if you've ever been on a roller coaster you know how it feels.  there's a split second as you're cresting that first hill, and it keeps getting higher and higher, and you know that any moment the floor will drop out and your stomach will smash into your lungs and it will feel like you're going to fall through the ground.

that's the state of my emotions right now, but it's more immediate than that.  i'm down to ten minute intervals now, fluctuating wildly between despair and happiness.  and i know that no one wants to read about it, you want to hear about dance parties and work adventures and time spent kicking ass and taking names, but still it flows, peaks so high i can see the ocean and valleys so deep i can barely stand to breathe.

it's like someone's got a switch somewhere, watching as i pass from happiness to depression, laughing at my predicament.  let's throw down a list of ten here:

1. POSITIVE: i don't work at kmart anymore, at a shit job that i hate, where i get dirty and am not appreciated, and have to spend 2 hours in the car every day.
2. NEGATIVE: all day i think about writing, but when i sit down to do it i draw a complete blank.
3. POSITIVE: i've got lots of plans this summer, concerts and camping, parades and fireworks and beach vacations.
4. NEGATIVE: i just want to cry, pretty much all the time, and any excuse i can find to do so i undertake with vigor.
5. POSITIVE: i have amazing people that like to spend time with me, and occasionally i have awesome adventures with them (SLC, ODB AND RUN DMC)
6. NEGATIVE: i can't release from my mind and heart the few people that i honestly and truly want to kick in the nuts.  i know it's not healthy (it never was), but i always expected more from them and i hate giving up.
7. POSITIVE: old habits are coming around again, which means less.  period.
8. NEGATIVE:  none of my clothes fit anymore, and the ones that do are shitty looking.  additionally, i am a straight up fug.  straight up.
9. POSITIVE: i was never kidnapped, held hostage for 18 years, impregnated twice, and forced to run a printing press.
10. NEGATIVE: i don't remember much of my childhood (apart from those delightfully scarring moments, like when the teacher made me cry or i fainted at the great escape), and can't shake the feeling that something inky went down then.

dunno.  maybe i just need sleep.  to clarify, i need a sleep without dreams, for once, especially ones where i find out i'm not pregnant, just fat, and all my exes are playing xbox and laughing at me.

it might be the sudafed, might be the fact that i had nightmares all night, might be the crying i did while walking round and round the track... but melancholy is the word of the day.  lost my key at lunch after driving from goodrich to shaws, then didn't get to eat because i'm an idiot and took off my sweater.  walked in on the same meeting twice, to annoyed stares... it's days like this i wish i wasn't on a hiatus from drinking.

on the other hand, when things suck this so fucking much, there's really only one place to go.  now if only this neglected feeling would pass...

OH!  this summer is filled with exciting plans... i've just got to schedule a camping trip or two in there somewhere, and a long weekend in hampton, and you've got yourself something pretty mindblowing... townies beware!

breakthroughs today, i think mostly because i got my books in the mail:

and have been doing nothing for days but reading my face off (and consequently learning more about poetry and physics than i've ever known).

i'm a miracle of science and torture, falling in love with old-new faces and ideas and daydreams.  they can change and so can i.  i'm feeling extraordinary.

so come home, gentleman of summer.  i drive by empty husks of where you used to be, but i'm ready now.  ready to play.

birthday was epic.  like, really, truly, awesomely epic.  i couldn't have asked for anything better.  pictures will follow, once i find the cord, but rest assured i am one truly blessed thing.

on the not so bright side, i can't decide if i should just get my shit together and stick it out here, in this town that i love more than anything, or pack up and move so the ghosts don't haunt me so.  because it's one thing to be constantly reminded of things that actually happened, but it's quite another to be bombarded with those false memories day in and day out.

ah well, nothing to be decided tonight.  must make plans tomorrow, to call sz and rp and jh and sc and rp and everyone else that i clinically adore.  fireman's supper is the 4th, strategic planning on the 11th, training on the 13th, memorial day the 28th, and so much more awesomeness in between.

oh, and did i mention it's still so hot my skin is sticky?  summer, i fucking missed you, even if you do make me look like a greasy little sleaze.

twenty fifth birthday fast approaching, and i can't help but think i certainly never thought this is where i would be.  i keep shifting, in waves of moodiness that i can't control.  i'm spiraling out of control with happiness one moment, and dipping down in the dirt in the next.  i can't get a hold on anything, and it starting to get old.  so i took a step forward, starting writing query letters and pushing through the final wall into making my manuscript something legible and worthwhile.  i'm looking at classes and workshops, getting advice about possible futures, blasting through the final chunks of self-doubt and hoping it will be enough to sustain me.  because i'm really, truly quite disappointed about some things, but am trying not to let them bring me back down.  and i swear to god, if facebook suggests one more time that i "friend" a certain someone, i'm personally going to burn down the internet.  so if your computer bursts into flames, that was me, torching the interwebz with my anger.

i think there's something wrong with me.  it's not normal to be crying in your car on the way to work and then singing on the way home.  not normal at all.

but on the bright side, i did a great thing and earned a drink.  WIN!

i am not well versed in the art of letting go.  in fact, i'm usually the last one on a sinking ship, bailing out water with a dixie cup.  so i don't know how to step away from this, even though you've made it abundantly clear that you want nothing to do with me.  i really don't know how to go about it, which is especially hard because it's so vital.  this thing is HURTING me, and i need to detach but i can't.

i keep going back to the first time this happened, and the feeling is so different that i can scarcely believe it.  that time our lives were so entwined that it was like losing a limb.  this time it's like that limb has been gone for a long time, but i still feel it there.  you are my phantom limb.

the mystery always chokes me the most, the not knowing what i've done that kills me.

someone teach me how not to feel.

i love peach schnapps.  that is all.

some points from the last 24 hours:

1. it's only 844 and i've already crawled between the sheets.  i'm feeling increasingly isolated, and am sending texts out like lifelines, orange and white life preservers on a line, tossed to passing ships.  it sounds like there's an army of uruk-hai outside my window, pounding on drums.

2. while sitting on pine street, searching for quarters and finding only canadian, i screamed out FUCKING CANADIANS only to realize my window was open.  dude walking down the street stops, and starts coming toward me.  i almost lock my door, thinking he'd going to kill me.  instead, dude offers me three quarters.  awesome!

3. my glands feel swollen again and it's like the left half of my head got smashed with a baseball bat.

4. i'm starting to think happiness might be a sham, an illusion, a carrot dangled in front of us so we keep pounding the pavement, keep trying...

5.
i don't care what people say
the rush is worth the price i pay
i get so high when you're with me
but crash and crave you when you leave

hey, so i gotta question
do you wanna have a slumber party in my basement?
do i make your heart beat like an 808 drum?
is my love, uh your drug?