Author's Note: This piece is a chapter of my ms. "Invisible Driving" called "Everything Is." The book is about my battle with Manic Depression. The chapter is an attempt to make the reader feel what it is like to be manic.

Everything is the way it is for a reason. Or it isn't. Or both. Or neither. It's so hard to tell. It's so hard to tell you. But I can tell you. I can tell you a mile away. I can tell you're a mile away by the Luke in your eyes. I can tell you're a mile away by the Luke of the Irish. Irished everything for you, and this is the thanks I get? Thanks Igette, and thanks Igor, for a monstrous time. A monstrous hat was timed by all. All's well that's oiled well. Well oil right. Yes, oil right you when I get work. The abbey of Get Sesame. Get Seth and me. They're gonna come for me. They're gonna comfort me. They're gonna come fit me. Here cummerbund, marching down her street, stamp in defeat. Detail. The lust shall be first. Lust in space. The vet space the dogs because he has to, and he has three cats. Three cats, know weighting. The ting about that bell is the sound. The whole ting. Speaking of the Grand Canyon as a whole. He's holed up in the square. They squared off in the best circles. If you think the party is dull, circulate, if you think it's fun, circle seven. I've never seen you be four, I've seen you be three, but never be four. Nein! Ate. Severance. Sex. Thighs. Fore. Free. Toute. Won. Glasnost. Gezundheit! Ten Q. You're will's come. Where there's a will there's relatives. Come hear. Come overhear. He was overherd to say, "The cattle drink the milk." You herd me, ow. The cat had whiskers under his knows, he was pusstachioed. Whisker offer feet. Offer hand, knocker socks off. I'll besieging you, in old, familiar places. Place his everyone. Every won played Counts. Except those who played Contessas. The Count's divorce was uncontessad. That's wad he said. She bitter, man. At the auction she was champing at the bid. Bitter farewell. Bidder farewell. Fair thee well, my own true's darning, four eyes am bound, and gagged, for old Virginny, Ginny, Ginny, Ginny, won't you take a rite with me, you've got the write stuff, bay B, you're the reason why I swing this scone, butter jam, jammer but, Chuck a Kong, Chuck a Kong, I've veal for you, I think olive you, I think all of you, fillings, nothing more than fillings, filling her up, feeling her down, she's a duck, DUCK! Imagine if your brrrr rain was bubbling like this constantly, do you think it might drive you bozznit after a while away the ours, what's Uri's is Uri's and what's Mayan is Mayan, Abyssinia, Sarong. "What sarong, is she wearing?" asked the seamstress. Clean up your asp. "How ya dune, Sandy?" "Not too Baghdad." The subway in London is the fellow peon tube. Tube B or not Tube B? I once met a Jewish gangster who was living in exile in the islands, his name was Bermuda Schwartz. Help! How do you turn this thing off? It's your turnip bat, Europe. European? No, it's just ice in my pocket. Pa kit, Ma kit, and locket. Let's go to Ma kit. The whole kitten kapoodle. Don't step in the poodles. She was only a stableman's daughter, but all the horsemen knew her. Then there was the performance artist who said, "I don't know much about art, but I know what I'm like." Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts Albert Finney. Remember that bastard Lester Maddox? He was a racist, and a brutal hatemonger. He was the Lester of two evils. And how about those Arab women, pretty in tents. When Arabs give gifts, do they do it in the present tents? Did you hear about the self-help book for architects, I.M. Pei, U.M. Pei? Help! Being in jail's not that bad, at least you don't have to agonize over vacation plans. Ahhh. Why do WASPs go to the hospital? For the food. Uhhh. If Sally Wong and Charlie Wong had a child, why wouldn't it be a Caucasian? Because two Wongs don't make a white. Stop, I'm killing me. Liquor, I hardly know her. How do you turn this thing off? Want a drink? No thanks, I'm not drinking any more. Of course, I'm not drinking any less either. Chez When. Chez What? Ceasar. Ceasar what? Ceasar Chavez. Where is it? The streetcars are broken, there's sick transit on this glorious Monday. Ghengis Khan but Emmanual Kant. If I had it to do all over again, I'd do it all over you. My wife, give her an inch and she thinks she's a ruler. A hard man is good to