"The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.“
— David Foster Wallace

Animaniacs. Awesome.
Niamh, you are a legend.

# 1
GI: Playing the piccolo in a marching band.
BI: Playing the piano in a marching band.

# 2
GI: Feeding stray kittens in the park.
BI: Feeding stray kittens in the park to a bear.

# 3
GI: Stopping to smell the roses.
BI: Stopping to feel the roses.

# 4
GI: Taking a deep breath before jumping into a swimming pool.
BI: Taking a deep breath after jumping into a swimming pool.

# 5
GI: Going alpine skiing in the winter.
BI: Going alpine skiing in the summer.

# 6
GI: Kissing a loved one.
BI: Kissing a total stranger.

# 7
GI: Doing your own yard work.
BI: Doing your own dental work.

# 8
GI: Dressing up for Halloween as a pirate.
BI: Dressing up for Halloween as a pin~ata.

# 9
GI: Cleaning up litter.
BI: Cleaning up kitty litter.

#10
GI: Playing the accordion at a polka festival.
BI: Playing the accordion anywhere else.

#11
GI: Having breakfast served to you in bed.
BI: Having tennis balls served to you in bed.

#12
GI: Whistling while you work.
BI: Whistling while you eat.

#13
GI: Drinking fresh milk from the carton.
BI: Drinking fresh milk from the cow.

#14
GI: Singing Christmas carols to your neighbors.
BI: Singing Christmas carols to your neighbors on the Fourth of July.

#15
GI: Finding Easter eggs on Easter morning.
BI: Finding Easter eggs on Christmas morning.

#16
GI: Visiting the circus.
BI: Having the circus visit you.

#17
GI: Going trick-or-treating on Halloween.
BI: Going trick-or-treating on St Patrick's Day.

#18
GI: Giving a small child a balloon.
BI: Giving a small child a bunch of balloons.

#19
GI: Taking up a new hobby like bird calling.
BI: Taking up a new hobby like buffalo calling.

#20
GI: Ordering a chili dog to go.
BI: Ordering a chili dog that makes you go.

#21
GI: Visiting picturesque McLean, Virginia.
BI: Visiting picturesque McLean Stevenson.

#22
GI: Tossing a penny into a fountain to make a wish.
BI: Tossing your cousin Penny into a fountain to make a wish.

#23
GI: Giving your dog a bath.
BI: Having your dog dry-cleaned.

#24
GI: Playing horsey with little sister.
BI: Playing horsey with your aunt Bertha.

#25
GI: Throwing a surprise party for your father.
BI: Throwing a surprise party for your grandfather.

#26
GI: Playing cops'n'robbers in the park.
BI: Playing cops'n'robbers in the bank.

#27
GI: Playing catch with your grandfather.
BI: Playing catch >with< your grandfather.

#28
GI: Playing the scales on a piano.
BI: Playing the scales on a fish.

#29
GI: Buying a pair of shoes on sale.
BI: Buying a parachute on sale.

#30
GI: Climbing a mountain.
BI: Climbing a mountain lion.

Coincidences?-

Common sense, it said I shouldn't love her,
consumed too much by a soul so far apart,
commanding a ghost too wild to requite love
conducts guilty nostalgia within my heart.

Or-

Ordinary feelings for unusual girls,
or some desired movement of those lips,
or creases we left upon my bedsheets,
or shapes and scents of one desired kiss,

Revives-

Remembrance of personality,
remission of my cravings for the drug,
repressed portent and providence
recalls undead arms for gentle hugs

In-

Instability within my long-dead selves,
in graves and tombs and crypts,
in my highest peaking hours,
in each and every trough ever since,

Now-

No, it is not my reality,
now these hazy days have passed,
now I should forget this oxymoron,
now, yet, burdens of the past

And-

A new ghost haunts my brain,
and speaks half-lies-half-truths,
and shrugs and smiles and sobs to me,
and behaves in ways that people never do.