I don’t understand the world, like how things can look simultaneously moderately good and very, very bad. After an unparalleled veterinary fiasco poor Goblin needs two more surgeries that will leave her lame for another four months if not forever; I am quite literally one paycheck away from bankruptcy; and I can’t get through a single day without a dose or dram of something to dull my razor-sharp edge--and I’m talking, like, adamantium claws here, plucking away at my carotid artery. And yet sometimes things look good, or at least brightly murky as if they might one day turn out to be good if the laser beam of my willpower doesn’t waver a micron.

One thing for sure is that there is only so much longer I can exist in this state before something, somewhere gives. Next week--I hope it’s next week--I’m going out of town for a while. A retreat, I shall call it. But that is after Goblin’s next surgery, endless lease negotiations, wrangling ad space all over town like a mad buccaneer, and telling all of my employees exactly what I think of them. And I doubt my trip will be very relaxing as I anticipate the horrors to which I will return.

I am so stupid. I know I’m terribly well off compared to 99.999999999999999 percent of the world, and I am so grateful for that, but at the same time I wonder that if I weren’t just even .1111111111 percent less well off my life wouldn't be several times easier.

I never was much good at algebra, but I know disgusting whining when I see it, goddamn it.