manic panic. june 21st.

i'm pretty sure these are cramps that i am feeling.

i'm really in shock about my day today.


i had the worst day.

i started to panic at around ten this morning. all work related.

going home, being ready. realizing that i have two shifts which need to be covered that i cannot possibly cover.

i don't know what to do.

then i started panicking about things in general. overreacting.


my whole body feels hot right now. i'm shaking and smiling. and i'm exhausted.


i panicked about an order. i panicked about traffic flow increases and decreases while i'm away.

i remembered an annoying catering while i'm gone.

i remembered that i'm gone for end of month.


then i worked all day and all night. i didn't eat until three. which made me run behind schedule.


then i called kenna.


and it was awful. i think she forgot i was going home. i think she forgot that i told her i'd be gone for two weeks.

something in her tone made me feel like i'd let her down. i was telling her why i'm so stressed out. and she said that she understood why, since i'm leaving with some things unresolved.


i don't know. i have been struggling with my job since before dark sky. because i feel too much of a mess to do the best job. because the divorce stuff is throwing me off. more specifically, how i'm handling the divorce is throwing me off.

i'm not proud of it. and this whole time, i just kept thinking. i'll get home and deal with my personal life and my emotional well being. and i'll relax and rest and recharge.

and now it's almost here. and i'm working too much and it's wearing me out. i don't have time to handle things i need to handle. and today was the worst of it, because i tried to deal with everything so i don't forget anything.

and i can't make someone magically appear to fix everything for me.


it really sucks.


so when i went for a drink before the show with kit i had a few too many of her fries, and drank on an empty stomach.

and i was panicking there. talking about coffee and work and kenna. and really feeling incredibly unwell, mentally. unstable. and my shitty day bled into what was going to be the second best night of my life, post ever.

the thao and mirah show.


seriously. i have seen a shit ton of shows. gogol new years was the best until tonight.

kit told me that it would be fine. and that if i stopped talking about coffee and just got excited for the show, i'd be fine.

and that no matter what happens with him, i'll be okay. i'll be fine. i'll be alive and breathing.

and it doesn't feel that way to me.


it feels more like i'm about to find out if i'm crazy or not. i'm about to either end this or continue it. and i can honestly say that i don't know which scares me more.

nina said yesterday, in chat, that if i decide to move home after this night, we'll deal with that later. but that, for now, it's a night of fun and talking. and something about the moving home comment felt like a punch in the gut. not because of her. but because i cannot fathom that it would ever be an option for me.

but i'll ask. and then i'll know.


i feel like i don't deserve to have him say things to me that are the things i want to hear.

and as a writer, it also could be that i'm writing the most unbelievable true story if it ends with an outpouring of mutual something.

it feels like i'm continuing the tragedy of my life with coffee.

and it feels like the longest day of the year. because it is.

i fear and dread putting something on the line. even if it is just a question.

and i am excited to know and move on. but i'm very very scared.


so after work, after his avoidance, i pinned him down. i brought it back to him. what place and time.


and then i went to the bar. and then to the show.


the SHOW.

i don't have words yet. it feels like being hugged and hit by a truck at the same time.


seeing them together was not at all what i thought it would be. i expected solo sets and then a joint set.

instead, they claimed to have married their bands. and went back and forth, playing songs.as a whole.


though i didn't get chivalry, thao played most of her new stuff. and beat. and mirah played new and old, including recommendation, which was what i wanted to hear. it was awesome.

i took so much video snippet stuff. and so many pictures. kit did, too. with my camera.


after the show, lauren from work, who i'd bought a ticket for out of gratitude, got the set list for me. and kit got thao to sign in, by saying to make it out to me..

while she wrote it out, i told her that i love her and that her music is the soundtrack to my life. at work, in the car, everywhere. it was embarrassing, being so starstruck and gushy. but i just wanted her to know.

she was so nice, and despite performing in a room that was easily a hundred degrees (i could have wrung out my clothes. so fucking HOT.), she was sweet and flattered and it just made me love her even more.

i can't believe i met her. i can't believe i got the set list. and that she wrote that it was a pleasure to play for me. i can't believe i gushed.

then dropped sixty bucks at the merch table on cds and a shirt. i never buy a shirt. but i had to have this one. it was amazing.


i realized when i got home that i grabbed the wrong cd. but that is okay. i meant to get her first and last cds. instead i got the newest and middle.

sigh.

i just wanted to give her all of my money. i literally spent all the money i had on me there.


and walked home with kit, fucking giddy and talking loudly, walking the short jaunt to my apartment.

and she went home and i went home.


and then, the night that had fixed my disaster day miraculously, that made me feel as clear as the time i went to the krishna temple, completely calm and peace inside...

