book

   I get a free ticket to EDC Las Vegas from a girl I met on Tinder. She's a show runner for Adult Swim and wrote a cartoon I loved in my early twenties and used to watch to self-soothe, rather than cut myself. We went on a few dates together. I brought her some mushrooms and we went hiking. She got me to talk about my dad and brother which I never do, with anyone. After my ex, I never really felt like opening up to anyone in that way. But with her it was easy. Maybe because I had nothing to lose, or maybe because we actually got along, or maybe I just needed to find more people who were interesting. I forget where the saying comes from but interesting people are interested. Maybe I just liked that she asked me questions. I wanted her to come to Vegas with me, and she almost did. She bought a ticket, ecstasy, and everything. Then, the show she was working on got cancelled randomly and she called me up in tears. She'd been putting everything she had into it. She decided to visi...

   I remind myself how high-functioning I am. I went to an industry friends mansion party in the Palisades the night before. I remember eating cheetos in the hot tub and doing coke in the revamped studio in his guest house. Somebody yelled at me for petting her dog while holding a highball glass of cheap whiskey. "He could drink it!" she yanked him back on his collar. "You brought your dog to a fucking mansion party. People are going to want to pet him," I spat. The dog looked scared either way. Too many people, too much noise. I understood him completely. "Sorry buddy," I told him. I remember afterwards passing around a bag of Cheetos with a couple girls who were famous on OnlyStans, a website for amatuer porn artists. They wore stringy triangle bikinis and had long, claw like acrylics and they mostly ignored me, which I was completely okay with. Someone gave me a couple "microdose" pills of powdered cubensis mushrooms. I swallowed them dry. I w...

   I convalesce at my parents home on an air mattress, in my old room. The walls are bare. They never had anything on them. There is a dresser with nothing in the drawers with a television sitting atop it that I don't touch. I lie in bed in the brine of my own terrible thoughts. I am mentally unwell. This is what mentally unwell people do. I think about high school and the paths my friends took. I gravitated towards other troubled kids but plenty of them managed to end up living the similar lives to the ones we were told would make us happy. There were the kids from the really nice families, too, who had golden retrievers and sent Christmas cards and took their kids on college tours, girls played soccer or did cheer and the boys played baseball or football. I think about those kids sometimes. They used to come into the bars I worked at. The girls have Botox, nose jobs, boob jobs. The boys wear collared shirts with Sperries and play golf. Everyone went to college for a "busines...

   I buy myself a room at a hostel for the night. The woman who checks me in treats me like a long-lost family member. She clicks her pen in an excited manner as I read over the contract I need to sign before I stay the night. "Have you been to Bozeman? You're going to love Bozeman." I lie and say I haven't. Her energy makes me feel guilty for not being excited to be here. I feel like I'm letting her down. I try and encourage her with a smile, but my facial muscles are weak and unwilling. I pretend to yawn instead. "You'll love everyone here," - she smiles and I can see the origin of every wrinkle on her face - "The staff is so wonderful. Everyone who stays here never wants to leave." Christ, it's like a scene from a horror movie.  She gives me the tour. The downstairs bathroom doesn't work, she tells me, cursing the plumber but beaming at me. Colorful signs pepper the hallway she leads me down. I read one. A clip art gopher tells m...

  Once I decided to leave, I found a dozen reasons to dawdle. I’d waited by my door until I heard my father’s heavy breathing turn to snores, and when they had, I found myself still on my bed, staring out my window at the two trees beyond. One looked very mischievous and youthful, with his branches spread almost-akimbo, the other, top heavy with foliage, looking very stodgy and dour. They were old friends to me. They contrasted well, like two main characters in a children’s cartoon. Focusing on them helped draw me nearer. Of course I was nervous, I had no idea how he’d react if he caught me. But then again, I had never been caught. I felt I should hold onto that.  It wasn’t yet dark,