Anticipating Jetlag

Hosting morning drive puts you at odds with everyone else's schedule. Breakfast is well before 6 a.m., and lunch at 10 is too early for most establishments to serve a lunch menu. So you eat breakfast at 10 a.m., which is really your lunch, eating from the lunch menu later on is really your dinner, and so on. It takes about two years to adjust to the schedule you must maintain in order to host morning drive. In that period, you live in a constant state of jetlag. If you go out at night, and one should now and then, lay out your clothes before you go to bed, and make sure your car has plenty of gasoline, because it's quite possible that you will oversleep the next morning. In that case, you will be obliged to jump into, or throw onto yourself, the previously laid-out wardrobe, and you will leap into the car and set off for work without checking whether you have enough fuel to get there. And how many gas stations in downtown Cleveland are open before 6 a.m.? A few -- it pays to know which ones well in advance.

My Curfew

Hosting morning drive requires you to live 4 hours earlier than the listeners. For example, if you wake up at 6:30, the announcer wakes up at 2:30. If you go to bed at 11 p.m., the announcer goes to bed at 7. This means the announcer's dinner is at 2 in the afternoon, while yours is at 6. Going out at night is a rare treat, generally only on weekends, but even so, the body demands a nap on those occasions. I won't kid you -- to stay home when the rest of you are out at concerts and plays is a killer. But one must decide in favor of preparedness. I do make exceptions for important events. A recent example is getting to meet WCLV's "Idea Leaders" following a recent Thursday night Cleveland Orchestra concert. Another was attending a local theater tech rehearsal. Another is attending opening nights. All of them important, to the listening audience and to the organizations who value the presence of WCLV's on-air hosts.