What else to do at 5:20 A.M.? Hello, all. I've been back in Philadelphia since last week and it's good to be home again. I've logged thousands and thousands of miles in planes, boats and cars. It's time to settle into life again.

Need to find a job. That's obvious, so let me talk about other stuff.

My sleep patterns are heavily skewed. Too irritable to sleep at night, so I nap during the day which leads to sleep problems at night. I ponder why my ex in Los Angeles is avoiding my calls, why Dagmara from Poland hasn't written back, and how to stretch a few more miles from my black velcro sneakers.

I've been walking around unshowered with mussed hair during the day. If you're working and see unkempt people wandering the streets and wonder how they got there, I can tell you, it's easy. Yesterday I wandered Philadelphia in my Skinny Puppy t-shirt while riding my orange Schwinn bicycle and browsed the record stores. I ate Taco Bell, and sat in the park, not once having fixed my hair. It was a freedom of an unfulfilling kind, not even vaguely romantic.

In unemployed land. I feel like I belong here. In a sense, this is the best vacation. A little money and no desire to do anything - a purgatorial tedium of a lazy slob.

That's life. In some ways, I wish I had a lazy slob girlfriend or some lazy slob guy friends, but wandering alone is nice for now.

All that aside, there is nothing romantic about insomnia, sleeping in crap European hostels, living in an apartment w/o air conditioning, retail jobs, espresso bar jobs, or getting lost on midwestern roads.

There is no romance in excessive masturbation, obesity, or getting caught in the rain.

Only 1/10 of most sunsets are romantic. Less than that for sunrises.

RATIONAL MEASURES FOR DESPERATE PEOPLE