Absence Anxiety

Or should I call it “avalanche anxiety”?

“Busyness anxiety”?

“Silence anxiety?”

I’ve been slammed, folks. This is a good thing. I’ve been talking on the radio, publishing essays, traveling here and there, and going on TV. The “reading public” — that shrinking but powerful and beloved entity — has shown a sincere interest in Monkey Mind, and I’m enormously grateful. My cup runneth over.

But some things have slipped, and foremost among these has been my presence here on the website. There have been no videos, no “Ask Dan’s Mom,” no “Tales from the Amygdala.” The gears have slowed. But with any luck — and, I suspect, an unwise amount of coffee — they will start up again soon.

So stay tuned. In the meantime, I give you this — a pleasant conversation I had recently with Gayle King on CBS This Morning. The only weird part was forgetting to leave the studio before I took off my makeup. (The makeup woman, incidentally, was one of the coolest people I’ve met in a long time. A Turkish woman. We spoke of Istanbul, where I dream of someday living. Gayle King was supercool, too. We had a long conversation in the green room about how I lost my virginity.)