I am so tiresomely at one with the zeitgeist. First there was the gourmet doughnut idea (Krispy Kreme, anyone?). Then there was the myriad of baby items I "invented" and didn't bother to, well, make, patent, or otherwise take seriously enough to muse upon when out of pajamas. But now this is too much. Last night I had a dream that Michael's agent told him that she had failed to sell foreign rights to his new children's book in Europe, and that the advance would be correspondingly decreased. (Yes, this is how dull my dreams have become. I recently dreamed I was filling in my tax worksheet.) Obviously this ridiculously tedious dream was a result of anxiety about the economy -- the same impulse that keeps the wives of hedge fund managers from investing in a new pair of YSL Tribute pumps and the husbands of laid-off retail story clerks from investing in health insurance or, say, food.

And then, low and behold, the NY Times Book Review does a little backpage essay on author advances, timed, it seems, to correspond with my dreamlife.

Weird.

No, I don't plan to tell you the size of my advance. Very nice, thank you. More than some, a lot less than others. 'Nuf said.