Jan doesn't like the title of my blogs

"You want a shot?"

Do I want a shot? God, please. What's my name? The cute little bartender was instructed to divvy up equally delicious birthday cake shots between the three of us, poured out into double shot glasses, sugar dipped lemons nestled beside them.

We had just spent more money than we should have on a rather uncomfortable birthday dinner at Hibachi for Mara, and we were ready to forget about it the instant free liquor was presented before us. Slippery little succulents swashing over our tongues soon to be processed as the warm inside glow that would jump start the inevitably drunken evening of Wednesday, April 22.

It was 7: 30 pm.

After mildly entertaining the idea of getting drunk and then going to the gym, Danielle Nikki and I zipped down kirkwood highway, bouncing to Dani's lesbian techno mix, booming loud like instant thunderstorms vibrating violently within our space. Danielle drove with one hand, a lit candle in the other as we sought out a liquor store. I had no money, Nikki had 9 on her debit card, and Dani had $13 in cash. We bought the biggest bottle of Burnetts we could, a 2 liter of sprite, and with our last dollar between the 3 of us, we let the cashier talk us into wasting it on a little tiny bottle of parrot bay.

The house was a bit crooked feeling when we arrived- something dastardly and sinister resonated about the place led us to the decision to drink heavily on the nearby dorm tennis court. The bright lights deterred us, at first, from bringing out the bottle without a sweater for protection. Half the bottle later, Danielle was using it as a tennis racket as we ran sloppily around the court, screaming, flashing each other and taking constant "water breaks". Vodka. Cop cars were rolling by in shifts it seemed. Sometimes I wonder if maybe we're just asking for trouble. But then I see it. Of course we are.

Sarah became passionate about Mara ditching us for Gilad on her birthday. She put her shirt back on begrudgingly as Danielle stopped cruising around on her skate board. Nikki and I met eyes from opposite ends of the court and screamed. Opened up our arms to the blazing stadium lights above and SCREAMED at the god that might reside somewhere in the blur of brilliant white. We meet for more holy water before we vanish. No more light. But anger was ready to gush from Sarahs eyes at any moment.

Lets hit the streets, dim as they may be. Lets find something new.

She is crying, heartbroken. We try our best to distract her from her soggy, slipping mind. I tied a mood bracelet around her trembling wrist. Happiness. A smile, one of a toddler upon the return of her pacifier. She looks up, a new thought. She is up, ready. Denying.

But now Nikki and Dani are leaving! We hear omething about her Grandmother's last night. Hospital. They go, and I think Sarah has calmed down to the point of readiness to consume more of that holy stuff and a little wiff of weed from the strings of smoke of gregs spliff delay our depature for just a few more moments.

Hit the streets! The bottle, half empty (as we emptied it into our mouths, not filled) is now tucked away between the frozen peas and freeze pops. Sarah is screaming out Madonna songs, Dorothy laughs uncontrollably. I am in a state of calm, like a still field at dusk. As we near Clevland Avenue, we recognize a thin framed girl with red hair and yell to her: "Natalie?" and she stops.

Her arms are folded and her shoulders stiff. Eyes wide and full of something like fear. We infer. Dead battery, needed a jump. "Jack has jumper cables", I think suudenly. But Jack's not here. I remember having seen Andrew's car outside Matt's house down the street so I make a quick phone call for her. No luck, but he would like to join us. To Greg, who also lacks the ability to help us. I don't try too hard, because I'd like her to come to Homegrown with us. Besides, I was drunk and wanting company, trying not to think too much "If only Jack were here..."

We make it to the bar with only a few minor mishaps occurring along the way. Sarah only fell down once, and the palm of her hands only received a bloodless scrape. We share the last of my gum and enter into the purple orange planes of our signature bar. And it's $3 wine night, you know. Everything is alright.

Mad Sweet Pangs, happy campers. We hover around the bar, saying hellos to drunken acquaintances, trying to not be too drunk to order a couple glasses of wine. I pay for Natalie's wine. She needed it.

