Designer Debt. Designer Doubt.

Bipolar. I need to ignore the highs just as much as I do the lows. Boundless energy. Sleepless depression. I put on a show that nobody goes to and everyone is pleased. I put on a show that is wildly popular and when the dust clears, everyone feels defeated.

I piss canary yellow from drinking too much Pepsi. I adventure with Autumn now. We've mastered it, and by Wednesday night we've managed biblical proportions: Cicadas. Floods. Hot liquid steel running like magma between our legs. The invocation of Poseidon. We shoot dice in alleys drinking strawberry champagne, passing the same quarter back and forth. We laugh at the lack of imagination of fashionable eighteen year olds. We match each other dollar for dollar even though we have no jobs. Have I really saved this much?

I clean the rat's cage. I am denied sex. I look at myself sideways in the mirror. I wonder what color to make the covers for my zines and try to steal the card stock from Kinko's. Nothing I've written feels like it's worth two dollars but it needs a cover. I argue with Ken about Israel.

Under the fluorescent lights in the bathroom of the temp agency, my penis looks small and grey, like some Madagascan beetle. I wait for it to hiss, and then put it away. I try to undo the damage the rain has wrought. My clothes have lost their shape; my hair, which I've straightened, lies limp and greasy. My jacket no longer looks vintage, it looks like the best I can do. If they aren't ready to hire me immediately, I won't make it past hello. I force my way through typing tests with a headache. There's no such thing as a sure thing.

I call Fortune to see if she can help me with my resume yet. I call Pinky to see if his boss is at all biting. Tania's Mom calls drunk. She's forgotten that Tania has changed her phone number and wants to threaten to kill herself.

I can't afford the train, but it's worth it not to get drenched again. If it wasn't for the bike, I could sit down and close my eyes. I can become invisible, just another narconon reject coming down hard, another playboy from the Seventies lost in the new millennium. It can't be good that I feel like I look thirty years older than I am.

I take a drag off the hookah. I take a nap. I take a pen and paper to the shitter. I watch Sarah Silverman, repulsed and aroused. I wait for the emails to die down. I delete one album for every three I download. Digital excess is the only kind I can afford.

On the train I feel tall. Lights pass by quickly underground and I snatch glimpses of furrowed brows, sunken cheeks, dipped chins. Everyone seems so sad, almost everyone at least. A group of exquisite Latinas chatter away, oblivious and perfect.

I listen to opera and new wave and no wave on itunes. This is what I should be doing with my life. I type a blog, and then delete it. I jerk off, but I'm not into it. Another goth getting subjugated and plastered. I eat a packet of saltines. The cat tips over the litter box and I thank the heavens that nothing spills out. I hold my rat like a teddy bear. I resolve to bathe him but not now.

On my own I could hide, but I have a bike to tame, and maneuvering it makes me as awkward and obnoxious as I feel. It's grey but dry on the other side of the subway tunnel. The graffiti is pink and familiar. The air is cold but unobtrusive. My house is the color of a dead leaf.

I turn on a movie. I hold my Sarah tighter as she snores. I try to cry. I fall asleep.

I rethink the way I've lived my life. I plan trips. I stack them on top of one another. It doesn't matter if I just keep moving. I can't stay here much longer. Please don't call me on it, if I keep saying the same things and don't actually go.

[Currently listening to "Kleenex/Lilliput" by Lilliput]