Now this is something I’m sure most of you can relate to.

yawning all day
i’ll go to bed early
tonight

終日やあくびばかりで早く寝る shūjitsu ya akubi bakari de hayaku neru

^{via ChatGPT}

I think we all know that that early tonight never happened.

We have all been there. Stayed up too late, feel incredibly tired in the morning, and promised ourselves that we would make up for it by going to bed early. But then evening comes and either with a renewed burst of energy or with the feeling of obligation to do some work (or both), we watch as early comes and goes, as bedtime comes and goes, and once again we find ourselves up too late. Le sigh. Maybe tomorrow

I wrote this on just such a day. I had stayed up till 1am doing work and had then woken at 5am as usual to prepare for the day. There’s sometimes a strange kind of energy that comes from not getting enough sleep and that can fuel us better than any coffee. Unfortunately, that energy only lasted me until the kids were out the door. After that, I couldn’t stop yawning and couldn’t really focus very well. Around noon I took a caffeine pill to help give me a lift and I wrote the above haiku. (The pill didn’t work, by the way, I still was a dead man walking for the rest of the day.)

【Also published on my website】

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David is an American teacher and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Mastodon. 【Support @dbooster with Hive SBI】