Polly Vernon
Anyone who’s anyone has an EMR – Extreme Morning Regimen – these days.
Melania Edwards, the San Francisco-based banker, who last week revealed she gets up at 5.30am to ‘meditate, check in with friends and family in different time zones, play tennis’. Mark Wahlberg, the actor, who wakes at 2.30am, prays, works out, breakfasts, plays golf, and hits his own personal cryo recovery chamber, all before 9.30am. And obviously: me. Like all v productive, v efficient, v accomplished professionals, I’ve got an EMR. I’ll tell you about it if you promise you won’t rip the kershizzle out of me online (though if you do, I’ll know it’s because you’re what Melania Edwards described as ‘judgemental and jealous’ of my extraordinary discipline).
5.35am: Like Melania Edwards, I awake! Unlike Melania, it’s because my boyfriend is violently emptying the dishwasher, because I didn’t do it last night, because I never do. I forgive him, because forgiveness is a central part of my EMR practice. (I also find the time/emotional space to simultaneously hate him. It’s multitasking.)
5.47am: My dawn-light-replicating alarm clock glows because I didn’t reset it when the clocks changed (I don’t know how to).
5.47am (and 30 seconds): I am poleaxed by fear re: the day to come. 5.48am: I get up anyway. 5.50am: I brush my teeth while Thinking About Things (meditation).
5.56am: I check in with friends and family in other time zones ( by looking at their Instagrams).
6am: I find my boyfriend drinking tea and bitching at breakfast TV presenters. My friend L (a telly presenter) says everyone does this, because it’s first thing in the morning, so viewers are grumpy. She also told me that when they briefly replaced an anchorperson with a half-eaten sandwich, all bitching instantaneously ceased.
6.15am: I drink a probiotic shot, a second of cider vinegar, jade roller my face, call it ‘wellness’.
7-7.20am: I shower while planning my outfit. ( This is multitasking.)
7.22am: I dress in shower-planned outfit. I look awful. I undress, try a different look. 7.26am: And again. 7.27am: This is good! I’ll Instagram it! 7.28am: Overwhelmed by Insta-shame. I hate myself and everything I stand for. 7.29am: COFFEE! 7.30-8.30am: I walk to the office while having arguments in my head with people who aren’t there about stuff I should have got over ages ago. ( This is multitasking.)
8.35am It all gets a bit blurry from now on, TBH.