(Phaysis)

I woke up this morning. That in and of itself is a miracle, one that I daily take for granted. I also got out of bed. Even though I stumbled for the first 2 minutes, I still managed to stand in the bathroom and then walk with both of my feet to my desk. Tiny little miracles. Still clouded from the tiny little world of my dreams, I decided that today, just for once, I’ll deny the dark thoughts and do anything to deny them purchase on the mantle of my soul.

This holiday break has been a roller coaster with more downs than ups. Been playing the role of the moody gloomcow. I have every reason to dislike myself and my life, but for once this week, I’m choosing to ignore those reasons. I acknowledge that I’m manic-depressive, and what I have today is a mania, but if I can take this and rebuild myself to buffer against the darkness of the following night, then maybe that’s what I should be doing. I’m too much with the drab clothing. I’m too much with the negative talking. I’m too much with the sitting alone, hiding my face, and then feeling hurt when nobody comes over to sit with me.

I’ve had enough, at least for now. So if I avoid staring and thinking, I think I can keep the darkness at bay, I think I can trim back all the rough edges that the demons would grab on to, preventing them from latching on. I don’t want to be one of those scared people you see who run and talk and jump and do everything in their power to keep themselves away from their own scary dark thoughts, but at this point, the idea doesn’t seem so preposterous.

Yeah. I can be fixed. Chin up, change of mind, head forward, charge on til the dawn. It’s that easy. Just deny all the thoughts. Remove the temptation to backslide into the deep. Keep it on the shallow, simple goals, simple rewards. I mean, it’s something you can cure. Just take a pill for it. Pharmacological nirvana. I have insurance, so it costs me nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even my soul. Just one prescription away from a blissful flatline. Should be running for it, clamoring over the corpses of my dead dreams to reach that cure, that golden ring. It’s that easy. Click, just flip it off and turn on the sunlight. Right? No cost. Right? No cost.

Today is being spent in recovery mode. I’m tired, sore, sunburned, blitzed. Yesterday was a big expense on me. It was…busy. Nothing of any lasting importance, mostly. Just a large expenditure of energy, and I’m not accustomed to that. Aside from a few bright spots, it feels more like a waste of energy.

I went to Eeyore’s Birthday.

I wanted to do it all up right, so I played the part of Joe Pedestrian. I opted to leave the car at home and catch the number 5 southbound from my apartment down to where it transfers to 338 southbound. Got to the park at 1pm. The busride home was an abject failure; sat in the sun for 40 minutes waiting on the 338 northbound, then when I got to the transfer point, I saw on the schedule that I’d have to wait another 25 minutes for the 5 northbound. Fuck that. Thirty minutes later, the number 5 whizzed past me as I was walking back home. Capmet inefficiency in action.

I only stayed at the festival for an hour and half. It’s not my scene anymore. I’m not sure it ever was. I saw three people I recognized, and not one of them was a friend of mine. There was the World’s Tallest Hippy, the dude who rides his bicycle wearing a thong on his ass and a fluffy cat on his shoulders (he was wearing shorts), and The Silver Man. I saw no one else that I knew, not even the people I expected to show up.

There was only one drum circle this year, and it was rather pale. Maybe I was there too early for it to really cook, but there it was: lame. No viceral throngs jumping and grinding. Just an open space where the few who felt like dancing threw themselves around among the four disorganized clumps of drummers getting drunk on their own rhythms and five-hundred onlookers standing there with their cameras held high.

Beating a drum does not make you a drummer.

It’s not quite the free-thinking and self-expression rite of spring that it used to be. It’s family-friendly now. Not so many people dressed up in costumes or flopping around toplessly or passing the douchie on the left-hand side. The festival seems to attract people (like me) who are there because it’s “uniquely Austin”, and that by going we can make a tenuous grasp at some slim claim on being “open minded” and so very bohemian.

It’s not my scene anymore. My season for free expression is over. I’m no longer a 20-something. I can’t look into a crowd like that and say, “ooh, fresh opportunity!” I don’t see the throngs as people I could potentially interact with; I see them as that which gets in my way. I’m thirty-something; I need some people I know there with me, not strangers. My opportunity comes from traversing the bonds I have with others, and since I went alone (my fault), and since I left alone (my fault), I can’t totally fault the festival for my poor experience. It’s just not my scene. So I vent here.

Perhaps Eeyore and I do have something in common: we hate being happy.

So this is the beginning of the weekend. I’m already depressed. I get in a down funk every weekend, and I hate this. My job is the only thing that defines who I am, and I fear my job. I’ve either forgotten what to do on my own free time or I remember but don’t want to do it; don’t want to relax and reconnect with people.

Yeah, I’ve been seriously withdrawn from society lately; no big news to you, I’m sure. Just can’t get comfortable with anybody else. No friends, therefore no society. So fucking paranoid, it’s sick. I’m leaving incredible parties after 40 minutes. I’m walking out of rooms and going away instead of speaking my mind. I’m standing there for 3 minutes waiting for someone to interrupt their conversation with someone else to see what I want; instead, I should be interjecting, making my business, and letting them continue instead of standing like a conversation leech. So afraid of people.

If you see me out in public, give me a hug or something. I need more of that shit.

I hate Ciprofloxacin. It’s an antibiotic, one of the harshest. Most prescriptions of the stuff last a week. My prescription, however, lasts a month, and I’ve been on it one week, long enough to have it doing its ill effects. Not my first time on it; hopefully it is my last. UTI‘s are a bitch.

One of the worst side effects of cipro, aside from stomach cramping, excess acid production, the requirement to supplement your digestive bacteria with yogurt, chance of tendon ruptures, fatigue, and insomnia, is that cipro makes me paranoid. Not “the feds are out to get me” paranoia, but the “o god, I didn’t say that the wrong way, did I?” kind. Sure enough, it makes my social awkwardness that much worse. Like I needed the help.

Typically, I can go to the coffeeshop and hang out with others or alone. If someone comes to visit my table, I can greet them, invite them to sit, and we chat. Or, if I visit a friend at theirs, the chatter is good and friendly. Not so on cipro. I kinda stand there and watch it all happen. I see myself doing it, but the thought never occurs to me to quit the creepiness. I just see the unfitting awkwardness, get uncomfortable, and excuse myself as I walk away. I don’t like it; not in the least.

Sometimes I think I’m turning into that old, creepy man who’s got the stink on him that everyone can smell. The guy people put up with only because he’s a customer. And that’s the paranoia talking; I must keep that in mind at all times while I’m on this stuff. Sure, when I grow up I want to be a dirty old man, but don’t want to be a creepy old man. There’s a marginal difference between the two: one is more socially adept; the other just lecherously leers from an uncomfortable distance.