sedated fear and self-loathing

i have soo much to say. on the plane my head was kinda rampaging. i couldn't stop fidgeting and i read about 89 pages of Civilization and Its Discontents before i realised i wasn't reading, i was just pivoting my head on my neck and moving it side to side, scanning shapes with my eyes while my thoughts lingered elsewhere. elseeverywhere.

i'll race you. i just had 0.5mg of alprazolam. i did this so that my head would just _s t o p_ and i might find a moment of silence. it's been a loud week. too many walks, coffees, eyes scanning books i didn't really read.

(Dear Ashley,
when i was 14-15-16 Freud fascinated me. all those ids and egos and fetishes and repressed carnality. i think at 14-15-16 anyone that was willing to talk about bestiality was pretty cool in my book. i re-read him. at 26. a collection of essays i had read as a teenager, and the aforementioned polemic. he's soo verbose, did you ever notice that? all i could think as i read (or scanned) was T.S. Eliot (i think it was) calling him the 'Austrian witchdoctor'. i love that phrase. i still like the ids and egos. i like the diversions we find for happiness. i dislike the theories on sexuality. perhaps it's that during the intervening decade my own sexuality has woken up. has walked around the block a little, and has its own opinion of things. maybe. anyway: you're right.)

i'm still here. maybe i should have taken the full pill. the half is calming me. which allows me to continue writing. which allows me to continue thinking. which is the opposite of what i was going for here.


DINNER CONVERSATION LAST NIGHT

__ __Q: dad, are you bipolar?
___Dad: what? no. not that i know of [chuckles]
__ __Q: is there any incidence of psychiatric illness in our family that i should be aware of?
___Dad: what! no.
__ __Q: _mm hmm.
___Dad: is there a problem?
__ __Q: yes.
___Dad: and that problem is?
__ __Q: my head._ basically.
___Dad: which part?
__ __Q: oh... all of it.
___Dad: you're young.
__ __Q: it's been a decade!
___Dad: being young lasts a long time.
__ __Q: not that long.
___Dad: your head is fine there's nothing wrong with your head. __you have a restless soul.

(oh here it is, my eyes are a little heavier. time is slowing. yesyesyes)

i've been thinking about it, but not like this: restless soul. i keep seeing it like this:

____restless soul
____restless soul

just playing with the intonation like that. even the phrase is restless (restless restless).

i yawn alot. have problems getting a full breath of air. sigh occasionally. if you've read Medical Examinations by Talley & O'Connor you know these are not symptoms of fatigue or respiratory illness. it's usually anxiety related. it's been an anxious week. Adelaide is always like that. Adelaide has a far too heavy shadow. Sleeping there is like sleeping besides a heavy ghost- who wants to lie atop you for her goodnight snuggle. it's the most pleasant city on earth. four delicate seasons. a city constructed with perfect geometry, rectangular and regular, surrounded by parklands. just grass and trees. to get into the city from any side you have to drive through parks. certain parts have netball courts. cricket fields. other parts have children's amusements. the part i walk through is grass. trees. nothing else. then i get to O'Connel St. Walk past a pub i don't remember the name of that i made out with a girl in once. (i only went there that once. she invited me. her friends were boring. i was bored. we kissed a little and then i left. it seemed natural at the time). Then Wallis Cinemas North Adelaide. where with Vanessa we saw Kill Bill 2 at midnight Thursday morning just randomly because we felt like it. Where I saw Star Wars Episode 1 with dad and Sahar and someone else i can't for the life of me remember. this is what it means to be in Adelaide. to be knee deep inside yourself. every restaurant is a story. every cinema a memory. the streets. the... faces. on my third day i walk down Rundle Mall and see a blonde girl. her nose is distinct. her very wide blue eyes. her hair is darker now. it used to be a little luminescent, it's not anymore. she's all in all far less attractive then when i knew her. or rather didn't. she was a year below me in high-school, but made out with the boys a year above me. since i didn't really understand what all that was about till my second year of university, she was just Alice as far as i was concerned. which i knew only because people spoke to.about.with her. a few moments i stare at her, and she stares back. finally, click. oh yes. and we both smile. nothing said. just keep walking. that is Adelaide. silent memories. a jumble worth of a lifetime just stitched together. a chance to hate soo much all over again. a chance to reminisce and ponder and relive and reconsider and...

