Another early morning.

Once again I am up before the sun, with the milkmen, as if there are any left, with the farmers, as if there are any left.

Sometimes, I admit, I wonder, how much of me is left.

I think about all the things I have to do at work, and all the books I want to write and, more-so, all the books I want to read and then I look at the money I have saved through the years, and consider the money my wife has saved, then I think about the value of our almost-paid-for apartment--three bedrooms--on the Upper East Side, and I say to myself, "really. Really, must you?"

Then maybe I close my eyes for another 20 seconds and think about how my wife has long-life in her family and I don't want her destitute and eating Little Sheba at the age of 97, and I peel myself from beneath the 800-counts and hi-ho, it's off to work we go.

This is not to say I don't love what I do. Even the berating by infamous directors, even the long days and longer nights of 'do it over again,' or 'it's not right, yet,' or 'there are seven more things to do.'

I do love all that, and even the tedium, that feels like staring at a cellblock wall sometimes and counting chalk lines that mark the long passage of time.

So, as Con Ed--the electric company--used to post everywhere as they dug up and rewired the New York I grew up in, "Dig We Must," and so, I grab a shovel, which in my case is a late model Mac Book and head down into the mines.

Yes, I will never get black lung.

But these black moods? 

Those I can do nothing about.