Illustrator, you may crash three times in less than two minutes. You may doubt the existence of Lucida Handwriting. You may go off your rocker and spontaneously decide that Copperplate Gothic should now be named Palatino Linotype, and neither what I say nor how the true Palatino Linotype feels will change your mind. These demonstrations of frustration are all right, for I am aware that there's some stress between us at present. You and I both know that you are not designed to do all that I am asking of you; indeed, I would have asked your dear sister InDesign, older brother PageMaker, or even that cousin, Quark, had they been around. But they are not here. It is you and I, and I will have that twelve page program out of you. I have the skill, the discipline, and the power button. I am in control, and I am listening to the Katamari Damacy soundtrack. Are our positions clear? Now, about page 4 ...

...

Today was a bit of a doozy. I'd been feeling quite depressed for about a week, and on Monday, the weekend events finally hit home. three_marlanas and whowantscookies really had moved, Mr. and Mrs. Dance really were gone for an entire month. They really had taken the cat, Earl Grey, with them. No people I knew. No cat. For a few hours, it felt as though my inner organs had chosen Monday morning to implode, and I was very shortly going to be throwing them all up. Staying up in the Attic would do me no good, so I went outside.

Soy Capital and New City share many features, including economic depression and a tendency towards strange odors (Soy Capital prefers soy processing fumes, and New City often seems to reek of cigarette smoke). Then there are the surface differences, like gratuitous quantities or lack of soy, hills, and transportation options. Beyond that are the differences that can change things hidden a bit deeper. Back in the flat fields, whenever I got so down I had the gall to pity myself, there was very little that could drag me out of that spiral. Here, every time I get in that state, some sort of Fate steps in and puts a blind man on the bus I'm riding. Sometimes it is the same man, the overweight one who always wears a t-shirt with the sentence "Somewhere in Texas, a village is missing an idiot" on it. Whenever I am in this sort of funk and I encounter these people who have the guts to go out of the house despite not being able to see what lies before them, I am immediately impressed by their bravery, disgusted by my own emotional stew, and resolve to stop acting this way. Yarrr, world! I'm not dead yet!