When I'm straight I cannot find the words. When I'm stoned, they gush like oil from that underwater ruptured geyser in the US. And like BP, I cannot find a way to cap them off, to stifle them.
So I made a mistake the other night. Texted S one of those "I love you" texts that are the currency of modern relationships. The way I understand the transaction normally proceeds is the recipient responds with a "..and I love you" back to the original sender within a reasonable timeframe. The shorter the timeframe, the stronger the love apparently. Although it would be a mistake to correlate likelihood of a marriage surviving with speediness of response to a love-text. It seems that passion is not the only fuel a marriage runs on, and indeed a surfeit of passion can indeed blow marriage's engine, if run too hard.
Whew. Analogy city.First year lit. students would be blushing.
But yes, I did send one of these love-texts. That was the only part of the transaction that went to plan. Thirty minutes later I received a "..thanks for reminding me" text. Neat. This phrase can be interpreted as both a highly sarcastic "I'd forgotten I was dying of cancer - thanks for reminding me" or a heartfelt "yes I was feeling down and unloved - thanks for reminding me you do love me". S, as ever, beautifully sidestepped committing herself emotionally through the use of ambiguous language. Masterful.
So the next day, somewhere in a car on the way to score I play my little fiddle, puppy eyes punctuating the hurt I felt at receiving a response out of the ordinary.
"What, you wanted one of those super lame 'I love you too' texts back?" she asked incredulously.
"You only texted me because you were stoned!"
At least she followed this up with stating that her interpretation (her interpretation at this moment at least) was not the highly sarcastic but instead the 'I was feeling down' translation.
Given that we both had previously discussed sending soppy texts whilst stoned, I think I got off lightly.
But it begs the question, why can I not express feelings whilst not stoned? Hopefully it's because I am never really straight, rather I spend most of my time in the downswing between shots, feeling crappy and sore, mixed up and confused. I find myself crying at pop songs more and more as my metro dose declines, and inversely, the effect dope has on me is getting stronger and stronger as it has less metro to overcome to reach that euphoria. $28 shots! A few years ago they were $100 shots, so there's a sort of progress. But I have a minor habit and no escape.