My body is a paper bag.

It's scalding hot outside, and I'm freezing cold. The sun is too fearful to be warm, whetting its tentative rays on a gray palette.

I'm sick of Keynes, but I'm sicker of Friedman. So sick, in fact, that I have no appetite, save for Red Bull and filtered cloves, which I crave morning and night. The smoke is the color of the circles around my eyes.

56 glass beads on this string, 56 colors of my moods this week. 56 seconds to insanity.

Not even 56 days until I'm sailing on the spine of a metal bird, crossing the Atlantic. Or is it the Pacific? Where am I going? When does it end?

These pages look less like a book and more like a rope.

I wake up a few times each night to loosen the noose around my neck.