May 27, 2003

I hate it here. This morning's ferry ride was a waterborne slouch towards a sunken pit of human folly, appropriately punctuated by a blast of stinking diesel smoke from the ferry's engines as we arrived at the Manhattan dock. Last night I had a desperate dream about needing to have some surgery re-done: there were unpleasant adhesions and so forth deep in my guts. I ran through the town, going up and down Main Street looking for the surgeon who had done the work. But the surgeon--who was Tony Shaloub, for some reason--had converted his practice into a cafe with dainty white wrought-iron tables set out on the sidewalk. He couldn't open me up again because his surgical theater now contained well-lit cases full of confections and various coffee shop-like pastries

I don't know how the situation resolved itself, but I woke up feeling like death awaited me in the city and I was stupidly doing everything in my power to go and meet it. First by car, then by train, then by boat I made my way towards it. On the water approaching the still oddly truncated skyline, the weight of monkey folly--all monkey folly, not just the folly of idiot mass murdering Koran-thumping apes in planes--settled on me. Every person I saw was another monkey on his or her way to do monkey business and, most likely, annoy me somehow in the process.

Then I got to my desk and had some coffee, and the feeling abated somewhat...but only somewhat. My attacks of misanthropy are getting worse.

Fortunately, I am not inclined to spend more than a few days at a time in my Unabomber-style shack. But this trend is disturbing. The last time I felt like this with any regularity I ended up naked under a blanket on the sofa, the house madman, fun for parties. Don't get too close; he might spit poetry on you.