You miss so much on this shift. For the first time in my adult life, I missed most of both conventions, huge chunks of the Olympics, and last Sunday’s post-time-change episode of “The Wire,” which is why there’s no open thread this week, because I’m still trying to find it at a time I can enjoy it without seriously impeding my performance the following day. (Yes, I need to get TiVo. I also need my local Comcast affiliate to get cracking with making HBO On Demand available here.)

Of course I missed the election-night coverage, except for the part featuring Indiana, which even Kate got to see, because we’re always the first state called — always for the GOP. (You can read more about that in this publication.) Fortunately, though, there were still hours and hours of coverage to enjoy after I rose to begin the post-election shift at 4 a.m. (Just so you understand, that means I rose at 3:15, which is so early you can’t even call it early. It’s just the middle of the damn night.

Election-night and post-election shifts in the newspaper business are traditionally rewarded with company-paid food, and there was no shortage of grub today, including several welcome tankards of designer coffee.

It helped ease the pain, but as for cogent thoughts, I’m feeling a bit wrung-out and empty.

So how’s this? Someone asked me if I could revive NN.C’s “On the Nightstand” feature, just so they could see what I’m reading, because it’s so, so interesting, I imagine. That question I’ll have to take up with the web guy, but I can tell you what I’m reading now: “The Plot Against America,” Philip Roth’s new novel. It’s an “alternate history,” one of those stories that asks, “What if this had happened, and not that? What might have happened afterward?” He imagines a 1940s-era America that elects as president not Franklin Roosevelt, but Charles Lindbergh.

Well, it’s quite excellent. You can imagine why I’m finding it, oh, resonant.

I won’t bore you with a lot of whining. I wouldn’t read it from the other side if things had turned out differently. I’m just going to take a nap and read a little more, and see you back here later.