I awoke the following day at Elisa’s house and checked my watch; it was just past noon. I prepared myself for the usual wrath of a nine-year-old who has been up waiting for hours. But then I discovered a shocking sight: Elisa Zuritsky was still sleeping. I stared at her, stunned, then checked the clock again. I looked back at her and made sure she was still breathing. Then I sat there, paralyzed, unsure what to do. I had never woken up before anyone, ever.
 
Elisa and I became best friends for life.
 
Some time after college, I started picking up the cues that sleeping late is not socially acceptable behavior. In fact, by now you’ve probably made all kinds of judgments about me, assuming I must be depressed or ill or a big slacker.
 
For the record, I am not depressed. Moreover, I have always been gainfully employed and am even occasionally required to wake up as early as five or six in the morning. And I do it. It’s upsetting―very upsetting―but I can do it.
 
In fact, in my waking hours, I’m not just awake, I’m hyper-awake. I walk fast; I write fast; I type 107 words per minute; I’m ambitious and highly motivated. But in the morning, lying in bed when the alarm goes off, I have no ambitions, no desires, no real reason to live. I am filled with hate and loathing, and the only thing I want is to sleep forever.
 
Over the years, my sleeping habits never changed, but my awareness of a stigma deepened, and I’m ashamed to admit I started lying to cover it up. For instance, if someone suggested meeting for brunch at 10 or 11 on a weekend, I might say, “Oh, I have to run a bunch of errands beforehand, could we make it later...much later?” 
 
But I soon realized that by covering up my penchant for sleeping late, I was perpetuating the prejudice my people have had to endure for centuries. So these days when someone calls and wakes me up from a deep sleep, I don’t feign a wide-awake “Hello?” I’ve never understood that. Why should the person who has been awakened―victimized, really―assume responsibility?