can happen overnight. 

If, for example, there has been some sort of retaliatory strike by Macy's balloons in response to the recent trigger happy response to floating things floating in the air, I want to know about it. This might entail some sort of life-saving duck and covering. Or if local wind turbines had suddenly gone rogue and began to creep across the landscape on newly evolved limbs, hacking everything in their paths into ribbons, I would want to know. 

Generally speaking, however, the morning news is typically a rehash of the headlines I looked at shortly before heading off to bed the night before. Sometimes there are updates. Body counts are revised. Positions are clarified. Election results are confirmed. Over the course of four time zones, we can rest quietly assured that things in the United States will remain more or less status quo while we sleep, with the exception of a few dumpster fires that get set overnight and are waiting for the dawn's early light to be extinguished. These exceptions are what fuels the twenty-four hour news cycle. 

That and the rest of the planet. Natural disasters and political upheaval in foreign lands are the sorts of things that can make mornings more interesting. Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead, for example. I want to consider myself a citizen of the world, but I confess that my concerns radiate out from my current location, with concern for those things closest to me getting my most immediate attention. The cat threw up, for example, is the kind of headline that will get my eyes open. Sometimes against my will. Local traffic is generally not a concern for me on my two mile bike ride to school on side streets. It really isn't until I sit down and fully face the day, once the sun has peeked over the horizon. 

That's when things start to hit the wire from New York. And Washington. And before you know it, another day's news is being spilled all over the front pages and buzzing in on your phone's notifications. I try not to look on some days. I take a conscious vacation from the blur of what's happening and focus on what happened yesterday. Or last month. Or when things were less ridiculous. We'll have to get into the WayBack Machine for that. 

So I am considering construction of a Morning News Trough, one that doesn't tax my emotions or psyche. I would love to know what's happening in ways that will make me feel like continuing with my day instead of pulling the covers over my head and wishing that today had not begun. 

Ah, but it has. And so we go boldly into the fray once again, hoping to read the headlines without finding our names in them.