Sarah guides my attention to the back of a guy whose frame I am instantly drawn to. It's Ben, I know. He's surrounded in a soft, lumberjack sort of glow this evening (It was the flanel shirt and direct overhead lighting, sorry. I guess that's a weird thing to say), and he turns his eyes to me from across the bar, smiles. Oh.

Andrew has arrived, Sarah and Natalie are speaking with him and I am caught up in a genuine magnetic pull between Ben and I. Maybe it was the wine, but I sipped at it slow ... feeling like perhaps the spins might follow if I didn't take care. And I wanted to. He was soft spoken, but clear. Shy, but direct.

"I remember the first time I met you, at East End. You were in mid dance when I introduced myself and I just thought 'wow, you're beautiful'. Just wow."

There's a little color rising to my cheeks. I can feel it, and he see's that it meant something. He slipped his hand across my thigh under the table. Perfect. Only Andrew's got the saddest eyes I've ever seen and I can't let myself feel too warmed. The poor boy. It's just not meant for us, Andrew. Sad eyes. I can't. He leaves soon after. Sad.

Ben drives us home. We sit in my living room, talking. Sarah leaves eventually, as we decide she's finally sober enough. Natalie cannot get a hold of anyone still, and crashes on the couch, claiming she can't bear to go into work tomorrow as I turn off the lights.

We lay in Bed talking of whatever came up. By 5 am, the birds started chirping, and we fell asleep mid conversation about how much we hate them and their disdain for our wanting it to remain night.



This is my attempt at loosening up about the whole thing. Allowing the flow to pass through me. Allowing the change to come.

I want to die part 3

The loneliest mornings are the ones you wake up too early, maybe still drunk from the sloppy, nothing night before. You squeeze your face up tight - the sun is peering just under the blinds, scraping across your soft, sleepy eyes. You toss and turn in the buzzing uncomfortables surrounding your body, on your shoulder, in your brain. Nose. Lungs. All you wanna do is be awake, fresh and ready. But your alarm just don't go off, and you sink into the sleepless cycle of dream-indulgence. The loneliest mornings are the ones you wake to after a wasted night of trying to be somebody by the end of your drink. One after the other. A stack of cups a mile high- all with cracks running down their sides.

It's impossible for me to find satisfaction. I am attempting to lose weight. Attempting to look in a mirror and not want to bloody myself with it. Attempting to . to.

Dear diary,
I am not good at this.

I want to die, part 2

I saw him, sideways, across the bar. Bobbling heads and glasses held way up high, clinking and swishing. He saw me through all the faces and my heart got a little bigger, maybe a little more full.

Now, of course I was already quite dissociated from the real world, whatever that means. I saw my glass filled more times than I can count or even try to remember in my kitchen before we arrived. "That's a good sign", I thought. With a long island tea diminishing in hand, I imagined that it must indicate a fast and splotchy future- I imagined the night would become a reel of film. Mixed up in shots and swigs, we would snip up, paste and viola! A string of events reborn into a catastrophe of ideas and visions only slightly resembling the night, which I remind you, was still to come.

But future is as future does. We had not arrived. So I remember, or come back into myself, and I'm standing at the bar again. He stood with me, and we spoke, I suppose. He looked down at me from way up high, with all the glasses going SWISHHHHH in the air around our heads. I think I was smiling, thinking of how to fool away the bad things in my head. I suddenly cannot imagine how people can stand to look on my face without grimacing, feeling sorry. Pity. And I do not want him to look at me anymore, so I turn and go up the stairs.

Sarah is leading Nikki down as Mara and I come up. She had been asked to leave by the bouncer. The stories go something like she was bumping into people too much, but no one can really draw just one conclusion. They had decided to head to Kates but Mara and I still had to finish my Long Island Iced tea. They went on without us while we danced. We've lost Andrew, everyone. Ben will not come with us to Kates. Nikki is gone with the rest: Sarah, Danielle and Natalie. She was lifting up her dress and screaming at the loud cars rumbling by, so they led her down main st, to take her somewhere new.

