Disappointment followed by elation followed by disappointment today.

First of all, Hollinghurst's Line of Beauty won the Booker Prize this year. I'd been rooting for Cloud Atlas, since I always try to read the recipient and I don't feel much like slogging through what sounds like an Amisesque satire of Thatcherism. I still haven't read Vernon God Little, which sounds like as bad a piece of hackwork as any that's ever won. Maybe I'll miss two years in a row and turn into the kind of contrarian asshole who only reads second place.

On the other hand, the Red Sox are beating the Yankees. I feel they'll come back from three behind. (The way I see it, they got the push they needed, kate.) Yes, I feel it in my bones. The Dark Side may be quicker, more seductive, but the Red Sox will win.

On the other hand, I'm back in Florida, and feel like ass, enough so that I may go see a doctor. My finances are already stretched to the breaking point. We shall see.

On the other hand, R. has dropped the moving-to-the-city-with-seastreet line, which is fine by me. She seems to have picked up that I'm in no position or mood to make open-ended commitments these days. And while it was good to see her this afternoon, it seems like my not having called while I was in New York may have chilled things a little. I do not object. I hate that it's easier for me to talk to you, Peanut Gallery, than to my actual significant other about stuff like this. But thusly does neediness beget dissembling.

On the other hand, I really do feel like ass.

On the other hand, I have just enough energy to crawl into bed and try to put a dent in Demons or A Fairly Honourable Defeat or one of the other books I brought with me to the city but had no time for.

Please, keep your fingers crossed for me over the next three weeks. I already miss New York like the desert misses the rain. When I got there, I didn't get the frisson I was expecting, the heart-leaping. What I got was feeling like I was home, which was less dramatic but harder to recover from.

I have so much else to tell you.