Perspective

on how much life I'm missing primarily (though I'm sure not entirely) because of my job:

1) I realized today that I hadn't visited the NY Times online for several weeks. During times of normalcy (rare as they are), I go there about 50 times a day.

2) I bought myself a basketball a while back thinking that I would a) love to play a bit with some friends if I could convince any of them to do so, and b) love to just go shoot around on the courts in the projects a couple of blocks from me (only at times when there was no chance a serious game would develop, of course). That basketball has been dribbled twice inside my apartment, and otherwise gotten no use whatsoever. I started a new book yesterday and needed a bookmark. As it happened, the piece of paper I grabbed was the receipt for, inter alia, that basketball. May 1. I bought that basketball May 1. Do you know how long ago that was?? Almost 5 months. Sick. That's what it is and that's what it makes me.

Where's Calgon when you need it?