Barely Living Through Chemistry

Most people are surprised when I tell them I’ve never snorted coke off a model’s stomach in Brazil, that I haven’t puffed pot, that I barely, rarely drink ____tinis. They don’t understand how I’ve kept my D.A.R.E. promise but say things in public that make people look at me like I speak French.

So when I considered generic Prozac — the essence of doctor-prescribed Fancy Pink Pills for Chicks™ — to kill my PMDD (short for “Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder,” short for motherfucking bad PMS that turns my Porsche ‘07 911 brain into an ‘89 Honda Civic), I questioned how the drug would do me.

But after months of capping six soy lattes with twenty Red Bulls without denting my mental fatigue, I cash in my prescription. I scan the tiny print Rite Aid provided: “Pills may lessen sexual desire,” — I laugh, I doubt it — “may cause anxiety, may cause suicidal thoughts, may cause depression. If you hear ringing in your ears and want to stab someone with your five-inch stiletto, call your physician.”

Fascinating.

I swallow a baby blue pill for breakfast. And I still feel tired after 2 p.m., after three trips to Starbucks, after a designer energy drink, I still–

Haven’t heard from The Boy all day.

I grope my iPhone, and I worry as I hear his voice mail answer. “Normally you call me every time you take a piss,” I say. “I am concerned for your bladder.”

I hang up, and the sun sinks with my mood, and I’m distracted from business: my inner bohemian wants a sick day while my internal yuppie whips her to keep working in the sweatshop of my mind.

But instead of fingers flying over my MacBook, super marketing myself, I find myself in a super market buying Fruit Rollups, pressed pieces of sugar in tie-dyes of happy, the opposite of how I feel. I cruise back home, and realize I still haven’t heard from The Boy. A piece of paper floats into my lap and I squeal like it’s a spider and barely control a swerve, and I wonder if I’m on edge from the Prozac, I wonder if The Boy has been held hostage and sodomized in The Castle by someone other than me, I wonder if–

Riiing. Riiing.

He’s calling? “Satan speaking,” I answer.

“Hey, fucker.” His voice husks happy, I wonder if the terrorists holding a gun to his head have demanded he act natural. “I just got in from working the yard, baby.”

Of course. Weeding, enjoying green grass, “Getting dirty without me?” I ask. “Did you dig out a mud wrestling pit?”

“It was great. You don’t know how satisfying it is to work the land you own.”

I imagine him shirtless, sunning, his six-pack sweating. “I’m sure. Did you pay yourself $5.50 per hour for this work?” We talk small while I land home: he’s asking about my day and how I spent it, and I tell him all I did was touch myself to Prince songs; I skip over my science experiment with my brain. But as we keep chatting I pour out the month’s worth of pastel pills into the toilet and flush. I decide I’ll control my mind myself, I’ll skip taking the passenger seat while some chemical is the driver, I–

Wonder if it’s too late for another soy latte and an espresso-laced brownie.

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