anytime i say: i need some time to myself / i need some time to think / i just need to be left alone a little while / i'm going to take a long walk and sort my thoughts out, you slap me. this is my enemy. thoughts are my enemy. i have a problem in that my particular enemy lives right upstairs. occasionally floods my life with a most particular discontent. a most savage self-hatred.

and so i sit on the plane and take turns siging, yawning, and gasping to get a full breath of air. my knee gyrates nonstop for the entire flight. my eyes scan side-to-side, the woman besides me looks at me sternly. my eyes are red, i'm unshaven. another of those punks on speed! but then she looks me up and down a little. i'm wearing a fitted v-neck sweater (dark brown) with a plaid button-up underneath and she can see the collar. i have a thin leather watch, very clean khaki jeans, yes they are tight, but still, and of course those glasses... seems too clean-cut for speed. must be coke, another of those coked up yuppies! i look back at her and smile, hoping to assuage her hostility, but to no avail. she meets my gaze dead-on, then shakes her head a little and mumbles to herself.

in my head i repeat four conversations. i visualize conversation i never had that i should have. i dream my way out of one small town, through most of the world, and crash land back into another, (flip page), i fantasize about kissing about 4 separate girls, close my eyes and visualize the notes you have to press on the piano to play the opening of Bach's c#-minor fugue, (flip page), dream my out of present small town and try and find a path back into the world, hate myself for everything, (flip page), love life, love myself, no- hate myself again for nothing, for everything, for not saying something, Shanghai maybe? that's possible, NY seems soo far, soo difficult to manage (flip page) love my mom, Bach wrote one fugue in d#-minor, which doesn't really exist- in modern nomenclature it's e-flat-minor but my score is in the archaic notation and i like it better that way, hate my entire family for everything, miss my sister inconsolably (flip page), on the last night he pulls up to my house to drop me off after coffee. he has some insane car that makes a terrible racket that literally arouses me

___me: no dude, i'm going crazy, seriously
_ _him: is something happening?
___me: no no no, in my head as always, but... it's.... bursting, i'm bursting out through my skin.
_ _him: you really wanna go there?
___me: how can i want that?, i've been there before... i know it already... and yet
_ _him: [looks at me sadly. two addicts who don't understand]
___me: it's a feeling at least, a feeling, something that isn't numb, pain is a feeling.
_ _him: hey man, i know. i got a bottle of vodka in my bottom drawer, don't tell anybody, but honestly, i can't... i can't... just to take the edge off.
___me: there's no reason to be here. i should know better. and i'm always back here.
_ _him: dude...
___me: f*ck.
_ _him: wanna come back to mine?, share the bottle?
___me: ha. i don't steal grandma's milk money yo. i rob banks.
_ _him: nevermind, i wouldn't do that to you.
___me: i just gotta sort it out in my head, once and for all. _who _am_ i. (and then committ to it) you know what's crazy?
_ _him: mm?
___me: you and i have never really lived in the same city you know that?
_ _him: yeah.
___me: god would never let that happen. he wouldn't. i'm everything you ever needed: an audience. a disciple. a wingman. and you're everything i ever needed: motivation. an ideal. someone to imitate and learn from. someone else to be. we'd ruin everything if left together.
_ __ __ __ __ _[i get out the car]
_ _him: Q,
___me: yeah?
_ _him: you already know what you're going to do, i can see it.
___me: yeah i just think about it till i go mad first.
_ _him: everyone has a process... but save yourself the madness. do what you're gonna do.

last week my mother saw a dream. something about me swimming in a river that was growing narrower and narrower. she woke me in the morning, everything alright? how's school everything ok? yes yes yes. all's fine mom.

(it's not a river though.
it's a noose.

*___*___*

man beat pill.
hurrah.