Arghh, I only got two and a half hours of sleep last night...and I finally just got out of bed after tossing and turning. I was looking forward to having a solid and productive day of work after the Labor Day break but now I feel discombobulated. I'm just going to have to improvise my way through the day...may need a nap or two.

I've actually been up and about since about five a.m.

Last night I watched the rest of the first seven episodes of AMC's Mad Men, which a friend kindly recorded for me. Although I still think it overdoes the sexism of the 1960-period dialogue a bit (as well as the chain-smoking) in order to make points about how things have changed for the better in our society, the dramatic aspects picked up in the fourth episode and I could concentrate more on the characters as people rather than as stereotypes. I like the intellectual tension set up in the thoughtful viewer by the contrast of the manly man/confident philanderer Don Draper versus the pussywhipped husband/unsuccessful ladykiller Peter Campbell, because it brings to life the pressure of the 50s and early 60s that said penis-bearing individuals had to act macho or be labeled sissies. Even though I was only eight years old when the 50s ended, I can still remember that pressure from school, the playground, and gym class, and how it was a relief when this dynamic let up a little with the Beatles, the Age of Aquarius, hippies and flower power. Of course, when men in general stopped acting tough, women in general also became less beautiful.

The way I see it, the trade-off is that during periods of intense machismo, women in society make themselves more attractive as they instinctively preen to attract the most studly men. Hence, the 50s, after America's macho triumph in World War 2, was the apex of feminine allure in the 20th century; the mid-60s through the 70s, during the trauma of Vietnam, saw a downsliding of feminine sex appeal; the 80s to the mid 90s, with the brash and phallic economy, not to mention the swift victory of the first Gulf War, saw women perking up a bit visually; and then females starting dressing to kill again in the late 90s up to the present day, with the retro-minded explosion of acquisitive greed and macho strutting. But looking at the astoundingly lovely January Jones in the role of Don Draper's wife Betty on Mad Men--why is this actress not yet a movie star?--I am reminded that the quality of innocence has mostly been lost to adult women in our era since the 50s. It is so sexy that Betty Draper is a mother of two, but she looks innocent. She obviously is not, the show's dialogue makes that point, but she LOOKS innocent, which I find erotic. When the little boy she was babysitting for in one episode told her how she looked so beautiful, like a princess, and could he have a lock of her hair, I empathized completely. Although Betty yearns to be banged by her husband (who cheats on her with women who are not fit to shine Betty's shoes), Betty is not just a sexual creature but an icon in a cocktail dress who also stirs up sensual but chaste passions more suitable to the Age of Courtly Love many centuries ago. In contrast to Betty's character, today most women make a point of looking as if they know more than they should about everything, which is an attractive quality perhaps only in a porn star, and often not even then.

Maybe I'm a screwball, but this is the way I think.

I wonder if it was Mad Men that gave me insomnia? Because not just the dialogue and characters, but the imagery and atmosphere of the 50s, really stirs something up in me that's both pleasant but disturbing. I'll have more to say about all this...but right now maybe I better get some breakfast. All I'm operating on now is one cup of java.

Well, I finished my additional tinkering with my novel manuscript yesterday morning, and I think I basically pulled off what I was trying to do. Soon I'll send it out into the world, like a kid off to kindergarten. I hope it'll be able to hold its own with the inevitable bullies.

All right, enough of that precious metaphor...

Beautiful weather here in NYC this weekend, although I didn't get out of my apartment until the late afternoon yesterday. My place is pleasant with the sun and the breeze coming through the windows, and I fell asleep on the couch for awhile. Just felt so damned tired.

Some good girl-watching last night, though; I met a friend for coffee in the evening, and we scoped out the talent at the Astor Place Starbucks. Some awesome sights, although not that crowded because so many people got out of town for Labor Day. Still, some amazing girls, especially the Asian college gals from NYU.

On my way home, the subway car had a memorable show of its own with two exceptionally long-legged black girls on their way to some club, wearing skirts that came up just below their navels. There was also a moody-looking Chinese chick with shapely pins also in a micro-mini. Nobody in the car could take their eyes off these girls. They got off well before my stop, but as the train filled up with more people, a quiet and shy-looking gal with a kind of plain face but really pretty legs and feet got on. She was wearing high- heeled wedgies that showed off her feet which I eyeballed as a size six. Her toenails were polished a bright red and her feet looked very smooth and soft. The combination of her demure and ordinary face with those sensual-looking calves and feet made her nice fodder for a daydream...she was extremely sexy without trying.

When I got home I watched an episode of the AMC show Mad Men, which my writer/bodybuilder friend Rexx recorded for me on a disc. This is the program that takes place in 1960 and is about life in and around a big New York advertising agency (hence the name "Mad Men," short for Madison Avenue Men). After seeing three episodes, I'm enjoying the program even though there are a number of things about it that bother me, but I'll have more to say on the subject after I get through the first seven episodes.

One thing I will say now, though, is that it annoys me that the main character, the studly advertising creative director well-played by Jon Hamm, would sexually dally with two unpleasant female characters in the city when he has an absolutely gorgeous wife (played by January Jones) back at his suburban home, who, despite her various neuroses, puts the other two to shame in beauty and femininity. (And you know, those things still count with some men, like me.) But the wife also represents the genteel home-and-hearth attitudes of the repressive 50s and early 60s, and the other two females are forward-looking argumentative toughies who anticipate the quintessential postfeminist "warrior women" of today, a type which is currently looked upon in our steadily more matriarchal culture as the womanly ideal. So although this show is set in 1960, it is really unsubtle propaganda for how much better women have it in 2007.

