Morning Larks, Night Owls can happily share a nest

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Sep 1, 2005

ARE YOU a Lark or an Owl?

If you wake up each morning to greet the day with a cheery smile and a song in your heart -- and poop out somewhere around 10 p.m. -- you are a Lark.

If you crawl out of bed on your hands and knees and can't remember your children's names until almost noon but can be found at midnight watching the "Late Show" and raiding the fridge, you are an Owl.

Some time ago, researchers at the University of Wisconsin made a study of Larks and Owls and turned out a somewhat goofy report.

FOR ONE THING, the researchers contacted only 28 married couples as subjects. That's not a large enough group from which to draw conclusions about mouthwash, let alone something as complex as marriage.

Each person was asked: "Are you a Lark or an Owl?"

If you ask a Lark that question at, say, 7 a.m., he or she will give you a dazzling smile and say, "Oh, I'm a Lark! Anyone for tennis?"

Ask an Owl that same question at 7 a.m., though, and he'll say something like, "Huh? Who? What'd you say -- a Lark? Yeah, I suppose I'm a Lark. I dunno. What time is it? Awwwwgod!" At that hour of the morning, he could just as easily tell you he's a chicken.

FINALLY, THE researchers announced: "In marriage, the greatest stress occurs when one partner is a Lark and the other is an Owl."

That's not true, and I have just the marriage to prove it: my own. Marlene is a Lark who bounds out of bed in the morning and is humming around the kitchen before the first traffic reports are on the air.

I am an Owl so owl-like in my

owliness as to be positively owlish. I can never remember getting out of bed, and have been known to simply stand there staring at the closet doors for long periods of time until Marlene makes sure I have all my clothes on and gives me coffee and points me toward the door.

BUT MARLENE runs out of gas at about 10:30 at night, and that's when I take over. At 10:30 p.m. I am the bright, dynamic type I was born to be.

As Marlene stretches out on the sofa to read or watch TV, I pepper her with questions. "Need a pillow?" "Want a drink?" And later, when we go to bed, I will often read until 1 or 2 in the morning.

Our marriage has been humming along this way for several decades now.

THERE IS an overlapping period each day, from about 5:30 to 10:30 p.m., when we're both reasonably awake and alert, and that's when we converse with one another. Both of us have come to feel that, if you can't communicate in five hours, you probably can't do it in 10. Or 24.

The researchers didn't seem to buy that, however, and went on record as lamenting the fact that "in an Owl-Lark marriage, the partners have fewer shared conversations."

It never seemed to have occurred to them that this may be the only thing that has saved countless marriages.