Sleepy Time Karen

Can someone explain to me why I stayed up to 3:45 AM rereading and editing chapters 30 through 35 of Mages--again--instead of going the heck to bed? Yes, I fixed some things here and there, made a start on an important revision at the end of the book, checked over some vocabulary in the language of magic, Lopartin, decided to rename a character so it was less obviously a Beatle name, and generally had a good time, in between trips to the living room to watch an obscure Kurt Russell film that reminded me of an old Harlan Ellison Outer Limits.  But was it worth it? 

Obviously not. I knew it wouldn't be worth it.  But I did it anyway.

Here I am at work, dragging, trying to subsitute Diet Pepsi for sleep and get work done without accessing currently-unavailable areas of the cerebral cortex.  Tonight I really have to get going on my homework, in the one course most likely to show me what I'll be doing for a living a year or two from now.  Team members are counting on me.  My future is counting on me. My boss and co-workers are counting on me.  How am I meant to do what I need to do without adequate sleep?

It's not even as if I really went about my rewrite / edit in any sane matter.  I keep looking up something in a different chapter, and get caught in my own prose and characters.  Six hours later, I've improved the same chapters I went over the last time and the time before that.  Over the past several weeks, I've worked on chapters 1-4 and 25-35, repeatedly, and haven't once  touched the big chunk of story in between.  Where's the sense in that?

I guess it's the old problem of immediate gratification vs. deferred gratification.  It's so much easier to do the fun thing than the sensible thing--except that later, I suffer for it.  Every Sunday during the recitation of the Confession (the Episcopal version of the Confetior), I internally confess that I goofed off at work, and didn't take care of myself by getting enough sleep, dieting and exercising.  Don't I ever learn?

Yawn.

Karen