This morning an iridescent boy dragonfly docked his slender bottom into the head of a predictably drab female of the species and fucked her brains out for about 10 minutes. I was afloat alone in the sparkly turquoise gym pool, tasteful whales mating on the outdoor speakers and birds chittering in the whispering palms. The sun was at my back.
Normally such a miraculous alignment of nature’s bounty would have me blubbing into my goggles with joy, but my tearstrings remained unpulled. No sexed-up insects could make me weep with the glory of Gaia’s oneness this sorry AM. It only made me resent the male dragonfly. Of course he’s prettier than her – he does nothing all day except eat, mate and titivate. Of course he gets to fuck her in the head. Creation invents some sick shit that doesn’t fit well with the feminist agenda. And, get this, he’s got six perfectly working legs but the arrogant little fucker does it all hands-free, for Attenborough’s sake! Meanwhile she’s supporting them both and once he’s got his admittedly tiny dragonfly jollies he swans off to the next poor nymph without a backward eye-swivel while she lays 100,000 kids and then her wings fall off or she dies within hours or whatevs, so who can blame her if she can’t be arsed to go out? Pff. This fine morning Nature called, but fucked if I was answering.
Foolishly optimistic, the universe pursued me with relentless eye candy in an attempt to divert my deepening sad sackery. Look! The serendipitous genius of a red chair leant against a turquoise generator! Regard! The flap of a hot orange robe against a weathered wood wall! Aha! Again with the sunburned nutter in the arseless denim chaps devouring a yellow mango! But neither an accidental act of visual artistry nor an inadvertently fashion-forward unfortunate had the power to colour me happy on my glum ride home across the rich tapestry we call CharmingVille. My heart remained eerily empty. There was even tumbleweed and some forlorn whistling. It could only be one thing.
Man trouble.
Whiny man-child trouble to be exact. Across the last week a succession of inexplicably ridiculous spats escalated to serious standoffs with three of my favourite, more youthful XYs: hubster, best friend and gym buddy. They left me sad, sleepless and lonely in the dark with all my lucky stars gone out. And since it had happened with all three, it must have been my fault. I began to cry with feeling, and not in an ‘I’m-high-on-life’ good kind of way. It wasn’t pretty.
Thank goddess for De La Gare. As I commanded the tuk tuk to head north-by-north-west to my favourite apothecary, I refreshed my shopping list by consulting Dr Google and arrived primed with a list of dos and dolls. Despite the youngest pharmacist wearing a Megadeth T-shirt, I put my order in.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for talking things through rationally and listening and understanding and letting go and compromise and using my inside voice and all that other important relationship shit but sometimes you just want everyone to stop being idiots, shut the fuck up and run you a bath. Failing that, nothing fixes you like prescription helpers OTC.
Years of abstinence, wagon riding, self-help books, crystals and a weird mushroom thing I grew in a fridge back in the ’90s have taught me something. In turbulent weather I always fly better with fuel in the tank. No gnomic Pinterest pith, religious text or full set of Thom Yorke lyrics gets me through a rough patch like a little cheeky something something. ‘Better living through chemistry’ is the mantra of my generation X after all. It was probably hormones from all provocateurs in this current little ménage a merde that got us here in the first place.
These days I avoid the illicit stuff. It makes me more paranoid and that’s saying something. So with Vic Rattlehead gurning from the chest of the white-coated 12-year-old serving me I calmly ticked off Zolpidem (sleep), Advil (post-cry headache), Murine (post-cry red eyes and post-Zolpidem wake-up), Nose Spray (ditto with the crying thing), Ventolin (anxiety, panic, too many puffs on the cig I have tucked away for moments like this), Omeprazole (reflux from not eating, smoking and all that crying), Xanax (um… well you never know). When the chips are down, and that’s not often these days, thanks to my favourite albeit currently feuding blokes, this will be bedtime chez moi this evening. As it always does, I’m sure everything will look brighter, maybe even iridescent, by the time I hit the pool tomorrow.