Being insane is one of those many things that seem romantic when you imagine them but are less so in reality, like growing up, having a career, and porridge. Sure you get to talk to yourself, write on whatever you want with whatever you want, and address people as your royal subjects, and that's seems great, but it takes a degree of sanity to enjoy it. I long maintained a boyhood dream of being an old, slightly insane polemic, and now I blame television, video games, and modern advertising techniques for making me want what only really disappoints. So much of our lives are spent in pursuit of that which we believe will make us happy--money, fame, sex, power, really soft hair, a goat (different strokes for different folks)--but it always falls short. "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity."

This was my first sunny day in Edinburgh. It wasn't really that sunny, but it didn't rain either. I hiked up a mountain in the center of the city, called Arthur's Seat. It was beautiful--both the mountain itself and the amazing view of the city the summit (one really should use that word as often as possible) offers. On the mountain's highest point--marked by a 3 1/2 foot white pedastal supporting (don't you love mankind) an ashtray--I stood and felt, for perhaps the first time, glad that I'd come to Edinburgh.

I've been on a steady diet of bread and nutella. Nutella is the spread of the gods. (I know for a fact that Morgan Freeman eats a jar a week.) I've been really hungry, too, so come 11 or 12 at night I typically toast myself 3 or 4 slices of bread with nutella and get ready for a good time. Something about having a toaster and the power to spread something on a slice of bread whenever he wants really makes a man feel like a man.

Now, I may have depressed whatever reader settled his or her mind upon the discussion which introduced this post, and that reader may now feel rather melancholy, having considered the notion that real life often falls short of our fantasies' grandeur, but let me end on a note of optimism. Not all things are worse than they seem. Not all our expectations presume too much. There are things in life--some great, some small--that are better than we could ever dream, imagine, or expect, and these are things that ought to make us stop and wonder at the world, to make us thankful for the short time we have on it. One of those things is meat pie. I really can't overemphasize this point: Meat pies are delicious. You wouldn't think it. Putting steaming stewed steak between layers of buttery crust, considered by our malformed Americans minds only fit to envelop fruit filling or chocolate, sounds disgusting. But it is heavenly.Truly heavenly. I think I'm going to make some toast.