So this morning at 5:30 I was at the gym, in the squat rack, weeping openly for the second time that morning when I realized I didn't feel normal. The first time, I was listening to Radiohead and started thinking about my cat, Pupik, whose body I found by the side of my building on my way to work about ten days ago...he'd fallen from our 23rd floor balcony during the night and thus ended his 16 year reign of fury. I was crying because I missed my cat and Radiohead does that sometimes.

My current life leaves very little room for the gym...I get up at 6 every day, help out with the kid while I get myself ready for work, which starts at 8. I work, then I rush home to relieve my wife, who's been dealing with a 'high needs' baby for 10 hours straight - I peel my suit off, throw on some track pants and grab the baby, who I play with, bathe & put to bed. This takes us to about 8pm, so I have enough time to eat and do some housework before finally earning a brief respite from 10-midnight, when I smoke bongs and fuck about on the internet , watch tv or just chill with Mrs Svunt. So, if I want to lift, I have to do so before 6am. However, since I've been up until midnight smoking weed, that can be pretty goddamn hard to do. So, what I do is set my alarm for 4:15am, and put a glass of water on my bedside table, along with 32mg of ephedrine, 300mg of caffeine and 40mg of DMAA. When the alarm goes off, I wake up, down all the pills, and go back to sleep. When my next alarm goes off at 4:45, I'm ready to get up.