If it bleeds we can kill it

Puns are the lowest form of humor which is why Shakespeare was the Carrot Top of his day. I'm sitting in a car waiting for someone to come back with drugs and reading the Shakespeare play that Carrot Top's name and stage persona and prop comedy is based on - Chairman of the Bard - and going through drug withdrawals.

Reading helps my anxiety. Anxiety is rooted in real-world fears so it's good to read about things with no real-world referent like love and compassion. Anxiety is also caused by insomnia. I wish I were a vampire since they don't have sleep problems. Last night I was up all night thinking about a story about VHS tapes. Vampires never have this problem because they don't write: they've been around long enough know words are futile. I don't write either - the writer being dead because of Roland Barthes - but I want to and desire is my weakness.

I put down the play in disgust. Shakespeare is at worst Satan. Everything decays; thinking one can make a lasting document of the humor of Carrot Top is pure egotism.

To buy I drugs I took out two mortgages - one on my blood and one on my future. If I default, a repo truck arrives at my 29th birthday party. A repo person climbs out and grabs the cake with a pair of ice tongs, revealing a sinkhole that the things that will replace my existence shoot out of: trees, air and sections of walls.

"You're a whore." I tell her.

"Why?"

"I want to tell my friend he's a whore but he's not here so I'm telling him by proxy. Anyone with an IT job, a girlfriend, enough money to live comfortably - who still feels some non-specific malaise - that's their conscience telling them they're a whore. I have a soul sometimes, just not my own."

The repo person cries. Lana turns to Ari.

"What's that person doing?"

"Her or his job."

If I don't default, the birthday goes fine. I open my presents and blow out the candles. I want to wish for a magic amulet, one that will grant me infinite powers, even though due to karma it will cause my soul pain and suffering in a later life. But then I realize I already made that wish in a previous life. So I wish for a horse. Not a pony because ponies are for girls or homosexuals.

Some addicts I know hate looking at clocks. They're idiots. Clocks are the most important instruments in the world; they verify that time is working properly. People who hate clocks probably hate stepometers and gauges on planes. They probably hate the display on Coke machines that says "Vending." Probably hate their own pulse ... No wonder carrot top is unpopular; no wonder we have culmination theory, like Red Box and think peeves are our pets and not vice-versa.

There is not a crate big enough to throw at all the people who need a crate thrown at them tonight. (Turn to page 56)

Friendship is still there when you turn out the lights, like a skull that glows in the dark. (Turn to page 82)

Heroin. (Stare at page for 6 hours, then read again)