It's so quiet this high up, the feeling you get is that you're one of those space monkeys. You do the little job you're trained to do. Pull a lever. Push a button. You don't understand any of it, and then you just die.

For this moment, nothing matters. Look up into the stars and you're gone.

Don't do what you want. Do what you don't want. Do what you're trained not to want. Do the things that scare you the most.

Everybody's still miserable in the same way they've always been miserable, and more and more of my friends - especially my male friends - find themselves taking anti-anxiety, psychotropic drugs. It seems like everybody I know is wondering if they're really who they are, or once the prescription runs out, will they become someone different?

This is why I loved the support groups so much, if people thought you were dying, they gave you their full attention. If this might be the last time they saw you, they really saw you. Everything else about their checkbook balance and radio songs and messy hair went out the window. You had their full attention. People listened instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. And when they spoke, they weren't just telling you a story. When the two of you talked, you were building something, and afterward you were both different than before.

Drugs or overeating or alcohol or sex, it was all just another way to find peace. To escape what we know. Our education. Our bite of the apple.

Am I sleeping? Have I slept at all? This is insomnia.