Jetlag

In spite of the picture above, I believe it's easier to adjust to jetlag when I'm heading out on a visit to Europe, excited about finally seeing all those sights I've noted in my guidebooks. I swallow a melatonin on the plane, skip their meal, set my watch ahead and try to adjust quickly. Of course, I've not gone to India or Hong Kong lately, which is completely inverted from our day.

We arrived home Friday. The plane arrived at 1 p.m. Our luggage arrived at the carousel at around 2 p.m. and we were through customs about 5 minutes later, even in spite of my candied citrus peel and wrapped Italian candies for my classes. We arrived at home at 4 p.m. after enduring LA traffic. I was at the grocery store at 4:15 p.m.

I stared at the meat counter. I was jetlagging, seriously jetlagging. I looked at the chicken breasts and didn't think I could remember how to cook those. The fish looked too complicated too. Definitely couldn't face crab, real or fake. The man behind the counter looked at me. I looked at him. I shrugged my shoulders, smiled wanly, and moved on. We had pasta that night, a pale imitation of what we'd had in Montepulciano for lunch, even though I'd bought the expensive, imported pasta in the store that day.

Last night was worse than the night before. I'd taken my melatonin, but the weird thing is that even though my mind insists that it's dark and I should be sleeping, I awake at midnight, hungry or something, or at 3 and find my way to the bathroom, or 5 and decide I'd better give up. I finally got up at 7:30 a.m. groggy as I was when I turned in at 9:30 the previous night.

The worst thing is I can't seem to get traction in my own life, the teaching/grading life that begins again tomorrow full bore. It's going to be an interesting week.