Mara and I had no way to talk to them, as both of our phones were left behind. I began to wonder if I even really owned anything at all. Anything. Maybe I was glad for a minute when it felt like I didn't, but I honestly don't remember. We check Kates, use the bathroom, poke into homegrown: still not there.

We find them falling and prancing down the sidewalks. Nikki is nearly comatose, Danielle is kicking over trashcans and letting their contents spill out like sloppy porridge onto the street. Mara seemed to think it was a good idea and proceeded to follow her lead.

Red lights, blue lights. The piggy comes round his car and demands that she pick it up. She tries, and I walk over to help her but he stops me and tells me to go away. He speaks with her for a long time, asks her to get in the back of the car. She is smiling, not deterred. Sarah is taking pictures, we take some pictures with a group of people that had seen Nikki get kicked out of Deer Park. The piggy wanted us to stop being so disrespectful, but I honestly didn't care. His little toy car, his little toy gun. Give me a break! I see straight through your tricks!

The night began to slow. It was dropping quickly, drying up, shriveling. I was losing it. I needed the fast, the fury! But it was 2 am, and the bars had closed down. After Mara was released we ate donuts across the street and went to my house again. Arm wrestling, yelling, I finished off the last of Jack's whiskey. Who IS that? That name? Oh more toys, everything turning to toyssss.

With that, I was done for. Blue poured out, sank into my blood, ran through my vains, the vessels, the heart heART. Dowwwwwn goes the girl. Deeeeep down.

Suddenly, words. "You're wasting your lives! Wake up! You're killing yourselves with drinking! GET A LIFE". These were VERY angry words, and Nikki was yelling back. He ran up the stairs again, slammed the door to my room, to his living space, slammed that door too. And all was quiet for the moment. Rude. Biting. UGH. I cannot shake it off, I cannot get over the DOOM in his voice, the truth? The intent to hurt, to not hurt? To make a point, to release??? Ohhh all i hear is doom! and we discuss it while Danielle staples her phone to my floor.

I wake this morning, spirit crippled. Chest sore with heavy breathing in the night. The window is dark with rain storms and blowing tree branches and I want to get up, to thrive. But there is not one reason I can think of to do it, to make it seem meaningful.

I learn all the time. I keep learning and feeling and receiving.
Input too much.
Overload.
Overload.
Information, overload.

GIVE ME ROOM TO THINK

I want to die, part 1

These desperate times.

Soaked in stinging liquor and dripping across the hardwood floor, my shoes tapped on top, the heart flutters below.
It happened, like in a dream when you're fidgeting with your buttons but they won't cooperate. Nothing cooperates in your vision, so you fret and fray, then wake up tired just the same.

Buttons aside, I gulped down another cool gulp of that drink, whatever it was, and I felt a little less like caring and little more like getting lost in the blur of yet another empty cup.

Thoughts I may have had:
"There's echoes of howling in this haunted house. The lights are dimmer, I think, or else my eyes only want less to see. Dripping little mess, you are. Why don't you go sour somewhere else?"

I had brought a hula hoop, my heart and soul as of late. It reminds me of force! Of control! I made my way across the porch to the dark yard, an enemy here and there. I am often impressed with my expert dodging skills. It's nearly scientific, the way I can avoid. So I made my descent off the porch ledge, touched my feet to the cool ground and let the hoop orbit this nothing girl. I am the center, a planet, a galaxy spinning further and further off into the dark trees, the cold, wet hills.

All the while, I am dreading the tension of the earth. Waiting for the hoop to fall, to skid across the grass, to clash against my ankles. The stars! Oh MY stars, my moon! The sun has gone down, and so does the hoop, my love. It wraps around my hips one more pitiful loop then flops on the grass like a hooked fish being dragged in to his death.

I am indifferent, more so than I thought. Guess my lips were missing liquid as well was my mind. Mine field once more, through the sliding glass door into the haunted house where my poison resides.