Slipping Serotonin Serenade

I'm in the kitchen when I feel it coming on.

It's homebrewed, differing from other drugs only in raw materials... peptide chains and nucleotides instead of bleach and brake fluid.

The most wonderful substances in the world are cooked up in the ol' brain-pan. Runner's high, mother's love... they well up, they swell up, they go splashing synapse to synapse.

And then there's the dark matter. Would it be cynical to say it's more impressive than those sparkling spurts of ecstasy? Oh, but it is, in its way.

Depression is a chemical aberration, the type of nasty little mistake you'd scrape from the bottom of Dr. Leary's shoe. Like so many agents of devastation, it's made from common enough stuff. Breathable hydrogen, hydrogen bomb... these things often boil down to organization and degrees. The lowliest element, properly tweaked and shuffled, winds up leveling Nagasaki. Neurotransmitters can be delightful molecules; they're responsible for keeping us awake, alert, upright and ninety-eight-point-six degrees Fahrenheit. Sometimes, though, there are errors. Too little, too much, improper proportions. When that's the case, their range of influence becomes vastly different. Hunger cues and homeostasis are bush league. Unchecked and unbalanced, serotonin and dopamine not only blot out the sun, they become the sun. They become the eyes squinting to adjust to the freshly-vacant heavens. They become the warm aftershock breeze, gamma particles lazily twirling your skirt, a softly scary sign that things are now very different.

The linoleum's dirty. That stain's been there for six months. There is a Lego wedged behind the trash can.

I can't keep the house clean. I'm lazy. I'm a lousy parent.

The new world isn't colorless so much as desaturated. There are thousands of shades, all of which are variations on a single tone... wrong. It's a charcoal sketch, a silent movie - infinite variety, zero vibrancy.

There is the occasional murmur of rationality. "It's just your brain... your poor, fucked-up brain". "You're not an abomination, you're depressed." More often than not, that voice isn't a hand helping pull you up from the muck. It's a rattling pipe, a creaky floorboard. It's a crackle on the PA system; the "bad acid in the crowd" announcement of paltry comfort to those already shaking by the side of the stage (apologies to Craig Finn).

I've been in love. I've held a newborn baby. I've scrunched my eyes shut and flung myself from tall objects. I can state with some small authority that there's no high as massive, as sustained, as all-encompassing as the low of a really whiz-bang depression. The irrational has a seductive luster that the rational simply can't match. Being in love can be a bit complicated... there's the worrying, the wondering, the reevaluation and recalibration. Knowing - knowing, without a doubt - that everyone you ever love will hurt you? That you'll inevitably be bitch-slapped and broken by the hearts of others, but that the only alternative is a slow dissolve in the acid-bath of your own? That right there is a hit of uncut, high-test crazy, simple and slick and readily swallowed.

I have never and will never achieve anything. It will be a goddamned miracle, in fact, if I manage to budge from the linoleum. Forget Juicy-Juice spills... nothing welds your feet to the floor like a glimpse into the dim-lit back room of your universe. It's completely torn to shit back there. Your thoughts, your body, your relationships, your life... uncomfortable at best, awful on average. And all of it completely wrong.

It snaps more slowly than it begins... but it's always a surprise. When you're walking on a frozen pond in February, it's hard to imagine doggie-paddling across it six months hence.

I am a decent, kind person. I am much-loved. Bad things will happen to me, just as they'll happen to everyone. They are not an indicator of my inherent wretchedness. They just, well... are.

It's a bit shameful to admit how good it feels, coming down. Like that first shore French fry, crackling-hot, eaten from a paper boat with saltwater still trickling down your back.

The pleasure is well-seasoned with wariness, of course. It will happen again. I won't see it coming. There's little I can do to prevent it. It will definitely be unpleasant. It may possibly be horrendous. One second you're licking ketchup from your fingers, the next you're choking and flailing, your head suddenly and unexpectedly submerged.

I'm... well, mentally ill. In addition to piss-poor night vision and nicely-flexible joints, I have clinical depression.

The night vision is annoying. The depression is infuriating. Control of one's own mind is something we tend to take for granted. Plenty of people proclaim (following a puke-soaked evening or two), "I'll never drink that much again." "I'll never dabble in veterinary anesthetics again."

I'll never be able to say never. I can get lots of sleep, exercise my ass off, sample the gel-capped delicacies proffered by Merck and Eli Lily. But the potential for cataclysmic blackness will always be there, nestled among my neurons, playing poker with my childhood memories.

I'm okay now. I'm happy. And when I'm happy, I'm really happy. I'm in perpetual pre-cartwheel. Is it related? Is it worth it? I can't say. I don't know.

