I haven’t been sleeping well lately. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s holiday stress, maybe it’s work stress, or maybe it’s some other weird arcane confluence of influences and annoyances, but something is keeping me out of sorts.

My body seems to want to wake up at about 7am. This means that I usually need an alarm to get up for work in the mornings, but the difference isn’t that bad. The unfortunate part comes over the weekend, where I still naturally wake up close to 7. It doesn’t seem to matter what time I fall asleep, either. Once 7 rolls around, even if I was up until 2am (which has happened on the occasional Friday night), there I am, sitting in bed staring at the ceiling as the morning light begins to trickle in through the window. And that’s really annoying.

So I’ve been working on a mild sleep deficit for at least a week or so, maybe more. And I’ve been extremely busy drafting this week so far, which always leaves me in a weird mood. Pile on top of that all the holiday stress of picking out gifts for people, letting people know what you want (which always makes me feel weird), and it’s a recipe for a not-so-great mood.

But hey, there’s some good news. I got a surprise holiday bonus from my work! I’m fast running out of excuses to not build a new computer. Plus, my laptop is no longer without its quirks: it’s picked up this annoying habit of overheating and shutting down without warning while running on battery power, even during such demanding tasks as web browsing. So I’ve started researching components in earnest, although not as earnestly as I might like, since I’ve been so busy with other stuff. But look on the bright side, once I start building I’ll have plenty to write about!