First thing in the morning I like to let the dog lick my brain. If I've had dour dreams especially, or if my pants don't feel "right," or simply if I rise and think oh hell. Recent scientific studies suggest that drinking zero, one, two, three, or more than three cups of coffee a day might significantly increase, or decrease, or have no effect upon, my chances of having a heart attack, or not having a heart attack, or having two heart attacks in quick succession followed by a duration of many years in which I have no heart attacks, or many heart attacks, before being finished off by the inevitable neoplasm or aneuryism or swarm of bees or heart attack. In any event after the dog licks my brain I make coffee and then drink coffee, one, two, or three cups of coffee, depending, but never fractions of a cup, because I believe in finishing what I start, unless it's a project in which I've invested a great deal of personal significance. When, for example, will I ever get around to finishing Interregnum? Or Grease Fire '88? Or Precious Little? Or I've Been Raped: An American Boyhood?