I must have looked incredulous, because he interrupted himself to add "I just work here to meet people."

I muttered "OK, thanks," and left the place, wondering if he gets a lot of clients that way, and wondering why I've never looked into getting a part-time job on weekends in a place like that just for the hell of it.

When I worked at Tower Records a lawyer started working there part-time 3 nights a week. Everyone hated him because he must have been making $150,000 a year, and he would buy $400 worth of CDs every time he came in ($400 was more than double the average weekly salary there). He had this notion that working like this was a stylish thing to do. You could tell during any conversation that he was trying to find something that just was not there, that he thought we would be pacifist, Zen people with no haughty ambitions or desires to move on.

Haughty is a stupid word.

I've thought about it for a year or so now, but any time I think it might be "fun" to flip burgers or organize shampoo displays at Walgreen's I remember encountering a woman who worked the overnight shift at a Dunkin' Donuts near my house in Tampa. This was in high school, and a couple of friends and I went into the shop at 2:15 in the morning looking for a slice of life (or maybe just doughnuts); the woman behind the counter seemed OK at first. She laughed at our stupid jokes.

But as we sat down she started waving and flailing her arms at a tray of doughnuts whispering "Take 'em, they're free. Quick! They're free!"

We all got up and walked toward the counter, muttering "Hey, that's cool ... huh huh, free doughnuts," and I grabbed a handful of doughnut holes.

The manager (or a scowling man I presumed to be the manager) appeared from the back room and saw what was happening. He looked toward the woman, who indicated to him that she didn't know what we thought we were doing swiping all those doughnuts. He did not appear to believe her, which was fortunate for us.

Sensing trouble, we left, justifying our behavior amongst ourselves: "Fuck, she said we could have them!" "No fucking shit, she's the one who's in trouble." "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

Evidently, she was in trouble. I drove past the store later that night at around 3:30 and she was not there. The scowling manager was behind the counter. She may have just left for the night, but I didn't get the feeling she was destined for a career in food service, and I never saw here there again.

A few nights later I saw a guy sweeping the parking lot of a Circle K at 3:15 in the morning. I might have been projecting my own new biases about it, but he looked miserable, and I gave up on the idea of the nightshift being a romantic or stimulating environment.

But maybe it would be stimulating, in the way Schubert found blank sheets of music paper to be inspiring, or in the way undecorated walls force creative thought more aggressively than walls with posters and photographs that do all the thinking for you.

I recently started into my old pastime of dialing random telephone numbers in Manhattan just to see what kind of answering machine messages are out there. Dialing numbers like that is like mining for something, mining for what I do not know.

Unfortunately, there is not much to report from the Answering Machine Theater of New York. I am hoping to find nervous, self-conscious, unintentionally revelatory messages recorded by people whose outgoing answering machine messages represent the extent of their public life, and I remain confident that with time I will find exactly that.

I am typing this in my living room, on the table I had designated to be the "no technology" part of the apartment. I conceded to allow this computer over here when I realized that the only piece of technology which really consumes unbelievable amounts of my time and creative energy is the telephone, either through a connection to the internet or its tantalizing ability to make general contact with the outside world. I don't think I have phone cables long enough to reach this end of the apartment, so it should be safe.

I have also come to the conclusion that my mission-style recliner, my beloved chair, is too comfortable. I can do nothing more compelling than play Scrabble while sitting in it.

So I am sitting in my more rigorous desk chair and in between trying to think of something to say here I am reading from Ernst Burger's enormous picture book/biography of Franz Liszt. I habitually try to check my e-mail or take a turn at Scrabble, but there is no connection to the internet here, allowing rich, meaningful thoughts like this to flow uninterrupted and distraction-free.

Great, huh?

I never sit in this part of the apartment for very long during normal waking hours (it is 7:15 pm), so the noises coming from the neighbors' apartment are new to me, as is the shuffle of feet in the stairwell outside.

Just did it again... Tried to check my e-mail. Mild obsessive-compulsive activity, I guess. I was born this way. As an infant I rubbed my face against the sheets so hard and so constantly that my nose had an open sore on it.

When I was a kid I would check the mailbox 20 times a day to see if there was mail. Even after the mailman had come and gone I would check again anyway, in case someone personally came by to deliver me a letter or a card.

I remember the thrill of finding something new in the mailbox one Sunday afternoon, when U.S. Postal Service mail is not delivered. I ran to show it to my dad, saying "I found mail in the mailbox!" He asked "Is it a letter?" I handed it to him and when he opened it I was disappointed to learn that it was just a flyer for a local lawn mowing service, probably left in everyone's mailbox. It was my first experience with spam, which only ever depresses me for its frantic ignorance.

The big event of every weekday and Saturday was that single delivery of mail. I can hear the sound of the postal truck in my head even now, whirring around the corner, the mailman opening and shutting the mailboxes, sometimes pushing back the raised plastic or metal flag which indicated that there was mail for pick-up.

In retrospect it seems quaint that anyone would put mail for delivery into their mailbox and not expect it to get stolen or run over.

If delivery of the postal mail was the momentous event of the day, the arrival of the Tampa Tribune at 4:00 in the morning was a different kind of turning point. The delivery person would slowly drive their station wagon through the subdivision pitching the plastic-bag-enclosed newspapers onto almost every driveway. Each bag dully plopped, lacking the vigor of the mailman's efficient placement of mail into the box.

The first time I heard the sound of those Tampa Tribunes hitting the driveways I panicked, fearing I would never, ever get to sleep, that it was too late, and that I would be wide awake like this for the rest of my life.

I've been panicking like that a lot lately, having not scored more than 5 or 6 hours of sleep any of the last 10 nights. Don't know what it is, as there is nothing particularly stressful going on these days. In fact, there is nothing much at all going on in my life. That could be the problem, because I do thrive on distraction.

I practice several hours on Saturday and Sunday, and about an hour each weeknight after getting home. I want a new piano very, very badly, but have decided to settle for nothing but the best, and it is hard to say how long it will take to save up for that.

Is it Easter? Oh, praise the Lord.