I haven’t been sleeping much, and midday yesterday, crashed, then stormed into a master class late, resulting in my being humiliated by my teacher, who asked “Lesson learned?” upon letting me into the room after keeping me locked out.

I came home, got really self-conscious about the whole affair at school, complained to my friends online, then stayed up until 3 a.m. trying to write, before giving up and going to bed.

Woke up this morning feeling like shit. Showered, considered whether I should shave or not, browsed through the Arts section of The New York Times, ate cereal mixed in with expired blueberries and luckily, unexpired milk, washed down a multivitamin with seltzer, and pondered when to leave to get to the Starbucks at Lincoln Center to meet my friend and writing partner Michelle Chai, a graduate film student at NYU, so I can revise The Long Drive Home.

What are the signs of an oncoming nervous breakdown? Pangs of painful loneliness mixed in with the desire to sabotage all that’s good in your life? Longing for intimacy with strangers? Missing meals because you’re too busy consuming self-pity? Deliberately annoying yourself by watching unbelievably perky Olympians on TV? Trying to tell yourself that everything will be fine when you already know that all it takes to make it all fine is for you to get your ass in gear and do the work that you know you need to do but won’t because you’re afraid that you’ll be a miserable failure?

Check. Check. Check that too. And that. And that.