I wrote this down on a Sbarro Pizza napkin at the local shopping mall the other day, during the holiday shopping frenzy. I made 100 photocopies in the copyshop, then proceeded to leave the copies in strategic places all over the mall: bathrooms, underneath dvd players at Tweeter, the toy store, shoved inside women's panties in Filene's, underneath SUV's windshield wipers in the parking lot, etc. I can't remember why I wrote it...all I remember is frantically writing it while stuffing pepperoni pizza into my face and trying not to cry:

People everywhere, dead skin cells everywhere in my food on my face on my glasses, sick little fat kid coughing on consumer electronics...smelly loud black woman speaking ebonics. HAHAHA! ...Insects leaving droppings on the shopping mall floor, tastes like cigarette butts and 25% off sales events. Buy one, get one half off. Buy another one in case the first one breaks. Made in Taiwan, Vietnam, China, Philippines, India, Pakistan, Hell, fucking Horrible Hell build me a better portable mp3 player and perfect clothes. I feel sick all the time and I bet you do as well. Everything feels like it'll stop at any given moment, but life must go on, the economy must go on. 10% off of a new Panasonic progressive scan DVD player must go on. I can't imagine life without it. Without electricity, gasoline, and your ugly, spoiled, rotten children spreading their disease all over my goods. Sell me a new body a new conscience a new, clean, unformatted being. Don't you see what's happening? Can't you taste these animals? Don't you feel sick from the lack of oxygen in this sexy consumer death camp? The Sharper Image has everything I need and nothing I don't. Oh God, I miss my life, my childhood, my legos and my lemonade. Are you out there? Any of you? If anyone out there knows how to fix this, fax me or text message my mobile phone. HELP!

As usual it's been ups and downs for me, my mind, and my body. The weekend was terrible....I don't even remember it, but I'm sure it was awful. But yesterday I felt something I don't think I've felt since I was maybe eighteen years old. I had to go return some DVDs to the local Blockbuster, and as I was standing in line to rent more videos ("X-Men 2" and "Pirates of the Carribean"), I noticed a girl working the register that I had never seen before. She looked a few years younger than I..I wasn't sure if she was in school or not. It's too early for winter break. Maybe she goes to a local community college? Maybe she studies fine arts and likes jazz and is a vegetarian for all the right reasons? I didn't find out. I just prayed that I would end up at her register. And I did. She was so stunning, so beautiful and pure, that I'm pretty sure I was blushing when she was ringing up my movies. "This movie's so much fun!" she said, smiling, cradling the box for "Pirates of the Carribean" in her soft, perfect hands. I melted inside. Oh, sweet girl. I would take such good care of you. Sweet dove, like I've never ever seen before. Why are you here? It smells awful and the televisions playing "Finding Nemo" on them emit this awful constant drone. You're too good for this. I'd take you away...we'd run away together. Spend the winter in a cabin in Vermont or New Hampshire, on a lake, with lots of firewood and a little market down the street so I could cook you fresh pasta and make you wonderful salads every night. I'd touch your face and kiss your lips and hold you and protect you and write you poetry and make nude sketches of your perfect body, lit only by the fireplace. I'd never yell at you and we'd never fight and I wouldn't have to drink or do drugs to be happy anymore. I'd stop being so angry at everything and everyone. I'd find absolute peace in you and I'd become the man I've always dreamed of being. Please let me take you away. I'm pretty sure we were talking...having a conversation at the register. Maybe about the movie? I was saying the right things...I got some giggles out of her. She was amazing. But shit. I already had a girlfriend. But I'm pretty sure I don't love her. God, that smile. Then suddenly it wasn't a smile...not a sincere one anyway. It was forced, impatient. "Um...That's eleven dollars and twenty three cents." Reality came back to me, as did the smell and the horrible electric buzzing noise. "Uh? Oh. Sorry. Um...You'd hate me if you knew me. I am the worst kind of human being," I told her. Then I left, and my world returned to shit.

I'm going to have another bad day. I went nuts tomorrow. Bad episodes await. I'm going to be watching television...something on FOX or NBC...something reality-based. Real people. Real emotions. I want to see someone get their heart ripped out. I want to see someone get emotionally destroyed. Think of what it'll do for the ratings! People crave this kind of entertainment now. It's almost the only thing that sells anymore. I don't want a happy ending. I want to see Joe Millionaire part four but with a really brutal ending, where the stupid cowboy construction worker cries after he's fucked ten different women, knowing his life is an utter joke, a spectacle. There's no more room for ethics. Only dollar signs and media buys. Anyway, I was watching television tomorrow and a commercial for the new "Cat in the Hat" movie came on. I suddenly became very nauseaus and angry and started cursing the television, even though no one was with me to hear it. "Oh, that's rich!" I'll say. "That's really fucking rich! Dr. Seuss must be rolling in his grave right now! The characters don't even fucking rhyme!! And who's that stupid little fat kid? And why the fuck does the cat in the hat sound like 'Linda Richman' from SNL's "Coffee talk?" Oh! Oh! Mike Myers! PLEASE make another Austin Powers movie! PLEASE!? The world needs another Austin Powers 4! Because the last one was so clever, and it wasn't contrived at all! I mean, honestly, that 'goldmember' character was, really, really funny! Because of his accent! Oh!" I will be on my knees now, hands together as if i'm begging the television for salvation. The commercial has been over for a full minute, but suddenly I start to think about Colin Quinn and how much I despise him. "Colin Quinn! Oh man, you are SO on-point! You know so much about the situation in Iraq, it's amazing! And you're really, really funny. Especially your delivery! Like when you were doing the Weekly News on Saturday Night Live! Well done! FUCK YOU!" Tears are streaming down my face. There's an ad for some kind of bullshit celebrity show, like 'entertainment tonight' or something, on. Some famous rapper is greeting his fans, signing autographs, shaking hands, flashing smiles, all while his cell phone is firmly planted between his shoulder and right ear. He loves his fans that much. "Oh! I'm sure your phonecall is so important that you can't finish it later...I mean whatever conversation you're having right now must be absolutely riveting! Fucking asshole! And take off your sunglasses! It's fucking nighttime!" I'm practically screaming at my television, and crying and smashing my fist into the carpet repeatedly. Suddenly I realize that the rapper has the new model of cell phone that I want, the Nokia 7650, and it calms me. I close my eyes and breath heavily. All I want right now is some Taco Bell, I think to myself. And tomorrow I went to Taco Bell, and got a grilled stuffed burrito and ate it hungrily, opening my mouth wider than necessary every time I took a bite, just like in the commercials. It's going to be ok, even though I went crazy tomorrow.

Last night I saw an ad for the ten o' clock FOX news that warned of some new disease that causes you to laugh too much. "Do you have a bad case of the giggles? It may be more serious than you think!" they said. I was intrigued. What kind of sickness could make you laugh more? How do I acquire this sickness? I ended up not watching the news, as I was too busy looking at internet pornography. However, I did watch it on Sunday night, and it was quite a treat. At first I was going to change the channel because I thought they were going to go on and on about the latest tragedies and fuckups in Iraq, since there had been such a bloodbath there over the weekend. But I was pleasantly suprised to see that they only gave the Iraq business minimal coverage, and instead focused on new consumer satellite radio units for five minutes. I was captivated. They went over how it works, which one to get, and why I should get it. Of course I ordered one online yesterday morning. Thank god FOX news is able to sift through the bullshit and get to what's really important, especially in this holiday season. If I wanted to watch soldiers die, I'd play one of my many game consoles. Nazis are usually my favorite to kill. But I have seen a recent rising trend in increased videogame violence towards civilian characters, and it is very appealing to me.