Insomnia... woke up because I was too hot and now can't get back to sleep. Reading Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere and I am regretting not buying Simmons' Hyperion. I feel like I am reading a kid's book on a par with Lloyd Alexander, which would be good if I were ten years old again. I also started Anita Desai's Bye Bye Blackbird so I am edging back into literature from the crap that has gotten me devouring books again.

I didn't have a good day today - it was a productive morning, but then my steam ran out. I am wrestling with feelings of failure. It didn't help that there was a long interview with Scott Sandage on NPR about his new history Born Looser: A History of Failure in America. Scott got so melencholy during the ten years it took him to write the book, ironically afraid he’d never finish, that he was treated for clinical depression. I needed to be treated for depression after listening to the interview.

We got to hear the “lucky for us they failed” stories of Thoreau and Truman. Every unemployed listener in the bi-state area called in to talk to Scott about their personal Damoclesian swords. Frank Capra even called from beyond the grave to remind us that no man is a failure who has friends – Scott responded to Frank succinctly, “What if the failure’s friends are all failures too.” Oh the webs of Potter. Potter, hm, Patter Familias – I guess Capra had it in for the old boy network.

When I was having the long conversation that led to my departure from my former job a coworker told me that I was a round peg in a square hole. I don’t seem to fit anywhere and am increasingly tempted to pull a Charlie Kaufman and get a job bussing tables at Shoney’s. How should I embrace my not fitting-ness in the world, my own un-sellable kitsch-ness?

Maybe I need a jack move, something totally out of left field. Tom Hanks is in town filming The Da Vinci Code and they are auditioning extras – lately I look in the mirror and can only see myself appearing in a zombie movie – we fight depression with exercise, fresh veggies, and a new round of job apps. You just put one foot in front of the other and soak up as much sunshine serotonin as you can. Maybe I’ll get in nine holes tomorrow. Golf anyone?