scapeghosts

I've been feeling fucking defeated.

It's hard to get out the door, to get to class and work and see your friends that you miss so much, when you can barely manage to get out of bed.

"Charlie's in the fucking phone book. She has come to assume such an importance, I feel she should be living on Mars. She's an extraterrestrial, a ghost, a myth, not a person with an answering machine, in the phone book." -High Fidelity

I spent 24 hours in a hospital. Doctors looking at me when explaining medical procedures, when giving instructions for post-surgery home care. I kept thinking, shouldn't there be an adult here?

This wasn't just any hospital, but a hospital that was my home for weeks or months at a time, depending on just how bad things got. I kept running into familiar faces in the halls, in the elevators, in the parking lot. Sometimes we'd say hi in passing, sometimes they'd just stare.

Derek is on the couch, with three holes in his body and a bottle of painkillers that we are sharing.

We danced the night away, literally. Shaking our hips and stomping our feet and screaming along to all the songs that were on the radio when we were in junior high, or high school, or the third grade (my friends span generations and I love it that way). People I love and miss kept coming through the door, and catching my eye, and smiling, and I hugged them all so tight.

Tonight was all that I needed.

This afternoon, in the spirit of not growing up and giving up, I bought a box of bleach and some manic panic. I have pink hair now and I feel a little bit better.

I am starved for something, but I can't put my finger on what.

I made a huge pot of soup. It is going to last for forever. It's almost perfect except for the alphabet noodles. I put in too much and I put them in too early, so they are as numerous as they are soggy. It's still good, though.

My parents are going to come over and eat some with me after we walk through a maze of scarecrows while drinking apple cider. I'm ready for fall, ready to throw myself into it, but today it was 85 degrees and the leaves haven't even started falling.

I am surrounded by people living the sort of lives that, five years ago, I didn't even know existed. I could be right along with them but I am always afraid.