I am so tired I can barely lift my fingers to type this. We have confessed to each other that we both feel stuck around the in-law. I've been scraping away womanfully and the more I do the more there is to do. Meanwhile my brain has turned into a bucket of paint shavings. White paint shavings.

The good news is we are not fighting, blaming or accusing each other for this mess. Simply acknowledging it. We will hire someone and get it done. Meanwhile every time I go near the newspaper, the TV or the radio, all I hear about is the economy falling apart.

At the gym the other night I got on the treadmill. There was a phalanx of TV sets lined up in front of the machines, tuned to several different channels. It was like a bad-news arcade. Everywhere you looked--and there was noplace else to look--banks closing and houses being foreclosed, and grim-looking suits were on screen.

I think I'm going to go on strike from reality for a day or two. Buy or borrow the seventh Harry Potter and read it straight through.