There are donuts in the break room, and I eat one. No one is talking to me or looking at me, as usual. I say almost nothing, almost all the time. Obviously, I recognize, in a grander sense, that I have a tendency to alienate myself and blow things out of proportion, and that these women are basically guiltless from a certain perspective. I fully recognize the concept of perspective. The donut is down in my throat, a disgusting bolus, after two bites.

I recognize so much that it bores me. [...] I know that the woman checking her phone in the corner, pretending I'm not here, is wrapped up in some distraction so utterly meaningless that it should, if she reflected on it, shake her to her core.