I was supposed to be getting a 3-month paid sabbatical leave this year. I was going to use it to travel through Europe, and maybe a little of North Africa. Unfortunately, it got cancelled. Quelle déception.

I'm seriously annoyed. All my travel guides will lapse into obsolescence by the time my next chance at this rolls around.

Anyway, at least I can live vicariously through others, which in this case is Annainthesky, who is going to Gotland in Sweden in August. Check out the lovely pictures from her last trip there and join me in envy.

I'm not sleeping well lately. It's not insomnia -- I am sleeping, at least.

Something is wrong when I am getting 8 hours of sleep at night and still find myself yawning at 8pm.

Maybe it's the trains. Maybe they're finally getting to me, although it hasn't been a problem for the past 13 months I've been living a stone's throw from a major railway intersection.

Maybe it's diet. I've been cutting back on beef because I finally decided it's not good for me if it gives me a phlegmy cough every time I eat it.

Whatever, I'm obviously not sleeping well. Or else I have some obscure lethargy disease.

Only time will tell.

An obscure lethargy disease would be really picturesque in a Victorian way, though.

All my unpublished poems could be discovered Emily Dickinson-style after I finally wasted away. Wouldn't that be lovely?