I listen to some of the things that the secondary male characters say or do in Mad Men, and I get the impression that I'm supposed to think that 90% of the guys were really crude assholes back then, and the women, despite having a few unpleasant quirks of their own, were nobly forbearing, like slaves under the yoke of the Romans in a sword-and-sandal movie, just waiting for a Spartacus-with-a-vagina to liberate them.

Yep, I'll have more to say about Mad Men in a future post...you betcha.

I haven't written here in a couple of days because I started tinkering again with the novel manuscript, as I am wont to do with things I write even after I declare them finished; finding little things I could further tighten or omit, and doing this took up my writing time for the last two days. I got through four fifths of it again, and just want to go through the climax one more time...I wanted to finish it this afternoon before meeting my writer/bodybuilder friend Rexx for dinner, but my body and eyes are saying, "Wait until tomorrow."

As I've grown older I've learned to recognize my body's part in the act of writing (something it took many years to comprehend), and that weariness--even if it occurs in what seems like an unusually short period of time--may be an indication I should take a break.

For example, last night I was tempted to pass on a social occasion to stay home and continue to tinker, but luckily I decided to go out after all and hang with some film buff friends and watch a cheesy Italian horror flick and get my mind away from the manuscript. I felt refreshed when I went back to it this morning.

I appreciate everybody's kind comments on my previous post! Donna--Maria--Colo--Mike--thanks! And I hope this opus will see the published light of day in a reasonable amount of time so you can encounter in fictional form the noirish ponderings of ye ole curmudgeonly Cranky!

Boy, I'm tired tonight (I'm writing this Tuesday night just before midnight, although I'll probably post it after midnight into Wednesday). I didn't get much sleep last night, as I was excited on Tuesday morning to get up and re-read the revision I'd made on Monday to the last scene in the novel I've been working on. So I woke up after only five and a half hours of sleep, eager to get to my desk.

Well, I re-read what I wrote and only had to make some minor tweaks. The last scene did the job, and so the novel is done. You see, I had realized that my initial version of the final scene was too flippant, and I had to redo it to reflect the essential seriousness of the story so that I wouldn't make light of everything that had gone before it. The way I wrote it initially was like a literary form of self-deprecation, as if I were saying that the story wasn't really intended to be taken seriously after all, it's just a big goof, ha-ha. Quite the contrary. The new ending is dark in the extreme, as foreshadowed by everything in the story.

It's ironic--I'm self-deprecating in my conversation in real life, undercutting myself in a similar way. I did it tonight during dinner with some friends, weakening my assertions during a discussion of politics. But the self-deprecation that's forgotten from yesterday's dinner table can be ruinous when applied inappropriately to a piece of writing.

Also, in my eagerness to finish the first draft, I didn't follow through on the structure I had used throughout the manuscript, so I had to get back on the track and continue that structure right through to the climax. It was as if I had built a house, but in my haste to say "It's done!" I forgot to include the roof!

I may still take out a few words here and there, but it's essentially finished. I started it on June 11th and put in 39 days of butt-in-the-seat work on it over the course of summer: 25 days to write the first draft of about 210 pages, 7 days on the second, and 7 days on the final draft and polish (I ended up adding about 30 pages). I took breaks as long as two weeks between the drafts to refresh my mind and gain some distance from what I had written so I could look at it objectively for the purposes of revision.

It's a story that draws on my thoughts about sex, love, work, masculinity, and the haunting influence of our parents on our adult lives. I put these thoughts into a genre framework of the noirish "femme fatale" type of story. You know, a guy gets involved with a girl he hopes is right for him, but she turns out to be all wrong in all the worst ways...yet is also strangely good to him, too, in the ways he wants. In other words, life is presented as a cruel, infuriating paradox. The background of the tale draws on my knowledge of strippers (and DVDs) but amps it up for shock and tension (at least I hope that's the effect I achieved).

Now I have to see if I can sell it. My goal is to make extra money by writing psychological suspense fiction, which is the type of thriller I most admire and enjoy. And a lot of the books I like were written under similar conditions of speed: the mystery and suspense paperbacks of the 1950s, which stand up so well today despite the fact that some of them were written in two weeks to a month, for fast money.

Whether it sells or not, whether it's actually good or not, at least I can say I had a productive summer and entertained myself by writing the kind of story I would shell out my own money to read if I saw it in a bookstore. At least it tells the story I envisioned when I sketched it out on a piece of paper while sitting in a midtown Wendy's having a value-priced crunchy chicken sandwich.

I know they say our bodies are, what, 90% water or something? I had the proof late this afternoon when this babe walked by me in her low-cut blouse as I was taking a girl-watchers break at Columbus Circle. Her tits were jiggling and quivering with every step. As she went off in the distance, I marveled at my instant memory of the fluidity of her floppers when suddenly she turned around and walked back in the direction whence she came, and so I got a second look at her oceanic chest. It was an amazing science lesson I never got from Mr. Wizard. Yessir, 90% water!