Edging The Breakdown

[You know what I can't stand? I can't stand being wrapped in a familiar, spiky blanket of depression or pseudocrisis, one of those functional funks where you know you're hanging on by your fingernails but can still work, play, whatever, clip your toenails, all the time feeling that if you don't get some relief you might just do something drastic. Any minute.]

[It's not that state as such I can't stand. (Well, I don't like it, but that's not my point today.) What often happens to me in these situations (ooh, passive mode) is I set up a Solution, something that I feel needs to happen to get me out. Sometimes it will take the form of a Rescuer, who will need to perform a certain Act and it will be all better. Often, the Act is simply to answer the phone or spend five minutes in my presence. Validation, as it were. Just as often, I set myself up to be my own Rescuer, or it could be a place to or from which I need to escape.]

[What I really can't stand is appointing a Rescuer who can't fulfill, for reasons having nothing to do with me (those reasons exist - shocking, I know), his or her Act. The easy analysis tells me I appoint Rescuers knowing ahead of time that they're inappropriate so I can hold on to that exquisite hanging-on-by-the-fingernails feeling...Addicted to Edging The Breakdown. Strung Out on Self-Induced Crisis.]

[So, that has been my weekend so far. A couple of mishaps between Thursday and Saturday added up, so that by yesterday afternoon I was...oops, adjective drought: what's a word that means desperate, lonely, restless and unable to hail a single friend via the wonders of modern telephony? That.]

[Rather than continuing to eye the narrow alley three floors below my rickety fire escape for a clear landing pad, I stopgapped, first with Sean and a group centering around an old Santa Barbara acquaintance, later around Allen and his roommates and Kinsey. But I couldn't engineer the Solution, my rescue squad was too exhausted or distracted. So I ended up on BART at 11:45 p.m., dissatisfied with the evening, an almost-full bottle of Skyy Vodka in a paper bag on my lap.]

[No, I wasn't taking discreet sips from the bottle, and no, I didn't sit in the rear train car to cruise. I went straight home, drank vitamin water (the lemon-lime kind for stress, delicious), and went to bed. Today, the hanging-by-the-fingernails feeling's just about gone, and no one Rescued me. When folks refuse to come to your Drama Queen Pity Party, does it mean you didn't send sufficiently explicit invitations? I doubt it.]

[Today: S.F. Mime Troupe gives good political satire in Dolores Park, then a bay cruise with the family to watch glowing fog. And smiles, everyone, smiles.]

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