When I'm in pain, I feel like I can't get a grip on my life and the few things I can control I desperately cling to and force into storylines.
When I'm clear, I feel like I'm all hands and I don't know how to just live. I went out tonight and felt so sober and awkward, I didn't know how to just be. Nervous, out of balance, I wanted to scream. I could have gone home, but I stayed out. Mu usual signals to go home, like I get tired or start to feel the booze or people I'm talking to leave, just didn't exist. So hour after hour it was like I was waiting for the fun or the human connection or the sign that the world is beautiful. Instead, I finally spoke to the guy who had been sitting next to me and he was a magnified version of everything that was disgusting myself about my own awkward. He'd brought with him a sketch book, half a dozen artist pencils, pencil sharpener, and eraser but spent hours on the outline of a single cartoon-like character's head an 11-year-old could have drawn. His t-shirt tucked into his jeans belted high above the waist and the way his fat collected above his belt, in the seat of his pants, and in his face all added to the 11-year-old affect. I wasn't in much of a mood to give him a chance to redeem himself, but when the bartender said something about his drink also not containing alcohol, I asked why not.
"I just don't have much of a taste for it."
I asked why come to a bar then (he hadn't spoken a word to another human being since I'd sat down hours earlier).
"For the conversation. You don't get the social element at Hardees or McDonalds."
At this point he physically shifted forward waaay into my bubble. In as few sentences as possible I closed up my bag and escaped.

So is that me? Not even to middle school in my ability to interact with other people? And at the same time, I keep questioning what I'm doing with myself, letting my brain rot away, doing my sad bits of male scouting at a bar?

It's 2 AM, I'm still not tired. I'm going to go read. Like, a novel. I'm PMSed and on too many medications that make me want to climb walls and throw up angry things. Where's my fucking dog?