I can relax. I can enjoy each French fry. Waiting? Part of me's waiting. But I'll be smiling while I do it.

Thirteen Weeks

The first anniversary gift is paper. Traditionally, this has meant books, stationery and photographs. I'd be happier with, say, candy buttons (the sweetest way to scour one's colon!). Lamentably, the giftware industry has failed to embrace carnival prizes (eighth anniversary: Spongebob temporary tattoos).

The tenth anniversary gift is aluminum. Because nothing says "enduring love" like Beanee Weenies.

The thirtieth anniversary gift is pearl. While jewelry would fit the bill, the fine offerings of the Mikimoto Co. just don't have the same panache as two other apt choices - cunnilingus and dueling pistols.

Last week marked three months since Mr. Awesome and I first laid eyes on one another (and then, being shy folk, immediately averted them).

The three-month anniversary gift, in case you were wondering, is an ulcer.

It's fitting, really... but I get ahead of myself.

---

We'd spent Sunday traipsing around the New Jersey Pine Barrens. However, we never really "traipse" anywhere. We share a strange synergy - when we're together, spooky and fascinating things seem to pop up at every turn. If I ever discover a portal to the underworld, it won't be in Dar-es-Salaam or Kamchatka... it'll be behind Mr. Awesome's couch. In any event, what had begun as a routine nature walk had ended with us emerging from the woods with half-terrified grins, holding a mysterious animal skull on a crowbar. We tossed the skull in the trunk, screeched away from the scene... and went out for barbecue.

An hour later, we were both in agony.

"Fuck you, Sonny's Salmonella Shack!" I said, shooting daggers at the empty tub of mashed potatoes.

Two hours later, Mr. Awesome was asleep. I was prostrate in bed, tears oozing from my eyes, thinking dark and irrational thoughts.

"Maybe we never should've removed the skull from its rightful resting place? Maybe it was a sacred mystery-skull burial ground? Although it wasn't really 'buried' so much as 'tossed next to some empty orange soda cans'? Maybe we should return it? Maybe I should wake up Mr. Awesome right now and tell him this?"

Over the next few days, Mr. Awesome continued to experience intermittent pain and nausea. My symptoms, however, were a bit more alarming: I was unable to eat without experiencing a subsequent five-hour bout of searing abdominal pain.

"This is worse than genocide!" I hissed one night in mid-writhe, "And I'm a Jew, so I'm allowed to say that. Actually, I think I just depleted all of my Jew credits right there. Better go rub a Torah or something."

I was comparing my tummy ache to the Shoah. Clearly, something had to give. A trip to my doctor's office led to a trip to the friendly neighborhood medical imaging lab. A quick ultrasound (Ed. note: why is the transvaginal ultrasound probe so ungodly... generous? Where, precisely, are the expecting to insert it - the gap of the Pyrenees?) led to a diagnosis of "nothing visibly amiss - take a Zantac". Which, several agonizing hours hence, led to a trip to the ER, a tentative diagnosis of a peptic ulcer and a prescription for Nexium. Which - wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, praise G-d and pass the noodle kugel - allowed me to eat without crippling pain for the first time in four days.

"Gee, that's fascinating, Jul," you're saying, "But as enthralled as I am with your gastrointestinal tract, what does this have to do with your three-month dating anniversary, the illustrious Mr. Awesome or the Pine Barrens Mystery Skull Preserve?"

I was getting to that, damn it. Cut me some slack, I have a strange digestive aliment. I intend to spend the next several weeks confronting the tribulations of modern life by falling to the ground and shrieking, "Ow! My gastrointestinal tract!"

---

While investigating the fascinating, fiery world of peptic ulcers, Mr. Awesome stumbled upon an interesting fact.

"I wonder if we gave this to each other?" he wondered, "According to the National Institutes of Health, H. pylori can be transmitted from person to person through close contact and exposure to vomit" [emphasis mine].

I've had a hard time conveying how this relationship has affected me. I've trotted out a parade of cliches... "hit me like a ton of bricks". "Totally gobsmacked me." "When it's right, it's right."

Nothing really captured it, however, until the sudden realization, "Wow… we HAVE been exposed to one another's vomit!"

What can I say? It's been an intense three months.

---

"How high your highest of heights? How low are your lows?"
- Great Lake Swimmers, "Various Stages"

---

Yeah. We've breached the vomit barrier. In addition to "nauseated", we've also seen each other lost, scared, exhausted and depleted.

We've dealt with illnesses of both the mental and physical ilk.

We've visited five states.

We've broken... let's see... at least six local and federal laws. Sorry, Massachusetts.

