Why do I do stuff that is bad for me? I stay up late and complain when I can't stay awake at work. Also when I stay up late and try to talk to people when I'm too tired, I invariably end up saying really stupid and embarrassing things that I later regret. I am too eager if I'm really hungry, eat too much, and then feel sick. Yesterday I ate cake and an alfajor for dinner and drank mate--a lot of mate. A lot of mate when one hasn't had any for months does a number on one's stomach. My only justification is that the cakes had fruit on them. Not that it helped me any. All this resulted in me, in bed at a respectable 11:30, wide awake and wired.

For one, I had cake for dinner, so I was starving. I also had had several mates, which never kept me awake before. Guess there really is caffeine in it. Or something. "I can't sleep!" I thought. Then I started thinking of all the things I needed to do today and during the week. I got up. I turned on the light. I made a list of everything that needed to get done. (OK, not everything. Many things. Urgent things.) Still wired. I did 20 push-ups and 50 crunches. I did leg lifts. I did jumping jacks. I went to the kitchen and had a bowl of oatmeal and museli. I read an article in a magazine.

Still wired.

So I went downstairs and filed. Good thing, too--I was a couple of months behind. Then I placed an ad for a rental unit, a task that has been defying me for months. Then I paid bills and filed some more. I wondered at being responsible for these things and laughed. I checked my email. I checked facebook. I considered practicing the violin.

When, 2 hours later, I decided I could probably fall asleep, I noticed a census questionnaire that I had been avoiding filling out and mailing back. Heck, those past two hours had been the most productive of the last 24 hours, so why not keep going? I finished filling that out, sealed the envelope, and put it with the bills to be mailed.

Why did I not cross the things off of my list? It would have been so satisfactory.

But coming back to doing things that are bad for me . . . staying up late is bad for me. It makes me grumpy the next day. Putting off filing things for months is bad for me. It makes my house messy, but it does provide me with something to do when I can't sleep. Eating cake for dinner is bad for me. But it tastes so good. Drinking too much mate (apparently) is bad for me. But it doesn't taste very good. Eating a cookie for breakfast is bad for me, too. (But, seriously, how much better is that than eating Chocolate Marshmallow Mateys?)

I suppose there are worse things I could be doing, with worse consequences. Still, why do we do things like that, that make us so miserable as a result?