mania, the slightest sensation hotwires your nerves. Sound is noise, sunshine is glare, and it takes all of your self-control not to just slice that mosquito bite clean off your ankle. That morning the prick of the hairbrush against my scalp had been so excruciating I’d thrown the brush in the toilet. I’ve thrown a lot of things in the toilet on my way up to mania—not all of them visible, or easily replaced.
Forty-two more minutes of thump-thump-da-thump, and the little hairs along the back of my neck and arms were bristling with outrage. Something had to be done—now, this instant, before the blood started pulsing out my ears in rhythmic spurts. Anger spun me into action before I could even ask myself why now or what if. Between beats, between breaths, I made up my mind to confront the bastard face-to-face. In retrospect, it must have been that dizzy, precarious moment when my chemical balance starts to topple, when almost stable turns into almost not. One minute I was contemplating soundproofing the windows with Scotch tape, the next I was pawing through my closet, looking for the sexiest confront-your-neighbor outfit I could find.
You get beautifully and painfully thin on the road up to mania. Eating simply doesn’t occur to you because there are too many other thoughts occupying your mind, important thoughts, thoughts that could change the world if only you could stop long enough to jot them down. So I was thin enough that day to wear those sleek black jeans. They were a bit trashier than my usual attire, but they made the perfect foil for my favorite green silk shirt, the one that looked so delicate against my fair white skin, that is, until the light hit just right and the silk became completely transparent.
“Nipples are natural,” I said to myself as I buttoned up the cuffs and slipped into my shoes. I’d settled on a pair of plain black flats as a concession to propriety, which means that I couldn’t have been all the way manic. True mania never steps out the door in anything less provocative than spike heels or sling-backs.
Tight jeans, visible nipples, and sensible flats: an odd assemblage of personalities, but it wasn’t what I was really wearing when I marched up the street to my neighbor’s gate. In my mind’s eye, I was dressed for battle, in the cruel gray suit that I wore only to federal court, and then only for do-or-die cases; and the black patent leather pumps that I purposefully bought a size too small, just to keep me mean.
Facing the enemy gate, I smoothed my hair, straightened up, and squared my shoulders. It was an odd, echoing sensation. The motion was as automatic as my speeding pulse. It was all too familiar: I was standing in front of the courtroom door.
My body simply won’t forget it, no matter how hard my mind tries: the trickly sweat exhilaration of high-stakes litigation. It had been well over four years since I left the fast track, and much as I missed the money, I knew that I could never safely return to the full-time practice of law. I knew it absolutely; and yet like an alcoholic who remembers the high and never the hangover, my body still craved the pure adrenaline drunk of always playing to win. Winning was what I’d been trained for. It was where I belonged. And through no fault of my own, it was what I did best. So I savored, just for a moment, the pinch of those black patent leather pumps that had never really fit me, not even when I won. Then I steadied my hand and pressed hard on my neighbor’s doorbell, just a second or two past polite.
He answered the door. His “Hi there, how ya doin’?” was so soft and sweet and mellow it sounded like he was singing. Or stoned? And then I saw the green eyes. Green-eyed men do something to the cartilage in my knees, always have, always will.
“Um, I live next door.” I pointed in the wrong direction. “I’m a lawyer.”
He nodded, waiting for more. More was not forthcoming. More was jammed in the back of my
Forty-two more minutes of thump-thump-da-thump, and the little hairs along the back of my neck and arms were bristling with outrage. Something had to be done—now, this instant, before the blood started pulsing out my ears in rhythmic spurts. Anger spun me into action before I could even ask myself why now or what if. Between beats, between breaths, I made up my mind to confront the bastard face-to-face. In retrospect, it must have been that dizzy, precarious moment when my chemical balance starts to topple, when almost stable turns into almost not. One minute I was contemplating soundproofing the windows with Scotch tape, the next I was pawing through my closet, looking for the sexiest confront-your-neighbor outfit I could find.
You get beautifully and painfully thin on the road up to mania. Eating simply doesn’t occur to you because there are too many other thoughts occupying your mind, important thoughts, thoughts that could change the world if only you could stop long enough to jot them down. So I was thin enough that day to wear those sleek black jeans. They were a bit trashier than my usual attire, but they made the perfect foil for my favorite green silk shirt, the one that looked so delicate against my fair white skin, that is, until the light hit just right and the silk became completely transparent.
“Nipples are natural,” I said to myself as I buttoned up the cuffs and slipped into my shoes. I’d settled on a pair of plain black flats as a concession to propriety, which means that I couldn’t have been all the way manic. True mania never steps out the door in anything less provocative than spike heels or sling-backs.
Tight jeans, visible nipples, and sensible flats: an odd assemblage of personalities, but it wasn’t what I was really wearing when I marched up the street to my neighbor’s gate. In my mind’s eye, I was dressed for battle, in the cruel gray suit that I wore only to federal court, and then only for do-or-die cases; and the black patent leather pumps that I purposefully bought a size too small, just to keep me mean.
Facing the enemy gate, I smoothed my hair, straightened up, and squared my shoulders. It was an odd, echoing sensation. The motion was as automatic as my speeding pulse. It was all too familiar: I was standing in front of the courtroom door.
My body simply won’t forget it, no matter how hard my mind tries: the trickly sweat exhilaration of high-stakes litigation. It had been well over four years since I left the fast track, and much as I missed the money, I knew that I could never safely return to the full-time practice of law. I knew it absolutely; and yet like an alcoholic who remembers the high and never the hangover, my body still craved the pure adrenaline drunk of always playing to win. Winning was what I’d been trained for. It was where I belonged. And through no fault of my own, it was what I did best. So I savored, just for a moment, the pinch of those black patent leather pumps that had never really fit me, not even when I won. Then I steadied my hand and pressed hard on my neighbor’s doorbell, just a second or two past polite.
He answered the door. His “Hi there, how ya doin’?” was so soft and sweet and mellow it sounded like he was singing. Or stoned? And then I saw the green eyes. Green-eyed men do something to the cartilage in my knees, always have, always will.
“Um, I live next door.” I pointed in the wrong direction. “I’m a lawyer.”
He nodded, waiting for more. More was not forthcoming. More was jammed in the back of my
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