Last night, I got very drunk with my friends. The first leg of the night was beautiful. Everything bent in the same way it feels when you're on a swing and going down fast enough to feel tingly; my sense of gravity, love, other peoples' voices, the lights. To be drunk enough feels both visceral and surreal, and given that your central nervous system is depressed, you relax.
I'm not going to try to write well for the rest of this. The last leg of the night was terrible, and I'm glad I didn't express that to anyone but you. Nothing happened, and nobody said anything. I just felt terrible. I still feel terrible, but I also feel like nothing. I've been in between my room and the living room of my apartment for the entire day. I've exchanged a whopping total of 5 sentences with E---. I can think of nothing, nor do I want much beyond a pang of dopamine every few hours. My body feels fuzzy, and I feel like I'm losing my grasp on words. I'm in this strange spot between feeling bad and not feeling bad enough and just wanting to not exist.
Last night, while I was drunk in the winter moonlight with all of my friends, I felt that everyone thought I was stupid and that they didn't like me, and I loved everyone so much, and it felt bad to love them as much as I did, but I tried to cherish that I get to love them, even if they didn't love me neatly as much. I was a thousand years from missing R----- or anything like that. I just didn't want to be myself. I remember everything feeling grey, like I had somehow reached my emotional seafloor. I thought to myself about how drugs seem to be a medium for me to penetrate my increasingly occult emotions. I remember the moon. I remember that guy Dart Smoker's weird in-joke about looking at the moon. I vaguely remember you and E--- saying something about how I had a big heart. Drunk E---, at Steel Wheelers, which is our favorite Korean pizza place, told me that the Deleuze lectures that just got translated made him feel curious for the first time in years. I am constantly terrified he thinks of me as stupider than him. He's not one for a lot of praise, but he can't dislike me. Presumably drunk Sh---- walked me through Youth by Citizen, which she described to me as "The lyrics are good, the guitar is good, everything is so good. I don't know. It's just - just go listen to it" and something about the lyrics themselves having the effect of "ripping your guts out," and if you know anything about how Sh---- speaks (and I don't, all things considered), she somehow managed to say all of that reluctantly. D----- and I talked about everything from bass harmonics to grade 9 math to high school and the guitar and object-orientated ontology and the Bhagavad Gita and R----- (that rhymed) amd all that business. Him and E--- get along, which I like. I demanded Sh---- play "A Quick One Before The Eternal Worm Devours Connecticut," and she said something like, "You always play sad songs." That's not the first time someone has said that about me, and every time, I seem to remember it. I thought of you a lot, Madison. I knew you loved me. Maybe something is wrong with me.
-
I am constantly terrified of E--- thinking I'm dumb. I immediately flinch when I think I've said something he will think is stupid, and it never comes. It never comes. He once told me, "If you applied how astute you are when you hate yourself, you'd be fine."
-
Am I secretly psyched about having a bona-fide ex-lover, and half of my exercise of missing her is effectively this pageant of completely forced grief and longing? Probably a little bit. I always wonder what she's doing, though. I was wondering if I was going to run into her, N------, and Gay Ryan(1) last night because I overheard they were going to be doing something, and I figured it be out on Whyte Ave. (where Steel Wheelers is and where R----- live).
(1) I know several Ryans. Sgt. Dr. Ryan, Scottish Ryan, etc. Gay Ryan emerged recently in my lexicon, even though he's rambled on to me about his bisexuality, which I wouldn't be surprised is out of some unchecked repressed homophobia. But I like the guy. Sure, especially as of late, he seems annoyingly avoidant and vindictive, but I like him. He was the fourth person I met and befriended in this town. I'm obviously just obscenely jealous that he hangs out with my now ex-girlfriend a lot, and all is fair in love and war, and I know he knows that.
-
One fateful night with R-----, one of many that crystallized the sounds of ambulances and city traffic through her basement window as somehow sublime, we were holding each other, and for some reason, I was crying. It was after an impromptu date at the shitty Italian place that I could not remember the name of nor cared about it, and we were unintentionally dressed up for it. Both of us overdressed occasionally, especially around each other. We would look like we were playing the roles of professors in a movie that was slightly too cool to be believed. Lots of sweaters, collars, blazers, loafers, jackets, etc. She wears this brown overcoat every day that I know you've seen in photos. I love that about her. I was still in whatever the hell I was wearing that night, except all rolled up and covered in the grease I was surely secreting at that point. And I was crying. I think it was because she noticed I was sad at the restaurant, and said something about how she's started getting worried about me. She said something about how I look too sad too often for it not to be something worth worrying about, and somewhere along the line mentioned seasonal affective disorder. This had been mentioned twice in the last 6 months. The first time, it was by Z--, who mentioned to me in her car that she had it, which was why she was planning to completely book it to Australia come the summer. The second time was by E---, who asked if I thought I had it. Now R----- was asking if I thought I had it. She mentioned something about the weather inherent to Alberta and somewhere along the line, leaving it was mentioned. I started crying here. I said I could never leave you guys. I would never want to be without you guys.
-
EMBARASSING:
I once told R---- that she's "the kind of girl people write songs about." She told me that was the sweetest thing anyone has ever told her. I have no idea if she meant that looking back. But a part of me is proud that I'm a hit-maker of things like that, assuming I actually did make things like that.
-
Probably something is wrong with me. I hope E--- doesn't think I'm mad at him in avoiding him all day.