We've stayed at the worst motel in Elizabeth, New Jersey (for precisely 40 minutes, before decamping to less-terrifying pastures) and the best campsite in Promised Land, Pennsylvania (where the moon shimmered on the lake, the trees slow-danced above our heads and we drank cheap wine out of empty Dr. Thunder cans).

We never thought "we" would exist.

Our previous lives were dissimilar in some ways, eerily parallel in many. Mine was often comfortable; his, often hellish. However, they shared a certain character, a queasy quality best analogized as "purgatory, if purgatory were a strip mall in Hoboken."

We were fat, half-comatose, trudging circles over scuffed linoleum. The blue-light specials were self-negation and futility.

There was the occasional upwards glance towards the skylights (something brighter? something better?), but that world wasn't for us. This was the best we could hope for. The exits were hidden. "Hell," we thought, "Maybe there aren't any exits.

And it's not like this is Darfur. There's climate control, for fuck's sake. And Orange Juliuses. You keep your head down, you enjoy the Gap clearance sales, you accept what you've been handed."

It wasn't until we were thrust outside - stunned, destabilized and squinting in the sun - that we realized exactly how much we'd been missing.

It wasn't until I met him that I realized how much was possible... that behind the skylights, there was an another world.

Bright, rich, hyper-saturated... and it wasn't for other people. It was for me.

We could part ways tomorrow and I'd still consider myself tremendously lucky to have known him... and this.

I'll never accept anything less.

Turns out there's a lot to be said for adoration. For deep, mutual respect. For plans based on hope and excitement rather than duty and capitulation.

For ripping up the east coast, exploring abandoned buildings, getting sloppy-drunk by a campfire, being exposed to one another's vomit, stealing kisses in the kitchen while the children run wild.

For lying prostate on the couch, cursing the deities of the upper GI tract... then cracking a weak smile as you reach out to hold the hand of the man suffering beside you. For remaining legitimately grateful, from the bottom of your miserable, dyspeptic soul.

For love, for trust. For more... for much.

Happy anniversary.

Triple Play : Incongruous Songs Which Have Made Me Cry

1. "Doin' It" - LL Cool J. Note: My tears were in no way related to the Doin' of It, the fabled act of which has rarely reduced me to tears. Yes, there was one incident involving gallons of rum, unfortunate angles and an alarming inability to urinate for the next eight hours, but that was an exception, damn it.

I was sitting in the DecrepiCivic, gritting my teeth through a midsummer traffic jam. My fuel gauge had dipped from "sort of empty" to "hell yes, I'm empty" to "miss, please hook a Honda up with some Iraqi Black, PLEASE, I just need a TASTE!" In the interests of conserving my last few dregs of fuel, I'd turned off the air conditioner. Car horns and exhaust fumes drifted in through my open windows. The former shredded my nerves like a Microplane, the latter mingled with my sweat and oozed down the back of my neck. Harried and headachey, I'd forsaken the AM traffic report in favor of Top 40. At its best, Top 40 is the Cookie Crisp of the airwaves - delicious, sugary crap.

I was hoping for light entertainment. My FM dial, however, had other plans. For "Throwback Thursday", the local Top 40 station had unearthed "Doin' It", LL's paean to skillful sexin'. While the lyrics made me snicker ("Baby I wanna hit it in the worst way / Schemin' on that ass since the first day"), the rush of memories the song invoked made me choke up. "Doin' It" had thrust its way to the top of the pop charts while I was in junior high. The era - like the song - had been simpler, sillier, brasher than anything which followed. Sex - along with love, life, adventure, and everything else - was a purer concept back in tha proverbial day. Lack of context is a better lubricant than anything the KY corporation can conjure up. It's not "Doin' It (And Crying In the Bathroom Afterwards)", or "Doin' It (With Someone Who Will Never Understand You on a Deeper Level". It's doin' it, and doin' it, and doin' it well. I represent Queens, she was raised out in Brooklyn. It represented time - heavier even than Biggie Smalls - and I was rubbing my eyes with my sleeve, giggling, praying that my fellow motorists' eyes were trained on less-ridiculous spectacles.

2. "When the Levee Breaks" - Led Zeppelin. This ditty is notable for a fantastic Jimmy Page guitar solo, for being name-checked in a thousand hamfisted Hurricane Katrina articles... and for being the first-ever song that made me cry. I was slouched in the back of my parents' rusty Crown Vic, a surly pre-teen with a Walkman permanently welded to her head. My musical tastes were proudly iconoclastic. While my peers were exploring the plagiariffic pleasures of Vanilla Ice, I was rocking out to the 60's greats: Zeppelin, Hendrix and the like. Led Zep IV was a perennial favorite; it's a wonder the damned thing didn't melt from the combined force of my love and my auto-reverse button. I'd listened to "When the Levee Breaks" hundreds of times before, but that afternoon, it was subtly different. The lull before the break ("Don't it make you feel bad / when you're tryin' to find your way home / You don't know which way to go?") was a moment of high-voltage calm; the break itself pure bluesy bombast. The wetness unexpectedly dribbling down my face was a drop in the bucket, a harbinger of the rough weather ahead. There's no AccuWeather for one's teenage years, and thank Jehova for that... I couldn't have anticipated the hormones which would batter my body and mind, the depression which would periodically blot out the sun, the alt-rock snarls and emo sighs. I was also unaware that this was the birth of a tradition. Music would be a constant in my life, and so would my emotional connection to it... I'd sob along to Springsteen, bawl with Bad Religion. Which brings us to...

