by Melody Bowen
My Drug of Choice
If all junkies have a gateway drug -- you know, the one they reach for first -- adrenaline wins as my drug of choice. Keep your crack and your heroin and your methamphetamine. I'm an adrenaline addict, and I love my drug. I thrive on it.
Like most addicts, my drug sometimes gets me really, really high -- soaring, elated, euphoric even. Other times, though, it's not so great, and I overdose -- the adrenaline courses through my veins a little too rapidly and leaves me feeling drained and generally icky. To this day, I've never met the roller coaster that could leave me with that I've-had-too-much feeling. It's the adrenaline from everyday life that knocks me on my bootie from time to time instead.
For instance, last week began with some good adrenaline: I had a lingerie party. Yes, a lingerie party. I had a bunch of girlfriends over, and we all had a few drinks, a few laughs, and we looked at crazy lingerie and exotic lotions and potions and battery-operated devices that, quite frankly, could make one's teeth rattle if utilized at full speed. We joked and laughed until we cried until late that night. There's nothing that gets everyone's adrenaline going like a group of giggling women trash-talking and swilling cocktails and waving around plastic phalluses with multiple speeds ("low", "medium", and "who-needs-a-man").
Over the weekend, I traveled to Branson, Missouri -- referred to by the frightfully oblivious or certifiably insane as the "Las Vegas of the Midwest" -- with one of my oldest and dearest "guy" friends and his entire family (12 of us!). We went to a couple of amusement parks, and I jumped on every teeth-rattling roller coaster I saw. I rode (and rode and rode) a giant wooden roller coaster with plenty of plunges and sharp banks, and I closed my eyes and screamed "Woohoo!" and felt like I was flying. C'est magnifique. Another coaster loomed high on the side of a wooded hill like a giant, steel Krazy Straw. After 11 rides, I discovered that if I spent the entire ride with my feet dangling beneath me and my arms stretched over my head and my eyes closed, it felt like I was honest-to-goodness flying. Ahh... sweet adrenaline.
The best ride of the weekend was called a "sky coaster", which was more like playing in some sort of overgrown swing. It was well over 100 feet tall, and riders are suspended from a giant arch by a long cable, then towed backward up to a full 110 feet. The rider pulls a ripcord and plummets toward the ground until the cable catches and swoops you out dozens of feet over the parking lot. Trust me -- even for an adrenaline junkie, it's a rush. I somehow talked my friend into going along with me, and we did it, both of us praying all the way up to the top, and screaming our lungs out on the way down. I hadn't felt my heart race like that in a long, long time. The verdict: it was the best adrenaline rush of the week.
But, as previously mentioned, sometimes the rush has to come to a halt. Too much adrenaline -- just like any other drug -- will leave you green and sickly and on the brink of madness. Such was my week.
Despite a phenomenal weekend, the adrenaline went a little too far after a family squabble (that had nothing whatsoever to do with me, mind you) and left me feeling hurt and a bit angry at my friend. Angry for the first time in our 15-year friendship, in fact. That's when the drug that normally leaves me giddy and elated left me shaken, saddened, and sorry. Now, the squabble is over I guess, but I have to admit I'm still recovering from the shock of what it felt like to be mad at someone I've long considered to be one of the finest people on the planet.
The story doesn't end there. Just when I thought I'd escaped relatively unscathed after my drug sent me on a brief bad trip, the hits just kept on rolling. By Monday, I found myself in a conversation with another old friend that began with lots of energy and excitement but ended on a bit of an awkward note. Awkward enough to take the wind out of my parasail, so to speak. Then I had another argument with someone -- someone who pushed my buttons a few too many times -- and the surge of adrenaline went right to my heart where it boiled my blood and made me go for the jugular. I said things I wish I hadn't said, something I truly detest. (Dammit, I hate to do that!)
And, last but not least, the overdose. I went out with some friends earlier this week just to have a few laughs and spend some time hanging out. To shorten this epic narrative, suffice it to say I wound up getting really irritated when someone had a few too many drinks, pointed a finger in my face, and spoke to me in a manner that I didn't appreciate. At all. That little outburst ended quietly and quickly. But, unfortunately, later that evening, someone who'd long since surpassed "tipsy" attempted to be playful (I think), leaned over, and bit me on the shoulder. (Yes, you read that right. Bit...me...on...the...shoulder!) Hard. Hard enough to leave a bruise, in fact. (It was positively surreal!) Hard enough for me to scream, "Hey! What the hell are you doing!" (For Armani's sake, I haven't been bitten like that since the "orange pail" skirmish in the Mrs. Doster's kindergarten sandbox. And that, quite frankly, was a real brouhaha).
That's it. Case closed. I've OD'd on adrenaline this week, and I can't take anymore. It's time for me to take a little break and catch my breath. This roller coaster is closed for business for some routine I-need-some-peace-and-quiet maintenance. At least until my knees stop shaking and my blood pressure returns to normal again. [Sigh...]