Forgive the Jet-lagged.

I know, I am not supposed to be using my computer when I wake up in the middle of the night, but after lying there for a while realizing a better way to start my new chapter, I had to get up and just do it. And after that, why, the computer is on, isn't it?

Does it happen to you, when you return home after a lot of travel, that when you wake up in the middle of the night you do not recognize your own room? Last night, my first night back, I was sure that for some reason I was sleeping in a bedroom in a palace. Perhaps this is partly a reflection on the size of my recent hotel rooms, but still.

Vow: tomorrow I will try harder to get over this jetlag. Granted, I stayed up until about 10 on Saturday night, after flying home. Then I woke up at 4:30 a.m. on Sunday (good morning! to my body it was 10:30 a.m.). Then the PP swam (count them) seven events in his second day of a swim meet (including the 400 IM and the 800 free--go PP!), and I worked as a timer. Did you know that standing on concrete with a stopwatch for 5 hours will really wipe you out?

So when he suggested an early "dinner" (i.e. at 4 p.m.), how could I refuse? But I should have, because by 6 p.m., when we were watching Shaolin Soccer on TV, I just could not make it any longer. After a few pages of my latest mystery novel, I was out.

To me it looked like the clock said 5:38 a.m., and I thought, Cool, I might as well get up. Too bad it really said 2:38. But as I said: I needed to do that writing.

Now it is done, and I'm going to take another stab at sleep. Perhaps later I will tell you something about Italy.