In case you're wondering where I've been (or even in case you're not wondering where I've been. Not that I've been anywhere, mind you, I just like to fantasize that you think about my whereabouts at all times. Which, yes, I realise, sounds very tragic and desperate indeed), I haven't been blogging because the clocks have thrown me off.

Yes, the clocks.

The clocks in the U.S. jumped ahead by one hour on Sunday morning at 2, so I've been asleep for the past three days to try and make up for that lost hour.

My biorhythm is a fragile thing. In fact, I've told you before how I have no rhythm at all, and sadly, that lack of rhythm affects my biorhythm too. So twice a year, when Daylight Saving Time begins and ends, my entire schedule derails and for three months following the time change, I find myself craving lunch at 4 (a.m.) and dinner at 11 in the morning.

I solve this problem by simply eating all the time.

Daylight Saving Time is just one of the many things I find strange about living in the United States. (And yes, I realise that it's practiced in a lot of other countries too, but I've only lived in one of the countries that adhere to it, and that's here in the U.S.) That and the fact that those elusive entities called Green Cards are actually pink, but I'll talk more about that ONE DAY WHEN/IF I FINALLY GET MINE!!!!!! (Pardon my shouting. It's a touchy subject.)

You see, in South Africa we don't have Daylight Saving Time. It's a good thing too, because if someone did decide to implement it there, I think there's a great possibility that South Africans who are as biorhythmically challenged as I am would probably demand overtime wages after showing up for work hours late. As it is, African Time is a dimension all its own. So it's best not to add to or subtract from it!

Back to Daylight Saving Time in the U.S.: As if it's not enough to live in a country where there are already so many different time zones (see why I've not dared to take my biorhythm and venture off the east coast yet?), someone decided that it would be a really great idea to confuse people like me even further by throwing in this twice annual ritual of setting your clock one hour fast in the spring and then moving it back again in the fall.

Americans have to remind themselves which season goes with which time change by memorising this little phrase: "Spring forward, fall back." (Personally I think "Spring back, fall forward" is far more poetic what with the alliteration and all, but don't mind me.)

Now, although it's admittedly quite tiresome to lose one hour of sleep, I don't actually mind the springing forward in spring part all THAT much. The extra sunshine makes me giddy with delight and it appears to have the same positive effect on most other people too.

It's that hour of daylight we lose in the fall, when the days are already getting noticeably shorter and we suddenly, all at once, lose another full hour of daylight due to the end of DST... THAT is when I want to gnaw my wrists off!

I see that I'm not the only one who has this love/hate relationship with DST. For example, in Indiana (a state which already has two time zones to begin with), some counties adhere to DST and others do not, and the issue is up for debate at their state legislature again.

I think DST should become a matter of personal preference, like religion. People who choose to gain an hour in the afternoon/early evening in the spring (when the days are getting longer anyway), and then to speed up sunset in the fall, should be allowed to stick to DST. (I do realise that moving the clock an hour back in the fall means that people who get up at 7 or 8 in the morning do not have to get up before sunrise, but since I'm officially NOT a morning person, this little bonus is wasted on me, and so I'd much rather take my extra hour of daylight on an autumn afternoon, thankyouverymuch.)

The rest of us who do not wish to move our clocks in the spring should be allowed to take that extra hour and save it in a vault somewhere until we feel ready to use it. Like, say, in the autumn, when you can reverse the process by "falling forward" and sticking the extra hour onto your day. Imagine how envious those spring savers will feel in October when their sun sets at 4:30 in the afternoon and yours only a full hour later! (Don't get argumentative and tell me about what logistical nightmares this will create in the work force. I don't care about logistics! Besides, since when have you ever taken me for the logical type?)

If you don't want to move your clock at all, you should be allowed to take your hours and spend it on a bonus vacation day.

Or you could simply move to Arizona or Hawaii, where residents are blissfully free of the burdens and confusion of DST.

In the mean time, please excuse me? It's 3 a.m., which means it's almost time for lunch!