Actually, quite the contrary. My wife and I typically split a bottle of wine at dinner, and sometimes one at lunch. That was about it. We would be in bed before 11, although I generally slept poorly, with street noise, too small a bed, and whatever I was having an allergic reaction to in the wee hours of the morning.
It has been a little over 2 weeks, I guess, and I think I would be pretty much normal had I not had to gear up for school stuff and other loose ends as soon as I could. It is one of these things where as soon as I get enough rest to take the edge off, I am back to sleeping for less than 6 hours (I got about 4 last night).
I am a very sensitive observer. My wife likes to take trips with me in part because I have a tendency to notice so much, and have a running commentary trying to put it together. I was too tired to do much commentary in Paris, which is one reason I did the essay as soon as I could. But also I was overloaded with impressions, overstimulated, and I do not think I have quite gotten it all sorted out.
Also, my son is now a junior in high school, and it is time to worry a bit about college. Plus, after he graduates, we are going to move back to the District or a contiguous suburb, so we will increasingly be thinking about that. It hit home to me that we would be seriously looking in another year or so. I want to go, but we raised our son here, so I for the first time realized that it would be somewhat painful...... |
