"How're You Doing?": A Response

     Today, via MySpace, I received a curious e-mail.  Not curious in content, but in timing and also, perhaps, in directness.  It was a message from an estranged comrade, asking simply "How are you?", and including a few words to ensure I recognized sincerity and not some sort of ironic malice.

The inevitability of this text had been with me for some time-- I was fairly certain the message would come sometime, but like death or El Dorado it was "further, always further".  To find it suddenly in my inbox was to be taken aback as one always is when distant things are suddenly thrust into the present, but also aback due the the fact that only a few days prior I had thought for a moment about the likelihood of receiving such an e-mail.  Another case of Parrallel Synchronized Randomness, I suppose.  Unfortunately, for boring and complicated reasons I was unable to reply.  So, in optimistic response and for the general populous, this is how I am doing:

I've taken to drinking in excess whenever I choose to drink, and my drug use is ravenous.  I look at these things objectively, from the outside looking in, and sense issues might be arising but... my mind usually dissents and things continue normally.  I'm in a state of tiredness most of the time, have come to averaging twelve hours a night whenever possible, but that could potentially be explained by the prior issues or by other things, but, quite honestly, it was never that unusual.

Despite the afore-mentioned drug an alcohol intake, my food diet is healthier than it's ever been-- I've almost entirely given up soda and dairy milk, and cut fried foods drastically.  I lost almost 30 pounds on the Appalachian Trail-- I've gained 15-20 of those back, but a percentage as muscle, which, as larger people like to say, "...weighs more than fat."

I'm also faced with the possibility of diving headfirst into a live-in S/M relationship with a man in Grand Isle that I am considering despite all the entanglements and complications of my on-the-road lifestyle.  I fear I may be overestimating my cleverness, emotional reserve and/or escape ability--

You see, I've purchased a bicycle which I plan on learning to ride as soon as the weather improves and I can find the time-- then I plan on taking it cross country on a series of whimsical missions a friend of mine is devising.  I'm staying with her in Metairie until after Mardi Gras, as I've committed myself to work at the Ohm Lounge 'til that point. Metairie is... awful, and I'm in a state of continual restlessness that finds me endlessly surfing travel sites and reading travel books and perusing my old road trip photos.

Reading back over this, I think it may be the most honest account of my general well-being I've ever written.