my night got better.

because coffee named the time and place.

and then i asked the date.

and now i wait.


who is this person? i have NEVER asked him on a date. and as much as i don't think of this as being that, it's starting to sound and - more importantly - feel like a date.

a date. with coffee. probably this weekend.

because i want it to be over with, but also to allow for another night of group shenanigans, should the need arise.


i can't help it.

he said six pm. and i wonder, wow. what is he doing after? and also, wow. this could be a long night.

i just don't know what he thinks, so i can't know what to expect.


but one thing is for certain.

i'm fucking DOING IT. i mean, i did it. i didn't back down and puss out. and i'm getting what i want.

and i don't care that i had to be the one to ask.

and i don't care that he doesn't comment on my status updates or pictures.

because all that matters now is that he will be sitting across from me in a few days, telling me stories and listening to what i have to say and ask.


last night, before sleep, i was doing my daydream thing.

i was staring at the ceiling and i was freaking out a bit about it. and then i remembered that thao was today, and really got excited. i was up for another two hours plus after that hit me.

and then i was laying in my bed on my stomach/side. curled up with my pillow the way i always am.

and my daydream was just pillowtalk. looking at him, looking at me. heads on pillows. just talking.

how we used to.

i miss that. not just specific to him. but with anyone of the boy persuasion. someone who likes me enough to lay with me and talk to me. without doing anything other than twirling my curls while we talk.

close enough to smell breath.

and i can't help it.

because i can see it.

and then i remembered heima. and then i thought that i just want too much.


i can't see it only being one game. but i can, too, because a game is what? two hours?

what if that is all i get? what if he's meeting me at six because his girlfriend gets home at nine?


and what if i get pillow talk? i wouldn't let myself lay in his bed again and not kiss him. i don't know if i can be at a bar with him, talking and not attempt to kiss him, if the right circumstances arise.

what if get all those past wishes, only seemingly wasted?


part of me wants to set the bar so low, to set my expectations to amount in utter failure, leaving him and feeling the same way he has always made me feel? like i said too much, too soon. that i came on too strong. or that, as it has always been, that i have the worst possible timing.

so that, if i get a makeout session for the first time in something like six years or more, it will be all the sweeter.


i don't know.

the manic rollercoaster has been around this week. since dark sky, i've been up. and i keep having the feeling that things are just too perfect.

i mean, the lucky cigarette tonight after i asked him what day is good for him.


the winter star party in key west that ends on the first anniversary of the day i left ever.

thao and home in the same week.


why do i feel so lucky? why am i so unwilling to think that this could just be one more thing to add to the list?

i think i'm just afraid. of either thing. because nothing scares me more than contemplating moving home, all because of what may or may not be said in one night of conversation over the thing that has brought me back to him.

without facebook scrabble, none of this would be possible. without kit getting me into it, none of it would have happened. i would have had no platform.

and while i'm thanking kit for things, without her indie 101 mix, i never would have known thao. and i never would have bought an extra ticket in gratitude to her for introducing me.

and then, this day would have ended with me, panicking, at the bar.


it feels like that time in my life when i was all celestine prophesy-d out. and i was crazy, and i took it to a whole other level.

but just like that, it feels like since i saw the stars align, they followed me home, even though i can't see them. and now they're just stuck that way.


because i can't do anything in my life with half a heart, part of me wants to put so much hope and wistfulness into this that when the star spell is broken, my heart is so completely shattered that it can never come back to him again. not ever.


i don't know what will happen. but all i know is that, this time next week, i'll be done with him and either recovering poolside, or throwing up words, babbling like an idiot.


and i know that i'll be okay. but i also know that i'd rather be something either more extraordinairy than okay, or something very far from okay.

it's not like punishment.

it's just closure.

i just want this part to be over.


i want the ride to level off at the top. so that i never have to feel the fall, the drop. and so that i'm perpetually excited and happy.

and i don't want a boy to define my happiness. which is what was so great about dark sky. that was the purest, non boy related form of happiness i've felt in over a decade.

and i wish i could have more of that. and less of the heartbroken stuff.


maybe some day i won't care enough to feel so much, to invest so much into something that always inevitably dies on me. shows me the error of my ways, and teaches me a painful lesson.

i like to learn. maybe that is what this is about.


but at the end of the day today, different from yesterday, i can stare at my ceiling after two am. wide awake. wired. amped.

and today, i'm one step closer.

despite my 'no dating for six months' promise to myself, i have made a date. and though it's not under those pretenses, there is something to be said for the exception to the rule.


i've been thinking lately that one year might be the mark.

and wouldn't it be something to reach the one year mark at a star party in the keys...