January 23, 2002 | 9:32 AM

I have been listening to Joni Mitchell a lot over the past week.

I think this pretty much sums up how I�m feeling right now:

The way I see it he said

You just can't win it

Everybody's in it for their own gain

You can't please 'em all

There's always somebody calling you down

I do my best

And I do good business

There's a lot of people asking for my time

They're trying to get ahead

They're trying to be a good friend of mine

I was a free man in Paris

I felt unfettered and alive

There was nobody calling me up for favors

And no one's future to decide

You know I'd go back there tomorrow

But for the work I've taken on

Stoking the star maker machinery

Behind the popular song

I deal in dreamers

And telephone screamers

Lately I wonder what I do it for

If l had my way

I'd just walk through those doors

And wander

Down the Champs Elysees

Going cafe to cabaret

Thinking how I'll feel when I find

That very good friend of mine

I was a free man in Paris

I felt unfettered and alive

Nobody was calling me up for favors

No one's future to decide

You know I'd go back there tomorrow

But for the work I've taken on

Stoking the star maker machinery

Behind the popular song

I am attempting something wholly new to me. It's called moderation. Moderation in drinking. Moderation in eating. Moderation in exercising. Moderation in worrying. Moderation in pushing myself. Moderation in my feelings towards other people.

I'm sick of vacillating between decadence and asceticism. There has to be a better way.

It's really unfortunate that all of the people I grew up admiring were such crazy driven bastards (Rimbaud, Neal Cassady, John Lennon, Frances Farmer) and all of the art I appreciate is so Dionysian in nature when I should be following God damned happy go lucky Appolo and his moderate happy sun fun times philosophy in terms of the mythology I create out of my own life.

Balance. Moderation. Libran energy.

Yeah.