Undeprived

After a week where I seemed to be in continual mental freefall, my mood darkening with each day, things have been on the up again these past few days. Last night I managed, in an all-too-rare act of discipline, to go to bed at 10. That meant that rather than having to be unloaded from my bed and shoved out onto the cold, harsh streets of Singapore, I woke feeling fresh and mentally capable.

However, I have been slacking off for the last week and a fresh brain didn't translate into fresh legs. I still managed 4 miles, but that's a long way short of the 7 miles that I was planning. A few more nights should make a difference, although knowing me I'll celebrate with an all night binge of booze, books and bad movies, and be worse off than before. Still, it's speed that is exciting, never mind the velocity.

My wife has been poorly these last few days, a consequence of working with those disgusting emitters of disease, the young. Normally her bullet-proof Canadian immune system protects her from the coughing, sneezing, oozing mass that is a kindergarten class, but I suppose it's a bit weak, what with a baby on the way and all.

That means she's been at home, asleep. There are limitations on the sorts of drugs pregnant women can take, so there's a vast pharmaceutical litany denied to her. I'm kinder than I used to be, otherwise I'd have dug out the Valium from under the bed and pranced around, chortling and chanting "You can't take this" at my unfortunate wife.

(As we all know, nothing gives you more get-up-and-go than a handful of Valium. It's like the medical version of amphetamines.)

More of that behaviour from me will inspire her to go back to work: I'll be literally annoying her back to wellness by going home at lunchtimes and being myself.

Combined, lunch at home, sleep and a semi-decent run mean I feel remarkably perky today, undeprived of sleep (but avoiding caffeine too); I'm not sure if this feeling will survive the evening, but here's hoping.