The writer often loses sleep over the dread of disappointing others.

Question: What keeps you up at night?

Jonathan Ames: Well, a couple of things. Sometimes I might get upset – I’m not very good with confrontation, or anger. I tend to swallow it all down and so if someone’s hurt me, I’m not very good at telling them, “Hey, I’m angry at you.” And so I might stay up late at night trying to figure out in my mind, writing them emails, or trying to figure out how to smooth relations and it’ll keep me up. At the same time, because I’m not good at anger, it must be circulating in my body and if I could just express it someone or accept anger, then maybe I wouldn’t stay up late at night. I think I might stay up worried about letting everyone down if I can’t do a good job or late at night if I’ve been neglectful of people that I care about. I worry about disappointing people, and I think that keeps me up late at night.

 Recorded on: November 4, 2009