The Decaf Diaries, Day 5: So far, so good, so what?

Friday at last. Will this be another day of detox doldrums, or am I finally over the hump?

06:20 - I'm not dreading the world outside the covers this morning, so that's good. But there's a decent song on the clock radio, so I hear it out before I roll out of the sack to face Day 5.

09:30 - It's been a good morning. I feel sharper than I have all week; all systems are go and I'm banging out work at a Whac-a-Mole pace between sips of a tart lemony concoction of Crystal Light that I won't be trying again.

09:40 - Some of my colleagues who know about my little caffeine deprivation experiment have started bugging me about it. One of them stops by to see if he can get me to sniff a coffee filter still redolent with the characteristic coffee-bean smell. Strangely, I haven't had any cravings to speak of, so I oblige him just to see if the powerful olfactory trigger will send me scurrying to Starbucks. Nothing. This lack of cravings is the thing that has surprised me most.

10:08 - A bunch of my colleagues are heading out for coffee. As they pass by me on the way out, nobody asks if I want to come. I feel something so unfamiliar that at first I don't recognize it for what it is: a pang of isolation. I remember a time a few years ago, when my fondest drinking buddy and I decided to quit booze awhile just to make sure we could. We lasted 10 weeks—enough time to discover that we had almost nothing in common except liking to get drunk.

14:30 - I wonder what would happen if everyone in our hectic, overstimulated, productivity-obsessed, attention-deficit society stopped taking caffeine. At least four out of five people use the drug, so we're talking about a lot of people.

17:00 - The weekend is officially underway, yet I feel a lack of enthusiasm about it. There are still things to do, plans to be followed through on, people to tolerate. I've read that some depressed people experience something called "anhedonia," which means an inability to feel pleasure. I'm definitely not there, but in this brief moment at the outset of what should be a distinctly pleasurable two days, I think I can see it from here.

21:40 - A couple hours ago I indulged in a wanton orgy of McDonald's gluttony. Now I'm parked on the couch in front of the TV, stretched out like a snake on a flat rock and noting that whatever willpower I've demonstrated in avoiding caffeine for five days clearly has not extended to my penchant for junk food.

23:30 - I'm done for another day. As I drift into sleep, I muse about how well I'll handle a caffeine-free weekend. My supply of the decaf Diet Coke is still miraculously holding out, so I like my chances. For now.