Faster, I Say!

Wow, I figured that after my last post saying I was alive, I wouldn't be causing so much worry to people as I apparently have been...apologies to those of you who've been concerned. I'm all right physically, nothing particularly unusual going on this week. The marks on my arm have nearly faded, though I'm wishing they would do so faster, because I'm going to have a sleepover with Wren tonight. I don't want to wear a long-sleeved shirt, as it's finally warm again, but I don't want her to see them either. She saw a slightly older scar two weeks ago and freaked out about that.

Mentally I'm not sure what to say about myself. During the days, for the most part I've been fine, keeping myself busy with a whole load of web design projects. There was only one afternoon where I started sinking again, but somehow I managed to shake it off and move on without lasting consequences.

At night, I've been slightly less myself. Two nights ago when we went to bed, Kevin fell asleep on my shoulder almost immediately, and I broke down into tears. I have no idea what triggered it, but what kept it going was missing my dad. At least that's a definable thing to cry about. It's amazing how difficult it is to stay still and silent while crying. While I was certainly imagining what I could be doing to myself with a razorblade, I didn't do anything about it, and eventually I fell asleep.

Mostly what's been happening to me at night though is simple insomnia. That's not usually my style, but it happens when I'm stressed about something, or when I have too many things on my mind, or when I just plain manage to screw up my sleep pattern. Some nights I go to bed and have trouble falling asleep, and other nights I fall right to sleep but wake up at six-thirty and just lie there. It turns out there are quite a lot of people and dogs who run by the window at that hour, and some of them talk surprisingly loudly. The neighborhood is such a completely different place that early in the morning.

But enough depressing crap - for once I actually have a genuinely entertaining story! Kevin and I are both troublemakers at heart (I know, you'd never have guessed), and we celebrated July 4th weekend by throwing firecrackers and setting off bottle rockets, which are illegal in this state. That just makes it all the more fun.

The arrangement was that I drove and he operated the lighter, and we terrorized our neighborhood and the surrounding countryside throwing M-30s into peoples' yards one night. The next night, intoxicated by our success, we set out again with fresh ammo. Having run through the bag of firecrackers, we moved on to the rockets, and Kevin showed me a trick that he and his friends used to do in high school...

Pull the car to the middle of the street. The passenger leans out and sets the rocket in the middle of the right lane, facing backwards. As soon as it's lit, the driver takes off, and if you look out the back window you can watch it shoot off down the street behind you.

The first one we set off on the street beside the river, and though it veered surprisingly sharply into the bushes, it was labeled a success. I drove back through the other end of town and crossed over the north-south route into a neighborhood we hadn't bothered yet. There was no one in sight for half a mile in any direction. In a nice open stretch where the houses were set far back from the road and mostly dark, I edged over to the left and stopped, and Kevin set out a rocket and flicked open the lighter. Still keeping a careful eye out, I saw no one anywhere...and then suddenly there were headlights behind us.

About to tell him to take the damn thing back in the car, I realized it was too late when I heard the distinctive and lovely sound of burning canon wick.

"Cars!" I said, just as he said, "Go!" I rammed the pedal to the floor as he slammed the door, and I watched in the rearview as the rocket lit up and shot down the road whistling, then careened into the weeds at the last second, just as the car was coming up on it. "Drive!" Kevin yelled. "Faster, faster!"

"I can't see!" I protested, looking alternately at the road in front of me and what I could now see was two cars behind. I was doing fifty, fifty-five, sixty in a thirty...and the cars were still catching up. They were too brightly lit and moving too fast to be other civilians, and panic started to surface as I realized we had just shot an illegal firework at a state trooper. Sorry, two state troopers.

Sixty, seventy, eighty, and they were still getting closer. With Kevin urging me on, I broke ninety, and then he said, "Turn turn turn! Left! Up there, over the bridge!" I was pretty sure the cops were too close not to see us, but I'm not too familiar with that end of town, so I did as I was told, burning out the back end and taking off. "Right at the end of the bridge, right now!" I whaled out another screeching turn and shot off down a significantly darker road, overshadowed with thick trees. We bounced as the road changed from pavement to dirt, and I hoped any potholes I encountered weren't too deep.

I pushed the car as fast as I dared, overdriving even my high beams, until Kevin said, "Ok, slow down." I didn't see lights behind me, but I wasn't convinced yet. After a few minutes we popped out on a paved road, and I realized we were nearly out of gas. We wound back into town by a convoluted back route and put a few dollars in the tank. I was shaking and laughing. We never did see those cops again.