Xmas joy We're out East for the week from Xmas to New Year's, which is most relaxing and warm. In Wrigleyville it has been in the single digits, so upper 20s sounds pretty good.

The headaches, described a couple of entries below, have become akin to a serious hobby. Avoiding caffeine and wine, "minimizing" alcohol, managing the drugs and their side effects, and then actually having the headaches -- these all add up to the equivalent of a part-time job. If you've ever been on a really structured diet you probably know what I mean.

Part of the time sink is that the Stupamax gave me a two-week headache. The only thing that helped was walking around in the bitter cold -- which, luckily, we had in abundance. So every day I trudged around Lakeview in the coat I have that's so thick that my arms stick out like a little kid's. Last Sunday it was 8 degrees and the wind chill was around -20. There was NOBODY out there on the sidewalks. Cars, yes, but none of the usual street people, punks or Gap-clad locals. (Yesterday I found out there was also a rapist out, which surprised me. Shouldn't they be inside in that weather?)

The other thing is that when I gave up caffeine, I discovered what a big timesaver it's been all these years. After a week of highly un-Christmasy crankiness toward my coworkers and Colliculus, I started going to bed earlier and earlier, until last week I got 8 hours of sleep every night. I bet I was 10 years old the last time that happened.

Apart from that and missing the coffee buzz, though, I kind of like not being hooked on caffeine. When I wake up in the morning on a weekday I only resent it for maybe 15 minutes, not an hour and a half like before. And going to bed is a lot easier than it used to be. That's certainly worth something.
 

¶ 9:06 PM