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And all it took was forgiveness from Emily for the nasty things I said to her, an invite to a concert from the author and several bottles of wine with big publishing honchos on the upper west side.
Up and down.
Down and up.
Is this called bi-polar? Or just a bad week where everything worked out OK in the end?
I'm going with the latter.
The photo above came up when I googled "dumb," which I am.
Ok, I think I'm starting to understand more about what is going on with me today. A big part of the
book of his that I read last night had to do with the nature of relationships - their possibilities and odds of working, and the general idea was that as long as two people share the same principles, then that is a really solid foundation to begin on.
I know I have good principles. I KNOW I am a good person at heart. But I constantly betray that side of myself and I don't know if it's the pills or if it's part of my soul or just my nature to be capable of doing really terrible things. This seems to me to be a normal trait of humans. There is no such thing as black and white. But the people in my life so far who I have really and truly fallen for are ones who have learned to not listen to that side of themselves. They've chosen the good side and managed to hold on to it. The have a clear vision of right and wrong, but more importantly, they act on that belief and live their life to that standard. And that is something that I haven't figured out how to do yet. And I'm getting scared that it's too late, that maybe this is something people learn when they have parents who don't join cults or disappear for months on end, leaving you with a rotating cast of scary high school friends and your kindergarten teacher.
I know I'm far too old to blame my parents for anything. I'm an adult. But I can't help noticing that the truly good people in this world (the ones who don't cheat or fall into drugs) that I've come across, all come from extremely well adjusted and loving families.
It's not fucking physics here. (Which is good, because I never took physics and have no idea what the basic principles even are, despite the fact that my grandfather helped build the atom bomb)
So the question is - HOW DO YOU END THE FUCKING CYCLE? I've been to rehab and been in therapy for years and essentially, nothing has changed.
I guess you just accept who you are, and hope that someday you find someone who can love that version of you. And be cool enough to understand that I will always need any pills in the house to be locked up in a place that I can't get to.
Friends who are girls? Are any of you going through this today too? What the fuck? When I worked at a women's mag I was on the same cycle as the other women there, I'd be an emotional wreck whenever they were all PMSing. Did this hormone cycle stick? Because right now I feel like a ninth-grader who just found out his parents are getting divorced, got dumped and discovered razor blades all on the same day.
I can't count how many times I've told myself this. It always ends in heartbreak. So I thought this time around I'd play it different. I refused to read any of his books. I didn't go see the movie just made based on one of them. He's just a normal, cool guy. One with thousands of teenagers who worship him, but whatever. We've been casually dating for about a month now but something happened over the last few times we were together and I fell for him. And I thought maybe he was feeling the same.
But I finally made the mistake of reading one of his books, cover to cover. And he is a fucking genius. It made me cry, multiple times. And I told him that.
And now he isn't returning any of my messages.
I'm a fucking idiot. Because I'm lying to myself. The real reason he probably isn't returning any of my messages is because he discovered that I stole some of the hydrocodone he needs for his back out of his medicine cabinet the other morning. It was pure instinct, everything I'd learned disappeared and my mind went totally blank while I was opening the bottle.
This is never going to end, is it.
I have a meeting with my publisher's lawyers in an hour and I'm a sobbing fucking mess and I don't know how to pull it together in time.
Actually, worse than a dick. I threw a total freak-out tantrum aimed directly at somene who has done nothing but love and support me for years. And I am not a tantrum thrower. I am the most mellow, relaxed, everything-is-totally-cool-always person you could ever meet! But that is dangerous, because I actually get angry a lot, and then just swallow it down and it either turns into depression or builds and builds until it bursts out like wormy white pimple being popped and splattered all over the wrong person.
She claims to have accepted my apology but doesn't want to talk to me. I don't know how to make it right.
I just want this creature to envelope me in its arms and let me fall into a deep sleep.
Anybody else read this article on dog fighting in today's Times? The article states that one of the reasons why police have a hard time taking these rings down is because they can't find the yards where the pit bulls are raised. Well, I know where a pitbull dog yard is. And I know that the local police in the town where it is know about it, but refuse to do anything about it. I assume because members of the force are probably in on it (I'm not being paranoid, we're talking about a small, really fucked up town where the police have been called many times about this yard and NOTHING has been done about it).
Anyone interested in staging a secret rescue mission? I've wanted to to do this ever since I discovered the yard but I need partners. Preferably ones who are dog experts and have a few pairs of night vision goggles and tranquilizer darts laying around. The pen is in the woods behind a house, so there is some cover if you come up to it from behind. But we'd need a way to safely put the dogs to sleep from afar in order to get close enough without them alerting the owners by having them freak out.
I'm totally serious about this. Or even better, if anyone knows about any underground animal liberation fronts PLEASE send them my way or even just forward this post to understanding parties.
I say two steps because not only did I slip up, I slipped up in a really disgusting way. I was on my way home from a therapy appointment on Monday, got on the M train and as soon as we hit the bridge I glanced down and noticed a thick, round white pill sitting next to me on the seat. I didn't recognize what kind it was but I knew, just knew it was an opiate in generic form. It sat there and looked at me and without any hesitation I scooped it up and slipped it in my pocket. When I got home I looked up the markings on Pill Identifier and I was right, it was a 300/30mg combo of codeine and acetaminophen. Weak by my standards, but it's been awhile so a few nights later I took it before I went to a party at a former co-worker's apartment. OH MY GOD just as I wrote that I remembered that while I was there I stole a strange pill from his bedside table!!!!!! Oh fuck. Hang on.
Ok I just found it in my jeans pocket and looked it up on PI and it's just a Zolpidem, a hypnotic non-benzo sleep aid. That's going in the trash, I have no trouble sleeping. I can sleep for days if I want.
Anyway. The party. I could feel the codeine pill, but in a really nice, very subtle and mellow way. It just made me smile a lot. I got drunk, going so far as to sneak beers into my bag out of the fridge because I was scared they were going to run out since it was more of a cocktail party. I saw many former co-workers, gleefully showed them a picture of my book cover on my phone, bragged unnecessarily about this dumb ghostwriting job and stumbled out, totally wasted by 9:00 PM. I met a friend at Metropolitan where it was 2 for 1 night and everything is just a haze from there on out. I remember getting home and shredding cheese over the contents of several bags of Doritos and microwaving them. I woke up in my bed, fully clothed, contact lenses still in. My computer was by my dresser and according to my browser history I was searching through M4M listings on Craigslist. Anyone who knows me knows how I feel about those listings. They are evil incarnate. Even that drunk I know I wouldn't have acted on it, I was probably just looking at pics.
I spent the day on the couch, catching up on a week's worth of DVR TV. I took fourteen Advil in all over the course of the day and my headache refused to leave. I stayed up until 5:00 AM until I finally showered and passed out.
I feel fine today, the only hangover left is a guilty emotional one. It's been so long since I've had a night and following day like that. I guess maybe I just needed a reminder about how terrible it makes me feel about myself. It's good timing since there are so many holiday parties coming up that I'm supposed to go to, I'll know to keep it in check now. What worries me most is that after everything I've gone through, the second I saw that pill next to me on the subway, there was not one second of hesitation in my brain. It was mine, finders keepers. I'm a guest speaker at an NYU class on Monday where I'm supposed to talk about the process of writing my book, and I know the first question is going to be if I've stayed clean and I have no idea what to say. I want to be honest but my editor will be there and I don't want to jeopardize our relationship, especially since my contract gives her first look rights to my next project and I really want to keep working with her. I don't want to give her reason to doubt me, but I guess that's just inevitable when you've made your real life your career as well.
