1:20 p.m. I think we need to rethink this whole work-play continuum. It's Monday, so it's back to work. Play time is over. However, if you've faithfully followed all the self-help manuals, you've made your avocation into your vocation. The thing you love to do is the thing you get paid for, right? Achoo.

There should therefore be no dissonance between Monday and Sunday in this scenario. Since you're always playing at what you love to do, Mondays will never present any bump in the road on the way to Mandaley. Excuse me while I blow my nose.

Ah. That's better. I have got such a head full of liquid you wouldn't believe. I feel like an aquarium with two blowfish for eyes. I hate that boat. I really do. We were actually out on the ocean in it yesterday, a-hopping and a-roiling on the waves. A spray of salt water even blew over us. I am stiff and sore from holding onto something teak that was splintering under my nails. My head is still reeling from the pounding.

I break for drugs.

Compromise. That's the ticket here. You've got to compromise. You want a relationship? Sniff, sniff? You give in and climb aboard. I would have been fine, in retrospect, had I battened the hatches down better. We had brought lunch, from Ralph's, and there was this salad Nicoise avec olives that, when it hit the bounding main ... well, it wasn't a pretty sight. Neither was the bounding main, for that matter, at least from my angle.

Plus, I had also bought the brand-new premier issue of Talk magazine and the August issue of MacAddict, a nice big bag of Bing cherries and a tray of spicy shrimp sushi. Squeezing out the viscose soy sauce from those intractable little packets while you're tilted all ahoy is an adventure in and of itself, I tell you. I have the wrong idea of a day on the water, surely.

"Compromise Takes A Holiday" reads the headline on the Week in Review section of the Sunday Times. One of my favorite sections, still unopened, still unread. Ditto the Book Review. I rolled up the magazine section and took it with me on the boat, along with the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, a nice thick old paperback, should the day prove too calm. Left the book on the boat for the inevitable next trip, brought the magazine back and here it sits on my desk, still unread, still tightly rolled.

Work and play, inextricable linked when you work for yourself; incredibly intermingled when you work with your spouse. Ma and Pa living over the store; always on call and forever on the job, trying to keep your IRL from getting all tangled up with your URL. Watch a movie, think of a better subplot for the novel you're working on. Read a magazine masthead first, take a picture, and always get a release. Talking to a friend or working on a screenplay? Is the tape running? Did you remember to turn on the answer machine?

Well, we made it back to the dock in one piece before sundown and if I take enough aspirin and Formula 44, I should be able to get through this piece before sunrise. I always like to pitch in and do my part. I'm a natural born Swabby. Helped with the closing down ceremonies and coiled the rope up all nice and neat. Quoin of the helm -- that's my favorite part. That and getting back to work.