The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Way I Feel

(or felt)

Disturbed: I'm sitting here looking at an elaborate print advertisement for a Broadway show, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and one of the show-girl models in the ad has only three fingers on her hand. Or appears to. I smell Photoshop.... In addition: Someone told me today that they saw Kate Middleton's face on a jellybean. That's disturbing too -- either because someone is so obsessed with the royal wedding that they're seeing Kate on everything, even jellybeans, or because the wedding tchotchke hucksters have actually gone that far.

Claustrophobic: For the first time in centuries, I spent some time in Midtown Manhattan yesterday during rush hour. I had forgotten what it was like to swim through schools of tourists as I made my way up Fifth Avenue. And I had forgotten what it felt like to be a sardine as I packed myself into a shiny, silvery Number 6 train, deep below Grand Central Station.

Retro: The other day, I found a fancy classic Parker ballpoint pen (you can see what it looks like here) that someone gave me years ago. I decided to clip it to my shirt pocket with the little gold arrow-clip thingy showing on the outside of the pocket. Nobody does that anymore. It was a bit amusing. Or lame. That such things amuse me is itself disturbing.