I turned 45 today. Family party at the Olive Garden earned me pants, underwear, socks, a Gamecock sweatshirt, a gorgeously framed copy of a review I wrote for the Post, and a White Stripes CD.

Spent some hours staring at the short story that won't move; pondered whether there's any truth to that saw of Bunuel's about how the imagination must be trained, and considered writing a furious response to Martin Amis's latest valentine in the Atlantic Monthly to that flaming bag of gas Saul Bellow. It put me in what might be called a Peckish mood: "'Saul Bellow is the worst writer of his generation -- and if you don't agree, you're part of the problem."