I have big plans for writing today. The problem is I’m exhausted. I didn’t sleep well last night. Jetlag caught up to me. Not that I can actually have jetlag from travelling from Buffalo, NY to Seattle. It’s only a three hour time difference, after all. But something caught up with me. I tried to go to sleep at around 11pm last night, and found myself staring at the ceiling. My eyes didn’t want to close and I couldn’t find the sheep. It was until well into the morning that I found the sheep. And when I woke to meet the van early this morning, I found the sheep did not want to let me go. So it goes. (To steal Vonnegut’s line from Slaughterhouse Five.)

This might have had something to do with the two cups of yummy caffeine yesterday. My caffeine intake over the holidays dropped significantly, and I might not have been ready for the boost of wakefulness. Or it could that while I didn’t have jetlag, I did miss my window to sleep. I should have hit the bed earlier, as by the time my head found the pillow, it was already passed the middle of the night New York time. Or it could be I overanalyze everything, this included. Either way I woke up exhausted.

I did manage to go to the gym today. It was extra crowded as the New Year’s resolution people descended. They’ll be gone in a few weeks having failed yet again to stay with their goals. Not that I’m judging them. I miss plenty of goals (with the small G).

Doolies is singing as I write this and it’s difficult to concentrate on these words. She’s done now and I can get back to the writing.

As I said, I had big plans for writing today. Not fictional stuff, although I did take a big step in that direction when Chuck delivered his simultaneous serve for our next ping-pong story. We haven’t set the deadline, but I’m hoping to have something up by early February at the latest. (Chuck, I’ll e-mail you tomorrow with a suggested deadline.) I won’t be publicly posting the fragments so as not to influence one of my two readers in his version of the ping-pong story. Once I post the final draft at the deadline, I’ll remove the secret flag on all of the drafts. I’m sure you will all be desperate to go back and read the earlier versions of my masterpiece. Really. Let me say that again: Masterpiece. It has a sweet sound to it, sort of rolling of the tongue like a block of hard brie.