I spent some serious time late last night cramming on my Cold Fusion for an upcoming web design gig. I know the software well enough to see that it was the best fit for my client's needs, but there are still enough gaps in my expertise that I foresee pulling some all-nighters before the painful process of website birthing is complete.

I'm discovering some of the hidden traps in being a consultant, like the fact that I can always walk up a flight of stairs and be at work again. I thought this might make this part of the house unpalatable, but quite the contrary: undone tasks and pending challenges lure me back up into the high room at all hours of the day and night. This is made more complicated by the fact that I do both personal and professional website work (including cranking out the Tales of Sin and Virtue) at the same computer. I tend to shift fluidly back and forth between paying tasks and personal rewards in a way that makes it hard to set up effective professional boundaries. Work spills constantly into life, and vice versa.

Add to that the fact that as a consultant with a growing roster of clients, the amount of money I make is directly correlated with the number of hours I work. I can crank out mind-numbing hours for various clients and add up a daily haul that is pretty impressive. Or I can blow off work and go Christmas shopping, like I'm doing today, as long as I don't mind generating zero income for the day. It's a sinner's dream: alternately Covetous and Slothful, I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.

So again I find myself battling my urge to stay up all night, and reluctantly shutting down the computer some undetermined time long after twelve.

I can rarely fall into a peaceful sleep after writing, or following extended periods of stuffing slippery packets of information into my squealing brain late at night. Last night I was lying in bed, waiting for the beleaguered gears to spin down, when a bright new idea flared and lit the landscape around me. It involves inviting total strangers to spend the evening with me.

Only yesterday I slapped down the deposit to rent a Washington DC bar for a New Years Eve party. We had a party there last year, and it was one of those moments of unabashed revelry that defines the coming year. The crowd promises to be an eclectic melange of my friends, their friends, and some of their friends. It will be a packed house, with dancing, pool-playing, abundant beverages and eats, irresponsible gossip and behavior, potential hook-ups, and fertile ground for anticipated and serendipitous Sin.

We've already invited more people than can conceivably fit into the tiny bar, but why not add a couple more random elements to spice up the mix? So, while lying in bed at some godforsaken hour of the night, I hatched a plan to invite a finite number of Deadly Sins readers to my year-end Bacchanal. If you want to come eat, drink, and be merry with a totally random crowd of relatively engaging people, all you have to do is email me and tell me which is your favorite sin and why. I'll issue invitations to a couple entries from people who make me giggle like a schoolgirl or seem like they'd be the most amusing to party with. Bear in mind that my friends are paying $15 apiece for this shindig, and you'll get in free. That must be worth something.

I've already had one friend express intrigue at the possibility of getting a date by inviting total strangers to the Seven Deadly Sins New Year's Party. Having admitted that conventional efforts were currently attracting laughably inappropriate partners, this person would probably be up for calling names out of the phone book, but I think it shows that there's serious promise to the idea. We agreed that even if the evening did not result in passionate union and a blossoming long-term romance, it would almost certainly make for a good story for all concerned.

In my fervor, I did a little party invitation. I seriously hope someone expresses an interest. Please don't send me back into the perilous psychological territory of grade-school birthday party no-shows. My "inner child" had enough of that on the first go-round.