I woke four hours later than I normally do, and strains of the Beatles song “Yesterday” were already ringing in my ears. I’ve been trying to write for five hours and thus far my greatest achievement has been to kill a fly with my bare hands. Even permakitten Grace has given up supporting my desultory stabs at productivity–felinnui is real, man–and the four shots of espresso I’ve swilled have failed to lift the fog of my alleged brain. New moon and solar eclipse be damned. Nothing transcends the gloom of the last unofficial week of summer.