2001-06-19 - 11:23 p.m.

�Lucy: Mother doesn't like me playing Beethoven. She says I'm always peevish afterwards.

Revered Beebe: I can see how one might be... stirred up.�

I fee like I�ve been writing for several years non-stop. I feel like an infinite number of monkeys in front of an infinite number of typewriters. Without an infinite number of bananas, though the invoices have been submitted but there�s some problem at the banana plantation. Features I�ve had to write on demand in the last few days: The role of Fathers in the face of the crisis in masculinity, The Wimbledon Tennis Championships, Marc Almond�s new book, Is Angela Jolie just faking weirdness?, some obscure African play about Apartheid, a city guide to the Welsh capital. My hands are worn down to twitching, RSI-tinged, bloody monkey stumps. Well, they ache a bit, anyway.

There�s a great song by comedian Rich Hall called �If we�re evolved from monkeys, how come there�s still monkeys?�

�George Emerson: My father says that there is only one perfect view, that of the sky over our heads.

Cecil Vyse: I suspect your father has been reading Dante.�

What�s popular medical thinking about oral fixation, because I really do need to put almost everything I come across into my mouth. My gob is the graveyard where pentops come to die. I was stopped by someone at work as I was applying some dental attention to a CD case. They were like, �What are you doing to that case?� There�s no easy answer when you�re just absent-mindedly chewing on tough plastic. But honestly � you name it, it goes in my mouth�bottles, small items of office stationery, rusty springs. I need some kind of fashionable yet preventative muzzle, maybe something in chrome?

�Mr. Emerson: I don't care what I see outside. My vision is within! Here is where the birds sing! Here is where the sky is blue!�

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