New Economy Journal, Entry #1

Dear Despair,

I feel you. I feel you there, settling in to your new home in the pit of my stomach, choosing curtains, selecting matching overstuffed furniture sets, laying tastefully neutral yet somehow not bland faux wood laminate flooring... That's right, get comfortable. I invite you in. We shall be together a longish while, I fear.

The news is bad all over today again, Despair. You would rejoice were you capable. Mother says not to worry. Mother says everything happens for a reason. Mother says things always turn out in the end. But then, Mother hasn't been right since the pony she rented for my eighth birthday party got crazy on cotton candy, mauled the clown and kicked her in the head. That didn't turn out in the end, did it Mother? Oh no, it did not. You were there that day too, weren't you, Despair? I felt your icy cold fingers lovingly closing around my throat in that bloody aftermath, somewhere between blowing out the candles on the cake and when the guy from animal control accidentally shot me in the neck with the tranquilizer.

Unemployment looms for me and I knew you were coming, Despair. I felt you stalking me, darting into shadows behind my constant companions Lust and Awkward Smalltalk whenever I would turn to see who was following me. But I knew it was you. You I know of old. You are unmistakable. I mean, nobody sees Despair coming and thinks "Hey, is that Studied Indifference?" You can try to lie, alter your form, but nobody believes you're Homosexual Panic. Only Despair smells of old cigar smoke overpowering pathetically inadequate breath mints. And everyone knows Homosexual Panic smells like melon-berry moisturizer.

The financial disaster is already upon me. I can see why people give in to you. The slaughter... my God the slaughter... first went my racquetball privileges at the gym... then my Star Wars Galaxies massive multiplayer online gaming account... and then, just yesterday, we... I can't even... oh Jesus... we had to give up Showtime.

I've started cutting. Not myself, obviously. Mostly coupons. This afternoon I bought fifty bars of Dove soap just because I could save 15 cents per bar. I don't even use that brand. But such is the impulse to save.

See what you've pushed me to, Despair? One by one my entertainment options shrink and wither and die. Without my "United States of Tara" on the DVR, I have nothing to do on an afternoon but sit and fashion macabre soap sculptures of myself doing unspeakable things like living under a freeway overpass or buying store-brand food items.

Get comfortable, Despair. I should take comfort in knowing that, in this economy, I do not suffer alone. But the question is: does that make it easier to take or harder?