I didn't shave today because I didn't feel like it. Instead, I got up at 8 a.m., which is roughly my "normal" time and ate breakfast while watching Comedy Central (Win Ben Stein's Money and Beat The Geeks) and reading my just-arrived February issue of Outside. (Incidentally, when you move and see that ad in the mover's guide you pick up at the post office telling you one phone call will change all your subscription addresses, it won't. Oh, they may tell you that they can change Baseball America and USA Today Sports Weekly and Popular Photography and Outside, but they won't. So you'll miss two or three issues before you realize it � because the post office only forwards periodicals for 60 days � and then you have to call each publication anyway and hope they'll send you the ones you missed.)

I had weird dreams last night, maybe from the buffalo soy nuggets and deep fried potatoes cut in discs like BW3's buffalo chips and mint cookies-n-cream ice cream. I had several vignettes of dreams that all seemed to involve people from work, including my managing editor whom I asked, while we were all seated around the conference room table which happened to be my dining room table, if we'd have money to buy an actual conference room table so that I could have my dining room table back. "We'll see ..." he said unconvincingly.

I also dreamt that I was in a cab with Mia and I was getting out before she was and she insisted I pay for the whole thing because we had gone out of the way to drop me off, and when I got out, Alec from work got in. I also had a dream in which I went through the turnstile at an NYC subway stop, but when I got through, the gates were down and I had to crawl on my stomach, half leaning over the edge of the platform, to get to the open area of the station. Someone saw me and with an exasperated sigh held up all trains so that I could drop down onto the tracks, walk to the open area of the platform, and climb back up.

Then I woke up at 5 a.m. and couldn't sleep for half an hour.

It wasn't a good night.

And on the way into work today, I realized that I didn't acknowledge Jack Kerouac's birthday yesterday when I heard "Baby Seat" by BNL ("I'll renounce Jack Kerouac/and all of that romantic crap"). He would've been 81. I read a poem of his in Atop An Underwood wherein he writes about himself at various ages, past and future, and it includes the line "and at 74 in 1996" and it seemed weird to read that from a guy who didn't see the 70s. That Kerouac could've been alive during my lifetime doesn't seem possible, like trying to imagine Thomas Jefferson in person. I know my life overlapped Allen Ginsberg's by 20 years, but Allen was a different person; he was meant to live in the 90s. Jack wasn't.

I'm just not up for work today, even with a good parking spot out in front. Of course, that will probably be negated by the rain later. When I park downstairs in back, I'm just beyond the overhang, so there's no walking in the precipitation, when applicable. After taking off my coat, I walked over to Garry and Dylan and high-fived them. Garry was enthused; Dylan was, "I'm not in the mood," and just went through the motions. "I'm not in the mood, either," I said. "That's why I did it. I need to get excited." Then Garry told me to high-five Alyssa, and I did, and she said, "What's this for? Free high-fives all day?!" She seemed excited, but that didn't help, either.

I guess it will just be one of those days I have to trudge through and hopefully make it home by Survivor and then enjoy Friday and the weekend.

I will certainly be back if I cheer up today.