"No. I just ended up making something up. It sounded plausible, I guess. And only Peggy knew it was total bullshit. It'll probably be in the ad. My completely fake story about my completely fake childhood. And that isn't usually enough to bother me, but I got to thinking, and you know how dangerous thinking is... Everything just starts to unravel, and soon enough, you're a complete mess, because you realize that you don't actually know anything. Anything about yourself, anything about anyone else. And then you start wondering whether you exist at all."

At least, that's the route his downward spirals tend to take. He doesn't scoot closer to Ned when he joins him on the floor, but he also doesn't scoot away, and in this mood, that's as much of a tacit sign that someone's welcome as saying it out loud.

"I know it sounds crazy to you. It sounds crazy to me, too. Usually I'm a different person when I'm working on an ad. A confident guy. You probably wouldn't recognize me. By the time I was done telling my bullshit story, though, I could hardly breathe. I had to come in here."