Back from reunion. Reunion was joyous and love-filled and infused me with the desire to Live Up to My Potential. Everyone was lovely and supportive when I shared the details of my coffee serf/impoverished thespian lifestyle. For some reason I was expecting to be shunned and disdained and made to stand in a corner with a scarlet 'F'for 'Failure'stuck on my blouse. I think I don't give people enough credit.

Finished up another new play festival tonight. Playwright (who has serious medical problems and is in wheelchair with breathing tube)kissed my cheek and thanked me for beautiful work. Was bright spot in otherwise dingy week of arduous coffee-related labor and emotional turmoil related to recent breakup.

Am having serious insomnia problems again. A gentleman of my acquaintance shares my affliction. A prolific playwright, he claims to get all his good ideas in the wee alone hours of the morning. I do not get good ideas. I lie awake worrying about nuclear devastation, various diseases, the possibility that life really is completely without meaning and the possibility that I will die alone in a tiny apartment with no one to change my adult diapers or pay attention to my last words. This does not put me in the mood for sleep. Maybe I should try to go back to sheep counting.

Which reminds me of a joke which I heard today and find sidesplittingly funny.

Q. Why do Scotsmen wear kilts?
A. Because sheep can hear a zipper a mile away.

Heh,heh. My very proper Scottish grandmother would be horrified, but I can't keep from giggling.

Sad news in my own little world today.

Boyfriend and I are no longer together. Was sweet amicable breakup and, apart from feeling as though my heart has been chopped into bite-sized morsels and pureed until suitable for consumption by most toothless of old ladies, I am just fine and dandy. Am glamorous insouciant Sex in the City girl- minus the glamor, the sex, the shoes, the wardobes, the money and the celebrity status.

Although a customer at work did tell me I was a dead ringer for Tina Fey. I almost tongue-kissed her in gratitude, whereupon she looked (understandably)alarmed and scurried off to pick up her beverage. I didn't care, I was happy. Celebrity comparisons make me disgustingly, slobberingly gleeful.

Tomorrow am off to college reunion. Have 33 hour train ride to spend pondering meaning of life, love and loss.

If I figure it out, I'll let you know.

Shows are over and I am happily at home, on a Monday night, wearing comfy sweats and drinking chamomile tea, trying very hard to calm down enough so that I can go to sleep by ten and get 7.5 hours of sleep before I have to wake up for work. For past few weeks, insomnia has been running roughshod over all my good resolutions to eat healthily, take care of myself, get organized, and be kind and loving to fellow human beings. Insomnia tends to cause overconsumption of espresso brownies, an increase in spills and lost items and disorder of all kinds, and sullen crankiness towards all. Not to mention a distubing blurring of the always faint line between reality and otherwise.

Spent last night NOT watching the season finale of The Sopranos and had to find out what happened by eavesdropping on people on the bus. 362 days a year I don't mind...

Latest addition to gallery of Insane People Who Frequent My Coffee Shop:

Little old guy with shock of flyaway white hair and very unsavory teeth who came into the store and launched into a non-stop, thirty minute, top of his lungs tirade that somehow managed to tie together CNN, the Catholic Church, Israel, Karl Marx, the FCC, the CIA, the FBI, the misuse of radio waves, artificial sweeteners, Dwight Eisenhower, and a whole string of expletives.

I kind of admired his passion, if not his delivery.

But then, as my supervisor was escorting him to the door, he shrieked at her,

"I hope you get aborted!"

Now that is just plain rude.