So lately I've been tired in the evenings, which makes it difficult for me to get any work done, but which also makes it difficult for me to read for pleasure, cook, play with the cats, play video games, etc. I've been going to sleep at like 11 o'clock, people, and this is not right. I tried to figure out the cause, and came up with several theories:

It's gray all damn day every day, and it's dark by the time I get off work, and my life feels like an eternal drab night.

Well, that can't be it, because I've been tired even on the pretty days, and I've been tired the past few nights even though the days are getting longer and there's actually illumination when I leave work.

I've been drinking too much booze in the evenings.

Possible, possible, but it's just a beer or two lately, maybe a couple of glasses of wine, which has never been enough to make me pass out three hours before my preferred bedtime (roughly 2 a.m.) before.

I'm sick, and just don't realize it.

Persistent malaise could be due to some lingering cold symptoms, and Heather's certainly been sick, but I feel okay otherwise, just tired.

I've got Seasonal Affective Disorder.

As hinted at above, with the lack of the sunlight and so on, but perhaps it's something more profound. Except, what, I just developed this disorder? I mean, I like living in places where it rains a lot. California is, if anything, too temperate and sunny for me. So this seems like an unlikely cause.

But last night, I think I figured it out. See, we ran out of black tea a while ago, and I've been drinking non-caffeinated teas since then. Ding ding ding! It's not like a suck caffeine down non-stop -- I have a cup of coffee in the morning, and some tea in the evening, and that's it, I don't even do carbonated beverages. But lately, I've been missing that crucial caffeine kick after nightfall. So last night I brewed up a big pitcher of iced tea, drank a couple of glasses around 8 p.m., and oh, yeah, it was on. I wrote 500 words and read the last hundred pages of the Campbell novel (which I'd been reading before at a rate of, oh, 10 pages a day) and went to bed after midnight. And this was after a long and busy day at work (finishing up the March issue), which made me less inclined to work than usual. I woke up this morning feeling good and energized, happy to have accomplished stuff last night, cheerfully singing the dirty parts of "The Ballad of Chasey Lain" while I got ready for work. All is right and in balance once again.

Better living through chemistry, y'all.