eye of the yawn

There is a time, between sleep deprivation and the final payback. You've gone beyond the initial bloodshot eyes and rattled feeling of waking after only 5.25 hours sleep, through the jaded sleepy workday, and you (or your spouse) are yet to experience the period of unreasonable irritability that will come on the second day. You've entered the eye of the yawn. Everything seems calm, and you know you are at peace with the world. You've suffered few ill effects from staying up till 1:45am last night, and it was all worthwhile.

Stay tuned, boys and girls, because as surely as a hurricane is simply a rewound tornado, this one will be coming back from the other side tomorrow. But for now, I can have no regrets about staying up and finally finishing a certain festive season project that was rapidly heading for a hard deadline. I'm pleased with the work, but now have to wait for the result to arrive. I'll let you know how it all turns out—after Christmas obviously—if I remember to!

The last two nights we'd had New Zealand friend/Melbourne resident Russell staying with us. Russell is accompanying a couple of Australian dance champions on a dancing and teaching tour, though he's no dance slouch himself and teaches as well as having won a few awards. (I think the schoolboy routine was just an excuse not to tuck in his shirt...) It was nice to have him here, and catch up on old times. Last night he was out burning up the dancefloor and expected home on the last tube. Thanks to my little project, “I won't be seeing you tonight Russell” turned into “I'll move out to the kitchen Russell so you can go to sleep...” He's headed off this morning, though we may be seeing him again next Monday. In the meantime, in his honour and in remembrance of old times (cheers Russ!), I watched a couple of Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes from Nick and Hayley's DVD collection tonight. I'm almost through the first season... Ah, the quality acting. But you know I love it.