July 1. Constipated. Respite from diarrhea caused by Crohn’s disease, finally.

July 5. Insomnia.

July 6. Insomnia. Completely hagged out.

July 7. I just can’t sleep. Lie in bed and worry.

July 8. Toss, turn, and mash pillows all night. Insomnia.

July 9. Will it never end? “The healthy man,” writes E. M. Cioran, “only dabbles in insomnia: He knows nothing of those who would give a kingdom for an hour of unconscious sleep, those as terrified by the sight of a bed as they would be of a torture rack.”

July 12. Twelve nights and not even a wink.

July 14. Haggard beyond belief. There is a variant of mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) that induces fatal insomnia. Dead in four to twelve months! Boy, I’ve eaten my share of burgers.

July 19. What if I were to fly to Africa, to a heavily infected tsetse fly zone, and contract sleeping sickness to counterbalance my affliction? Book a flight to Africa.

July 26. Try to read Ulysses and fall into a five-day coma. Why didn’t I think of that in the first place? I feel great!

July 27. Depressed again. Antidepressants should be called what they really are: hammers of despair. You can’t sleep, you can’t fuck, and your head feels like it contains seventeen pounds of aluminum.

Labor Day. Tossing a football with my brother, I jump to catch a high pass and feel a lightning bolt shoot through my arm. Shoulder hurts so bad I can only tightly squeeze my elbow to my rib cage. Can’t put on a shirt by myself.

September 5. Frozen shoulders are so rare, most people seldom hear of them. Twenty percent of the diabetic population gets them. A frozen shoulder is no day at the beach.

September 6. Insomnia again. The same old routine.

September 7. Born to suffer.

September 12. Acupuncture for shoulder. No go, nothing, zip. Just a big waste of time.

September 14. Rolfed by some Wavy Gravy chick who talked aromatherapy, e.g., the catfish flower.

September 16. Deep-tissue massage. Yet another flop.

September 20. The orthopedic surgeon attempts to break the shoulder-capsule adhesions under anesthesia. “I couldn’t do it,” he says later. “I thought I was going to break your arm. Go to a pain clinic.”

September 24. Pain clinic dispenses narcotics. “Not enough to get you high,” the nurse says with a smile. Meanwhile, “the shoulder will only get worse. There is an osteopath you might try.”

October 9. Facedown on the treatment table. Dr. Coors, osteopath and Spanish inquisitor, pulls my arm mercilessly. There are loud pops as he breaks the adhesions in the shoulder capsule. The pain is so bad I think my hair will catch fire. Coors says, “Come back tomorrow.”

October 11. Facedown on the table, I bite a hole through the Naugahyde, swallow a rusty spring and three wads of horsehair stuffing. Coors says, “We’re beginning to get somewhere. We’re making progress.”