This is absurd.

Dear ----,

They're not fond of words here. They like to butcher them, cut them up and rearrange them. But not in that good way that some people do. These ones take out letters, put erroneous ones back in. Shorten, elongate, stretch, abbreviate, laugh when you don't understand. It's a secret lexicon, and the last to know is out. This all really happened, but only recently. Time hasn't been able to glorify it all just quite yet. 

Once, at a truly awful dinner, a pretentious actor took a break from swirling and smelling his wine and asked me what I 'do'. This question is the bane of my existence, because if you're not good at boasting about yourself, you're lost. So I stuttered out some sort of broken reply, with a mix of false bravado and awkwardness. The best way to know when you've lost a room is when it goes silent. 

You could hear a pin drop. 

I just can't get up on a platform and ask people if they like me. That's a sad abandoned power.  Please don't ask me what I do. 

Perhaps one day I'll look back on all this and laugh, and I will be proud of myself. I won't regret all the silly things I put on my body, or all the silly things that ended up coming out of it. But who knows. The Maker? 

I work in an unassuming sandwich shop, and there I'm very nice to people. Most of the time they are nominally nice back. Sometimes I envy someone, but also sometimes I make fun of them in my thoughts. And then I laugh out loud, and people look at me in an uncomfortable manner. I've been known on occasion to see a group of friends, and I pretend they're mine, because mine are so far away. I then become angry at my new faux friends, because they're really not very good at being my friend. Or being people. So I break up with them. They are sad, but eventually they move on. Other times I want to tell people not to judge me, I assure you there is, in existence and at this very moment, a vague amount of people who like me. They have mostly positive feelings about me. But you can't tell someone that without sounding like an asshole. I prefer to hone a quiet kind of stupidity, this way I look more mysterious. 

A lot of the time people look at me twice, as though they know me, and I wonder if maybe I had been staring at them, or made them uncomfortable in some way. Then I look down and double check that I did, indeed, put pants on before leaving the house. Then I make sure my fly is zipped up all the way. 

There's a boy in England with a shiny silver wristwatch, but I told him it was stupid. I'm not sure why I said that. Watches can't be stupid. I also owe him a pair of shoes. 

Whenever I submerge a something into a sink, I think about the Titanic. I told someone this. His response: "Nice." That is not a good response. I would have accepted something else though. Maybe something like, "If I reach in, my shirt sleeves will get all wet. I hate it when my shirt sleeves get all wet." And I would agree, because that is the worst. 

Everyone on the Titanic got their shirt sleeves pretty wet. 

Occasionally I can get this intense man I know to laugh, and that feels pretty good. Other times I say something with very poor delivery, and no one laughs, and I become embarrassed. 

Everyone here is really good at boasting about themselves, and they like to ask each other what they do. Some people have 'big, exciting projects' coming up. Other people are taking it easy, because they just completed a big, exciting project, and they are tired. They get irritated with me because of high prices, but others say it's quite reasonable. I'm not sure who is right, because I am not a trained professional. They must be though, because they have a lot of opinions about important things, and they share them constantly. People only share advice when it's right, and trained professionals are mostly right. That's why they call them experts, see? I get embarrassed for people a lot. I have a talent for walking by two people having a conversation and hearing the worst, most incriminating part. When I say something vile, or uneducated, I'm always afraid someone with my talent will walk by and hear me. So I try not to say those things. But it happens, it happens. 

When a group of men yell at a TV screen, I get embarrassment goosebumps. Sometimes I mess up and say 'Thanks you' instead of 'Thank you', and I get them then as well. If I forget to eat for a long period of time, my vision gets blurry. I am afraid that I'm going blind and that my teeth will fall out, but I comfort myself because it's nearly 2013, A.D. People will be able to cure anything any day now. 

There are a lot of things I wish I could do, but I don't practice or try them, so I become sad about it. But if I turn on the TV, I forget, and then I feel much better. Everyone seems to have it all figured out. If they don't, they sure won't admit it. I'll admit it. I don't. I think I'm frightened about that. Taking showers and having to eat and put on matching clothes are annoying things to me. I do them though. Social stigma is a wonderful way to keep the ball rolling. I'm existing well enough, I should say. I'm not particularly unhappy about anything. I don't know a lot about politics, and I wish I knew more about religion, but it all gets so confusing. Then I look into science, or history, and that's a little better. If I think about walking while I'm walking, I stumble. When I pass someone and I know they will look at me, I look ahead in a detached manner, and most  likely I look mentally challenged. Sometimes I switch it up, and stare very hard into their eyes until they look away. It's kind of uncomfortable at first, but it's really great if you follow through. Have you tried that? Following through? I think I'd like to. 

But I can't just now, the TV is on. 

Sincerely, -----