I’m spreading myself a little thin. I’ve been working like a bitch for this Johnson, spending 12 hours a day data mining and hacking corporate data files, as well as the teaching thing on the side… skipping things like sleep, the gym, breathing… stuff like that. I figure that I’ll have time for that when this project is over, right? But, like always, the project just gets bigger and more encompassing and the fragging Johnson wants more and more. Today I slotted my cred stick and find he’s shafted me. Paid me less than he agreed to. He knows I can’t do anything about it. I’m stuck on the lower levels of the Sprawl, an inch ahead of the bill collector, so I have to bend over and take it. Well, I’m not a spiteful person… proud, defiant, bullheaded, but not spiteful. So, I’ll finish my commitment to the prick and move on. Time to consider a big move, maybe I should sell out and become a shill for the mega-global corps — although I don’t think I could handle being a corporate wanker… some Dilbert in a cube. The teaching gives me some freedom, but only as side income. As a novelty. I did start up my book again. I’m up to chapter seventeen. Maybe I need to break free and become an author. If I did well there, a book or two a year would let me live where I want, teach, travel… that’s a pipedream. I better just get back to that work I was doing. Work hard, drink, die. I think if I didn’t get the shaft once or twice a year, I’d miss it.

I’m taking the tube across the Sprawl today. I guess I’ll be doing that a lot more now. Gasoline was once the lifeblood of the U.S. economy. Wars were fought over it. A yellow haze of hydrocarbons floated permenantly over the Sprawl, like a bad hangover. Now it’s all about hydro and hybrids – my little red gas hog is outmoded… politically incorrect. Antique is another word for old crap. You can’t find gas and you can’t find parts for old cars – at least neither come cheap these days. So I’m stressed out – What’s new? We all walk a fine line between reality (whatever that is) and the deep end. I was standing too close to the tracks earlier and a monotone voice came out of nowhere and said, “Step away from the granite edge.” It’s a metaphor for my life – I’m leaning over, peering into the abyss, standing precariously close to the granite edge. If I slip and take that plunge, it will be a dark spiral down, with no way back. Maybe it all adds up, the years spent swimming through the data streams – looking for patterns. The brain starts to act differently when you get back to the coarse, stank reality. But you can hide it. Things aren’t all ones and zeros here. There’s no checksum run on your humanity. It’s all about appearances here. So you can slide by; fake it. No one needs to know your secret. You play the game and hide behind your Shadz – just another guy in an overcrowded Sprawl. Well, this is my stop. Time to turn off; unplug; go numb; blend in.