It was one of those nights when it felt as if a low-grade electric current were running through my body. The hum was just enough to keep me awake most of the time from four o'clock on. I can't account for the sensation, unless there was something in the leftover donuts that my neighbor brought me yesterday.

Or maybe it was just the fact that I ate three donuts while watching The Sopranos last night.

I never buy donuts, because I love them passionately and I've worked so hard to keep off the 35 pounds I lost a few years ago. But when they're here, I can't resist them. It was kind of G, I guess, to share them, since he weighs 350 pounds and probably could have easily eaten the whole dozen. All he wanted from me this time was ten copies and nine envelopes.

Oh, but it wasn't just lying there not sleeping all night. It was one of those nights when your body makes a violent protest against everything you believe in. Not just twitches and spasms, but uncontrollable Tourette's-like rhythmic outbursts of nonsense syllables. Even if I had been asleep, I wouldn't have been able to stay that way through all the shouting. I was a dyslexic beatnik poet in hell's dimmest coffee house.

After all this my Monday got off to a sluggish start, but it was quieter than usual because of Dr. King's holiday. If it hadn't been for the bid I had to turn in this afternoon, I wouldn't have had to leave the house at all. There was no mail to pick up, and it was one of those foggy gray days that invite you to stay in and watch the world go by. Which is, of course, one of my areas of expertise.

So on a quiet Monday we must create our own crisis, by leaving details until the last minute. We were still waiting for prices to come in as I was getting ready to leave for Pak Mail. If I hadn't made it before the UPS overnight deadline, I would have had to drive a hundred miles or so tomorrow to deliver the bid in person. As it was, I got there barely in time to have the bid form notarized and packaged and sent on its way.

If I was dragging before all this last-minute tumult, I was positively gasping by the time it was done. What I needed was something to give me a burst of energy. Like maybe a donut. Anybody need some office supplies?