When in doubt, talk to Mom. I think I ought to have that tatooed above my belly button.

Mom was the one to call me. She wanted to talk through some business issues. I’m honored that he thinks my advice and perspective is worthwhile. And I think we made good progress on that front. She’s in a tough situation with business partners, but I think it may have a silverlining. Let’s hope.

I told her how I’ve been feeling of late. Pretty down, that is. I could practically feel the love oozing through the holes in the telephone earpiece. Made me feel a bit better. I think a big piece of the current puzzle is trying to put everything in perspective. What’s actually small stuff is looming large and somewhere there’s large stuff that matters that’s getting lost in the periphery.

I finished Choke, by Chuck Palahniuk, tonight. Kris lent it to me. It was a fast read, thankfully. Parts of it were so nasty that if the book had another hundred pages on it, I’d probably would’ve shut it and not finished. It’s good for stimulating your thoughts about addiction, if you’re in the mood to think about that. And his writing style is unusual, mostly engaging, sometimes annoying — the kind of literary “techniques” you’d get your grade knocked down for in a high school essay. It’s safe to say that Choke won’t be on my top 10 list, but it did at least remind me how much I love having a book to read. Next up is The Great Gatsby, which I feel like I should have read ages ago…