Another month already. Time flies. I haven't written online in awhile and I have this feeling of having too much to say and neither enough time nor enough space. More has transpired in the last two weeks than in the last year, it seems. I want to keep up, to record every little thing just so I can remember what it was like. I've had fun, incredible debaucherous fun. So intoxicating it as been that I haven't felt the need to even sleep and occasionally I neglect to eat.

It isn't often, I suppose that people experience a time when the miracle of living becomes something tangible with a momentum powerful and delicate like winds in the sky or waves in the sea. But winds die down, waves crash on the shore, and so have I. I feel bipolar. Such intense experiences, the social kind, that I've been missing. The freedom to drive, or stop for a hot chocolate. So many little pleasures indulged. For a moment in time, a brief one, all the cosmic forces conjoined and definitely it was like all the world existed for me to taste. But then, in a slight shift - maybe a planet slid a bit in orbit? - I hit bottom. Things gone, feelings surfaced. Eventually the soil is tilled and the underneath is exposed. Now I feel sick, really sick. Now I don't sleep and don't eat because of anxiety and I'm searching for ways to distract and comfort myself.

Sigh

I can't go here right now. I feel the knot in my belly tightening, my eyes watering. I'm aware of the other people around me in this internet cafe. The gigantic chocolate chocolate chip muffin next to the keyboard is suddenly unattractive, even repulsive.

I'm changing the subject.

Lilith Fair was incredible. I never imagined a concert venue could occupy such a beautiful place. How lucky are Washington people that we can watch the sunset over the Columbia gorge, singing out our lungs to favorite songs while the glow illuminates like halos the hair of artists admired. I bought things there. A dress, a necklace, a t-shirt. So happy was I, there was no better excuse to spend money.

My birthday. The Betsy Johnson store became intimate with my credit card. I filled up on all new underwear at Nordstrom. Hands all over my body for three hours at a spa down by Pike Place market. Good lord, the massage and facial took me back to a time when I couldn't do anything for myself and I thought that that particular tactile experience had been missing from my life for nearly two decades and that somehow, I had lost wholeness because of it. I met Anita, settling quickly into gossipy chat like old friends though I'd never met in her in person. Then to the crepe restaurant whose name I've forgotten. It wasn't enough. Never enough. I couldn't go to sleep, so I called Riki who is always willing to go, and with me she went into the darkness, in her Mitsubishi Eclipse. She gave me the final gift of the day, the pleasure of driving a car that wants only to be driven, only to go fast and go now. I drove her car and it felt like ecstasy and I thought for the second time that day that a fundamental need had been denied for far too long. I think cars might be better than lovers if only they came with the right attachment for the cigarette lighter/power port.

Then the barge. I was the fish in the crow's nest drinking like a human. Eric, Suzie and I nestled there ironing out kinks, solidifying our friendship while the two pals I'd brought mingled with other barge-goers on the dance floor below. We moored by the pier where Chris Isaak was wailing away those songs that send my heart singing. Those ones I've sung loud alongside him many times over: I know them all. But his voice didn't carry in our direction and he only told me it was a wicked thing to do.

Ohh, was that the last great event? There was the hot tub and three naked bodies. I was the odd one out, yet still happy to let the jets push my breasts around. The sun illuminating the clouds, which looked like orange paisley in the sky. And a long drive. So many things.