Straight No Chaser

Jay

right, i give up. my body has decided to do something ridiculous, less than eleven hours before we leave for the vineyard, and i just give up. sheer misery is wandering through the aisles at cvs, trying to figure out how to fix this specific problem, with only a basic idea of what this specific problem is. with old men looking at me.

it would be rather poetic if i drowned at the beach this time. it's unlikely, since, see above, aquaphobia and stuff, but it would still put a delicious cap on a sine wave of a summer. i was hoping maybe this would be the year for that great artistic revelation i've been waiting on, when supposedly i get the literary equivalent of a pair of wings, but that's not going to happen, not with my currently wacked out biology. too bad the island is pathetic in size, seventeen miles across at the widest point, and there's no chance of getting lost.

(i don't feel good. the fine print on this box says i'm going to start barfing soon. god damn it.)

because if i got lost, i wouldn't have to come home, and then i wouldn't have to go back to school. maybe instead i'd just wait out the semester, living off of cranberries and seawater, and then trek down to louisiana for christmastime with marcus's birthday guitar, which i still can't figure out how to purchase intelligently.

it frustrates me that i even sound trite and perky when my insides are turning all violent shades of red and black. last night i had this dream that we were all sitting around a table, me and my family and this other family that we haven't seen in at least ten years, and we were taking turns "sharing," and on my turn i was going to read excerpts from some smutty story i'd written about a trip to the beach, except when it got to be my turn, someone cut in and said, "don't start reading, we need to go shopping first." and we did, shopped for hours, or the dream equivalent of hours, and i wound up with this really cute pink halter top, and when i got back to the table, my little story was gone.

in retrospect, that sounds so youthful and pink that i think i actually might throw up. a few minutes ahead of schedule.

neither of my parents recognizes beauty. nobody i know loves the things i love. and my brother broke the lawnmower, and what am i going to write while i'm at the beach? endless character sketches of old women with floppy sunhats and burnt shoulders? please. happiness is a beach trip taken by oneself, without the demands of family, of family friends or family restaurants, family fares or family ferry rides. i'm deathly afraid of the ocean, and i don't even really like funnel cakes. and the person who loves me most is bleeding for me without even knowing why, because when he asked what was wrong, that (the above) was all that i told him.