The color gray

I ALWAYS underestimate the effect of brewed coffee. This morning I ordered a cup that came with my breakfast. Minutes later I was palpitating, my hands were shaking, and I was reading non-stop. Without feeling sleepy I was able to read halfway through Rilke's The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. Why do depressing books somehow make their way into my reading list?

I went home "alert, awake, and enthusiastic," to borrow the lines of that Sunday school song. (Ah, Ma'am Dorcas, where are you now?) The caffeine working its way into my system, I felt an adrenaline rush, my sympathetic nerves on overdrive. I couldn't take an afternoon nap, which frustrated me—I need to grow taller! I'm turning 26 in a couple of days, but nobody really knows the state of my epiphyseal plates, so I'm taking my chances. To put my time to good use I tweaked this site's CSS, learned a number of tricks, and decided on a gray background and a font called Puritan. I'm quite pleased with it. What do you think?