3. "Infected" - Bad Religion. I should've joined stage crew. I should've been on the newspaper staff. I should've teased my hair, slathered on the glitter gloss and lettered in intramural fellatio.

Anything - ANYTHING - but drama club.

It was a dumping ground for histrionic bitches of both genders, a boot camp for those constitutionally unsuited to army duty. Every fall and spring, they formed a dysfunctional, incestuous family. They held court in cramped classrooms which reeked of ambition and Aqua Net. And lo, the showtunes echoed from the walls... along with the fake tears, shrill laughter and vicious rumors.

The knives may've been props, but the backstabbing was all too real.

I have never been more out of place in my life.

I'm the quintessential introvert. I'm a bit shy, a little slow to warm up in social situations. Calling attention to myself is anathema to my nature. Other people jump in front of TV cameras... I duck behind the nearest immobile object, hoping to remain inconspicuous. My sense of humor prevents me from being a total social pariah - never underestimate the power of a good dick joke! - but "character actor" would be a stretch, let alone "leading lady".

And yet at fifteen, my confused little soul hungered for the stage. I wanted to prance across weathered floorboards, belt out Rogers & Hammerstein lyrics, feel the warmth of the house lights beaming down on my theatrical greatness.

It was not to be. Everyone knew it. My family knew it. My friends knew it. My drama teacher (enamored of Anne Taylor suits, sycophantic seniors and high-pitched psychological meltdowns) damned well knew it. "It's okay... you don't have to sing it again," she informed me after my halting, atonal rendition of "Getting to Know You". It was the closest she'd ever come to kindness... sparing us both 03:26 of misery by cutting my audition short.

I wasn't surprised, exactly, when the list of roles was posted in the auditorium. Our teacher had a coterie of favorites; the leads were a sure thing, the supporting roles relatively certain. I was a chubby, unpopular sophomore, incapable of singing "Happy Birthday" on-key. This put me at the bottom of the drama club hierarchy... which meant that I was an extra. No lines, no love. Back page of the program, baby.

I wasn't surprised. I was enraged.

I stormed out of the building, throat constricting, eyes burning. It was totally fair and completely expected. It was, within the warped little universe of Drama Club, right and just.

So why did it still hurt so MOTHERFUCKING BAD? WHY?! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, WHY?

It was a four-mile walk from my school to my house. I must've kicked every single rock, mushroom and discarded soda bottle along the way.

I still remember what I was wearing (a much-beloved sage thermal and paint-stained jeans). I remember what the weather was like (unseasonably warm; when I wasn't sobbing, I was wishing I'd worn a t-shirt). And I remember exactly what I was listening to.

Bad Religion will always occupy a special spot in my heart... an obnoxious, pissed-off little spot. They've rocked their way through three decades, and have not once deviated from formula... a handful of chords, an abundance of adjectives and a heaping helping of fury ("They've only got one song," explained my sister Junket, "But that song fucking rocks!"). Organized faith? Fuck you! Societal convention? Fuck you! A corrupt power structure's willful blindness regarding the catastrophic effects of climate change? Fuck! You!

Getting a taste of exactly how embarrassing and agonizing a seemingly-petty rejection can feel? FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOOOOOU!

Stop. Rewind. Play-it-again. Stop. Rewind. Play-it-again.

My batteries were fresh. My "Turbo Bass" button (in reality, a "muddy the shit out of the lower end" switch) was firmly engaged. Music and misery mingled freely in my frontal cortex. Like all great pairings - rhythm and lead, Jagger and Richards, warmish bourbon and unfiltered Camels - each one rendered the other a bit rawer, more intense.

I haven't set foot on a stage in years, and gladly so. "Infected" has been with me for over a decade... from cassette to CD to MP3, from high school to college and beyond, as Bad Religion and I both grew older and wiser (although thankfully no less snotty).

It's almost enough to make one tear up.

"She mouthed the words along to 'Running Up That Hill' / that song got scratched into her soul."
- The Hold Steady, "Hornets! Hornets!"