Before a few days ago, the weather here in the Triangle was hot, dry, and ghost-town still. It hadn’t rained in 2 months and crispy leaves cluttered the streets, two months before their time. It was so bad, an email arrived from the governor imploring me to cut water usage by 20% (no kidding), so I quit flushing. Every time I stepped outside, I felt like the fluids in my body were going to shoot out of my pores in thousands of tiny fountains, greedily absorbed by the air. When it finally rained the grass greened, the sky blued, and things started looking and feeling immeasurably better. Almost too much better, in fact…

If I had to pick my biggest pet peeve and greatest joy about being human, they would be the same thing; the experience of additive emotions. Experiencing positive and negative emotions simultaneously does not put you in an average mood. It puts you in a high-frequency vacillating state between the two, where everything you experience is interpreted by both sides, with complete disregard to where you want to be and equal indifference to reality. There is no limit to the complication of what you feel, only frustrating limits in your ability to physically or verbally express yourself. That’s why on a stunning afternoon this weekend, sitting on the back patio of Caffé Driade, dapples of sunlight flitting across the other patrons, a long-missed cool breeze moving across my skin, and possibly the most delicious lemonade ever sitting on my tongue, I began to tear up in a poignant moment of relievedworriedecstaticdevastated. Being hung-over did not help.

As promised, I’m having a party this weekend. If you didn’t get an invite, you either don’t live in the area, I don’t like you and am trying to send you a message, I forgot, or don’t have your contact information. I’m feeling pretty forward lately, so feel free to ask me where you’re at.