Maybe the key to this whole thing is just

There are storm clouds gathering around Philadelphia, and on days like this it feels as though the city is wrapping its fingers around my throat.

Harvey Pekar died on Monday.

I bummed a cigarette from a stranger while walking around looking for lunch just now. It was a menthol. It killed me. Serves me right.

My body doesn't react to tobacco all that well. Cigarettes are supposed to be uppers--nicotine is supposed to give you a temporary jolt. That hasn't happened to me in some time if it ever did. When I smoke a cigarette, my brain just shuts off. It feels like my ears are stuffed with gauze, I can feel my eyes glaze over. When I smoke regularly, throughout the day, I feel like I'm sleepwalking a little bit.

There are advantages. It's nevertheless stress relief, and it gives me an excuse to get out of the office for a minute or two and have some me time. It's the only stress relief I have at the moment. Which is probably why I do it.

But it's not worth it. The feeling that I'm walking around sleeping all the time. The sense that if only I could wake up, I could clear my head. My thoughts are jumbled. I'm not really present in my own life.

Which is also probably why I do it.

I've been here for almost a year, and things still aren't satisfactory. Often the fact that I now have a tentative plan for the next few years sketched out in my head isn't compensation enough for the present.

I'm beginning to meet people. Slowly. I'm making an effort to go out and be pleasant. But I'm growing increasingly convinced that my criterion for a meaningful friendship is pretty skewed. I can't rely on my sense of who to rely on. I'm still largely alone.

Occasionally, despite myself, I mess something up at work. Then I beat myself up about it all day.

Don't feel like writing anymore.