find. I never metaphor I didn't like. You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think. It's a boar ring case. Everybody has to believe something, I believe I'll have another drink. No matter where you go, there you are. The place is getting so popular, nobody goes there anymore. I can't go without Bea. I can't believe her behind. If you laid all the Freshmen girls at Bryn Mawr College end to end it wouldn't surprise me at all. Parker, I hardly know her. Yiiikes. There's no end insight. There's no big inning in sight either in this whole knew ballgame. The mice were so poor they could barely Eeeek out a living. Some of the snakes in India are so poor they don't have a pot to hiss in. Mints words, what the gay waiter spoke when dinner was over, done. When asked what was good on the menu the sarcastic waiter replied, "What's fair is fowl." "Through which canal passes the most food, Holmes?" "Alimentary my dear Watson." Give that lady barber more money, razor salary. Celery stalks at midnight. Noses run in my family. Days of whine and neuroses. I'm filing my nails under N. Under the broadwalk, down by the sea, at a banquet on my bay, Bea, that's where I'll be. The mentally ill comedian went sailing and was funny in the head. Stop. Where are the brakes? I could've become a race car driver but I never got the breaks I needed. And now the weather, fair today, unfair tomorrow. 101 Crustaceans. Lady and the Pimp. Snow White and The Trouble With Noses. Dumbro. Herbie The Love Slug. Bambi Does Bayonne. The Nutty Anesthesiologist. Disney or didn't he? Or we could Duke it out, Take The Atrium. Louis Armstrong and Elephant Gerald. The prostitutes and the other convicts were having their annual checkup, the prison doctor was weighing the pros and the cons. There's no one else here, it's justice dear. How about the new alternative to those expensive scents in the stores, Eureka Cheap Perfume. Tequila Mockingbird. I'll see you insane Luis. Miss Anne Thrope was a guitarist, she used a misanthropic. My brain's throwing up, some pretty weird stuff, some old, some new, some borrowed, some blew right through the roof, I'm too chicken to get a cap on it. If I was the fatman of the opera I could put a cape on it. When it's foggy by the shore it's bellwether for all sheeps at sea. There's a lot more in storm for ewe. When French people visit Big Ben it's a froggy day in London town. Dracula was kicked out of college for having a bat attitude. A farmer in Idaho grew phallic shaped spuds and is marketing them as dictators. She used to work at the supermarket, she's an exchequer. Really, you can bank on it. If you've gotta run, you need new stockings. Jewish people who observe rituals even though it pains them to do it are Seder-masochists. If there's one thing I can't stand it's sitting. Poverty, the only thing money can't buy. Drunk tanks for the memories. I'm cold, so brrr. When the two writers argued at the Frick you could almost feel the fiction. Slowly the mortician turned the coroner. Although I put my foot in my mouth, I impediment what I said. I'm falling, leaf me in peace! I'm caught in the brain without an umbrella! He doesn't have enough sense to come in out of the brain. The mean Marine was rotten to the corps. On the Main Line, outside Philadelphia, when the evening sun is just right, you can see the amber graves of Wayne. My mind has a mind of its own and yes I do mind very much. But I don't mind the store. I'm not saying I like it, mind you. Mind you don't forget. My own thoughts are like a mind battlefield. Drinking volatility. Drug my own grave situation. I'm living in a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wrong. Give my complaints to the chef. Sing! I cant. Act! I get stuck in the wrong line. You recite for sore eyes. The wreck of the Titanic is hull king. It's not oeuvre 'till the fat lady sinks. A mind is a terrible thing to baste. I'll go to sea for myself. I'm sin King. They all laughed when I sat down to play the potato. Thank God, it's drawing to a clothes closet. I couldn't bare it, much languor. I've got a head full of ideas that are driving me, I'll delineate, driving me, driving me, driving me. There must be some kind of way out of here, bobbing along. Lead us not into Penn Station but deliver us from eagles. I can't turn this thing off. Chaka Khan. Out the door he goes. Slam goes the screen. Rabazibby.