Lest this web journal give you the mistaken impression that everything is okay: there’s something very wrong happening. I wish I could show you in a drawing or a video, but I can’t slow down long enough to put the pieces together, and that is part of the problem. Plus, the pictures are rough, like sticks or scuffs of ash or coal, and big: not the small, precise movements of computer art or animation. I would write it in the Creepy Girl font I downloaded last month, but you’d never be able to read it. The air is cold. I’ve been sweating cold all day and uncomfortable in my jeans. Two nights ago I thought I was having a heart attack, and it was only the presence of Donna’s cat, Kyle, in my bed, that kept me from calling 911. I shouldn’t be telling you this. I wore my sunglasses all day even after the sun started to go down and stared at people on the bus, like the tall woman whose black hair had just enough purple for self-assurance. I shredded a Kleenex, secretly, under the backpack on my lap and bit the inside of my mouth. I’m tired but can’t imagine ever going to sleep again. Or wanting to. Or wanting to do anything besides sleep. The only thing that keeps me alive is the idea that one day I will find I have something to say. In the meantime, I write from outside a white concrete wall and make happy pictures of a life that I’m never sure is really mine. Just when I think I’m starting to be like other people, I have weeks like this one and wonder if normalcy is even within my realm of imagination.

Driving Donna’s car is almost as much fun as chocolate cake.