Don't Answer This Question

Am I perverse, or am I just tired today?

It's rather typical for me to be up until midnight, and last night I was up until after one in the morning. Staying up late never seems to be a problem. Now that I've been writing this novel, it's easy to stay at the keyboard until all hours. I write, edit what I've written, do some research, type in the corrections from my edits and write some more... Then I get up around five in the morning and start it all over.

I like to take a couple of hours in the afternoon to lie down and listen to music. I usually fall asleep, then get up in time to feed my husband. It works out quite well.

Today I'm waiting for quarter to nine, so we can walk up the ridge and watch the fireworks in the valley below. We can see a beautiful spread from up here. It's really magnificent. I'm looking forward to it. So why am I struggling to stay awake? It isn't even eight o'clock yet, and it's almost a losing battle.

I always told my boys—well, I told them lots of things, and they've probably forgotten most of them. But this is one of those things that I said a lot:

You can burn your candle at both ends, but only for half as long. I think my candle's getting short.