Music please:

Last night I tried really hard to party. I ended up drinking a Sparks Plus ("SPARKS PLUS!!!") and then falling asleep about 20 minutes later. This is both a testament to my relative level of fatigue and a pretty shitty way to get rest.

The upside here is that I was trying to party because things have gone well and I felt justified blowing off a little steam. I've been doing 8:30am to 10:30pm for two weeks straight (Noon to 8 or 9pm on weekends) and with this level effort and rallying significant support from a killer team of developers, we are getting over the hump.

While I don't want to get locked into the pattern of 80-hour weeks as a norm, this has been good for a number of reasons:

1. It really had to be done in the name of meeting very real commitments and obligations. Failure was a very poor option and was stressing me out.
2. Running at that sustained level got me eating healthier, drinking less beer (e.g. none on weeknights), losing a little weight as a result, and feeling like a better person for it over all.
3. As a psychic counterweight, I decided to actually make use of the Kindle I got myself like six months ago when resolving to start reading more prodigiously and loaded up Infinite Jest, which I spend time with on my BART rides and before turning out the light.

Completing the chrysalis, I contracted with a world-wise Russian man to cut off all my hair:

So, overall while I am pretty exhausted it's a particularly good kind of exhausted. One always need to keep an eye on the burnout factor of course, but I feel psychically better being super-busy and totally on top of things, as opposed to having relatively more time free and overwhelmed by requirements. It's also nice to prove that "I still got it," can still put the hammer down like I used to back in the day.

One hopes that some day I'll learn to balance things better, but in the meantime I'll enjoy my peak experience, thanks.