How fancy; or, Domonic books a flight to Breakdown City.

Surely you've all been there.

Oh, there are those among you who claim to have it all together, all the time, under punishing duress as well as in nearly intolerable pleasure.

But I see you, Together-and-With-It-People.

Oh yes, I see you, With-It-Chick, watching Judge Judy stripped down to your skivvies with a Fuzzy Navel wine-cooler in one hand and a hog-trough-sized bowl of Lucky Charms in the other, weeping hysterically into your skim milk because your insensitive cow of a boss critiqued your latest monument to banality at a packed staff meeting so hard that sniggers could clearly be heard.

I see you, young With-It-Dude, with your hand poised mere inches away from the whirring blades of your In-Sinkerator garbage disposal because the shapely enchantress you'd fallen desperately in love with online was actually an ennui-afflicted 21-year-old white guy whose fascinating hobby is inventing unrealistically attractive online vixens to ensnare unfortunate cyber-geeks into revealing their long-hidden paraphilias. After all, it might be of interest to the people in your life that you are unnaturally aroused by the sight of girls in saddle shoes.

I see you all in the splendiferous ruin of your lives, yet I feel the sodden weight of your judgement pressing moistly upon my shoulders.

"What the feck", you begin while preparing to microwave your third Lean Cuisine of the night, "could you possibly have to snap about? I mean, it's not like you've been forced into providing excruciatingly slow manual pleasure to truckers behind the Flying J Dumpsters for donut money again, right?"

Well, no. Let me rephrase: not recently. But that is beside the point.

I suppose that I happen to be one of those people who diffuses stress through quasi-healthy channels. Instead of lying on the floor, moaning and twitching , in the presence of my coworkers, I gather some liquid fossil fuels and find a lovely orphanage to immolate. Instead of taking my "cat" out into the countryside with a shovel and a bag of dime-store lime, I support local bum-fights with generous contributions of the bricks they use beat themselves into bloodied unconsciousness. And, when thoughts of my thesis bring me to the brink of sanity, I just have to remember the twelve nurses stacked up like cordwood in my crawlspace and I can breathe easier. With a mask, but easier.

As months go, this particular August could potentially be likened to driving naked on a fourwheeler into a sun-bloated deer carcass at 40 MPH. The entire month could consisely be summed up thus:

Domonic was informed that he has less than three months to finish his MA thesis or else his department will unceremoniously "release the hounds" on his student records; his office experienced record numbers of new and, if I may be frank, profoundly "needy", internationals, all of whom firmly believe that they and they alone are the focal point of the universe; the "cat" now has to be locked into the doorless laundry room and held at bay with three count them THREE baby-gates because he had begun howling at the door for his morning feeding at FOUR AM and, finally, there have been five doctor visits in the past thirty days with one more on the way.

A typical day in August/early September for Domonic:

4 AM: Awaken to unearthly moans coming from under the bedroom door; the "cat" had inserted his muzzle completely under the door itself and was howling through the gap between it and the floor. When I arose to hose the cat down with the Squirt Bottle of Divine Intervention, he would quickly run away and hide under furniture because, and I swear to the infant Jesus, he KNEW HE WAS BEING A COMPLETE FUCKSTICK.

6 AM: Alarm goes off. While showering in the dark, I begin the slow process of bracing myself for the unyielding horrors that await me in the office - horrors which, while muted by the fantastic Orientation we had this Fall, began in earnest weeks beforehand. Oh, I see: you're on a livestock-filled lorry in the middle of Equatorial Africa on your way to get your visa today and you haven't, as of this moment, gotten your I-20? Good. Yes, good.

7 AM: Begin 45-minute commute to work. During said commute the thought of my impending thesis completion makes me so physically ill that I nearly have to pull over to vomit a load of righteous bile onto the grassy shoulder.

Noon: Healthy Choice microwave lunch: on today's menu, Gristly Sow Cheek in a Watery Trucker-Phlem Sauce on Overdone, Mealy Pasta. With a caramel-apple "dessert."

5 PM: Begin the 45-minute commute home behind two vehicles travelling at the same speed in both lanes, five miles under the speed limit. iPod chooses this particular astral moment to shit the bed and sepulchral silence fills the car.

6 PM: Arrive home. In the mail: bills. On the mat outside the catbox: a decaying lake of catpiss. In the air: the piquant aroma of unwashed dog, feet and said catpiss. Candles cannot fix this smell; first beer of the evening is opened and slammed.

9 PM: Golden Girls on DVD.

10 PM: Bedtime.

Things are fine now. But I tell you, if it werent for Little Debbie snacky-cakes, sourdough pretzels, Diet Pepsi "Jazz", the Golden Girls and cüceyim, I don't know what I would have done.

Though I'd like to think that it would have involved ninja-stars.

Until next time, I remain,

Domonic (Iliveamanforbid) Potorti