I Should Be You, Sebastian Junger

Sebastian Junger came to my attention in a publicity photo for "The Perfect Storm." Ohhh, I see why your book got published, I thought cynically. You are male-model material, and have written some mediocre novel but you'll shoot straight up the charts on your looks alone.

Naturally, I couldn't help wondering why my own good looks hadn't done something similar for me. Maybe it was because I hadn't actually written a book that publicity could be generated around. Maybe it's the ubiquitous preference of the world for a chiseled, muscular man over a chiseled, muscular woman.

Who knows?

But I lived in Belmont. I could have written "A Murder in Belmont." My family spent time in Gloucester in the summers. I could have written "The Perfect Storm." I could be rich and successful now, writing my own ticket to whatever interests me.

But sexism has kept me down. The world will continue to prefer men to women. I may as well hang up my cleats.

Time for a Cuppa

I love coffee. There's no way of saying how much. I lurve it. I revere it. Indeed, I venerate it.

I love to drink it while I read. I love to drink it while I write. I love it even dead of night. (Okay, not really.)

But one day in the long holiday weekend, after enjoying two robust cups of Sumatran (mixed with decaf!) I suddenly peaked and went into that zone of palm-sweating, amorphous anxiety that is one of the worst feelings it's possible to have.

There's really nothing worse than anxiety. In a Margaret Drabble novel, a character speaks of "depression as a relief from anxiety." When you're anxious, nothing feels right. A smoky, dismal cloud surrounds everything. The brain seems slowed, despite the racing heart. Death can seem imminent.

A friend supervised my buying of this Sumatran coffee, and she advised getting the espresso grind. She's another person who lurves coffee. I took her advice, but I think those small granules of powerful coffee entered my bloodstream and poisoned it.

Because I wasn't anxious about anything before that. I was watching Wimbledon, the women's quarter final. It was two Russian women, and I didn't care about the outcome. The match wasn't very good -- Maria Sharapova totally dominated a hapless Elena Dementieva -- and I stopped watching it to do some writing. I went out to buy a newspaper and read it in my local bagel shop. I felt a bit weird walking over there and I had juice with my bagel instead of coffee, as planned.

By the time I'd read the paper I realized something was quite off. I felt completely bizarre, frightened, and as if I might burst out crying. I went back to my apartment and lay down, but I couldn't concentrate on my book (Money by Martin Amis) so my anxiety continued to roil. The whole day was shot. The next day too.

Can my trusty friend be letting me down? My life's solace? My drug of choice?

Well, I hope not. You can not convince me a drug-free life is worth a pinch of coon shit, as an old boyfriend used to say.