My Life Past Midnight

It's been a long and stressful week as I get closer to my big July deadlines. I swore after February that I was not going to be up until all hours writing documentation for the next release. Things looked promising until our tech writer got sick (he's dropped 30 pounds in the last three weeks, so clearly something is very wrong).

So I'm writing again, and it's become my second full-time job.

The line between night and day has blurred. I'm sending email at 3AM and taking naps at 5PM. I go to the gym at 11PM and eat a second dinner at 2AM. Business calls at 8AM and 2AM. After a while, it stops feeling so strange, and I just stumble around in a fog.

The silver lining in it all is that I've developed a surprisingly rich post-midnight social life. One friend on the other side of the world regularly checks in around 2 or 3AM to catch up and then encourage me to go to sleep. I've forged another surprisingly important friendship with someone who stays up with me for hours each night, talking about everything and nothing. (Is editing docs and IM'ing at the same time multitasking or being distracted?)

Strangely, I'm a little sad that there's only another week or two of these crazy hours. After it's all over, what happens to these friendships? Are they going to survive the light of day and competition from real, live people and the daily run-around that keeps me from spending hours on the computer every night? Time will tell.