Everywhere I go, I find it an effort to impersonate myself. Nurses at St. Paul’s Hospital ask me how I am. “Fine,” I say. “I’m good.” What I don’t say is, “I’m obsessed. I just blew in from the record store and can hardly wait to get through my work here so I can rush down to the car to listen to this opera or that symphony. Then, unless I go to the store to pick up more stuff, I’ll go home and lie to my wife. And I’m feeling guilty as hell. That’s how I am.” Self-deprecating, pessimistic, or negative comments creep into my conversations. Someone on the ward compliments my work. I attempt a
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