  So wonderful to get the hell out of town yesterday. A long, winding drive to see Bryan at his campsite on Palomar Mtn.
opened up my senses and shed the stress of living in an increasingly bigger city. Those drives were more fun once upon a time when I had a manual transmission. When I hadnt yet developed a healthy fear of death. Then again, youth and its energy prevented me from being able to appreciate the stillness of being in the world, of being alone with the trees. Those changes of scenery and breaks from citified reality always result in a slow return to the world.
Plans (a word that ought to be in quotes) to meet friends for dinner tonight have shifted shape, from an event Ive looked forward to to a sort of chore that seems more likely to be uncomfortable and even painful than celebratory in any way. I suppose I could be a lot more wordy than this, but its simple: Trees dont flake. Its easier to count on the consistency of solitude than to risk developing expectations that Im not prepared to have dashed.
Itd be different if that last time I made plans with them wasnt such a personal disaster for me. Spending all that money to put on a dinner party with the knowledge that theyd be coming to my house at a date set a week before. Making myself sore from the cleaning efforts. And then being left holding the bag, feeling like an asshole.
That feeling that takes over when Ive been disrespected, and I run with it, making the original infraction a mere footnote to a much more punishing experience. Exhibit A ah, you all know to what Im referring. If talk radio is making me cry these days, Im pretty sure that something that actually affects me wont go over too well. So in preparation, Ive written off the dinner idea. No ones calling me back anyway  or answered my email I threw out there to test the waters.
I hate people. Maybe Ill get lost again today. Cut my phone line, lose myself in a film. Im weaning myself off of the effexor, buspar, elavil, neurontin, and lamictal. It may be a little bumpy on the decent. Or assent. Im not sure where all these chemicals have taken me. And no, Im not entirely sure why Im going off of them. A desperate scramble to need nothing, or an experiment in circumstantial madness. 
