"Are you doing okay there?" someone asked me today.

"Uh yeah, I'm fine"

"You don't look too well. We can tell...[ed note: by then a small crowd was growing]...you aren't your usual..."

"Not my typically cheery 'ol self?" I replied, letting my words ooze with sarcasm. I was in no mood to pretend, nor in any mood to talk.

"Uh...yeah, you just seem a little cynical."

No f*cking way?! Well, now that the obvious questions are aside...

You see, it's not like these people really cared. I mean on a basic human level, they can't fairly well ignore my beaten appearance (I suppose they could, but then we would be speaking about JACK and not these people). However, superficial responses, smiles of comfortedness...I cannot stomach at this moment. I cannot give them the superficial relief they desire--so that they think they have done their duty so to speak.

And so, I turned around and valianty tried searching for a book in the building's library that will provide me with the necessary escapism over the next couple hours, at least. Then I went to class--the class for which I did not do the assignment that is worth 25 percent of my grade. Yeah, I didn't do it. But thankfully, my director stepped in and spoke to my professor on my behalf. So now all I have to do is churn out the paper amid mental consternation...by tomorrow afternoon. Oh yeah, no problem. (sarcasm there again, for those of you who don't know me--and a little bit of hysteria creeping in there too.)

I was thinking today, and many other days before, about how sad this world is. I mean, think about how many people are silently depressed, upset or lonely. The increasing teen suicide rate and the rising divorce rates (wherein all important things become merely somebody's statistic) is enough to indicate that something is wrong. How many people trudge through the world feeling this way and then paint on that happy face, that superficial smile and that aquaintance "hello"? How many people feel utterly alone, as if they are the only ones living this emotion, when in reality hundreds of people, sometimes even right next to them, feel the same way. And nobody speaks out. They just continue on living these lives of...of what?

Of nothingness.

I don't want to be nothing. I want to be something.

That's why this world makes me sad.

***

"Family Portrait," Pink

Uh, uh, some deep shit, uh, uh

Momma please stop cryin, I can’t stand the sound
Your pain is painful and its tearin' me down
I hear glasses breakin as I sit up in my bed
I told dad you didn’t mean those nasty things you
said

You fight about money, bout me and my brother
And this I come home to, this is my shelter
It ain’t easy growin up in World War III
Never knowin what love could be, you’ll see
I don’t want love to destroy me like it has done my family

Can we work it out? Can we be a family?
I promise I’ll be better, Mommy I’ll do anything
Can we work it out? Can we be a family?
I promise I’ll be better...