Brain freeze, brain thaw

_{Snap out of a sweet dream about setting someone's house on fire. Smash the phone till the Cosmic song stops. Stumble into the kitchen, make coffee, drink coffee, and slowly start to wake up. Double check that you're wearing pants. Good. Go downtown. Cross the river. Hike up Frontside, Lil Rattler, and Pano. Pause to appreciate the scenery.}

_{The sunrise behind me is lighting up the peaks across the valley. That's Ouray (13,971 feet), Chipeta (13,472 feet), and Pahlone (12,615 feet) to the left. Shavano (14,230 feet) is visible on the right. The photo above also shows the 14ers Tabeguache, Antero, and Princeton, all of them quite friendly fellows except for when they occasionally try to kill you.}

I never really know what to say when I walk into my therapist's office. It's not for lack of thinking ahead on my part. And it's not for lack of providing a comfortable environment and a kind, approachable persona on her part. She's wonderful, and her workspace is one of the most calming ones I've ever encountered. My brain just gets stuck sometimes. Kind of like it does every time I lock eyes with that girl I like. Emergency shutdown. This is no time for conversation, we've got an active threat on our hands. Shields are up.

But already I'm getting sidetracked. That's an entirely different matter; please don't tell Jamie I've got a crush on her. The point I'm trying to make is, I never seem to know what I want to say on my way to therapy. I just know that I want to go to therapy. So I get out of my car, walk down the gravel driveway, knock on the glass sliding door, step inside, and sit down.

And then, after a few minutes pass by and my nerves calm down, something funny happens: My mind suddenly opens up, and before I know it I've spent an entire hour talking almost nonstop, hopping from topic to unrelated topic and changing subjects so fast it doesn't even make sense.

_{Overcast sky, empty parking lot, stoic streetlight, and a rainbow that looks like it's barely hanging onto life. It's all so perfectly depressing that it makes me smile. I already know I'm going to hell, no need to tell me.}

Anxiety. Depression. The thing in my head. It's going to win. No it's not. You've got to kill you, if you want to kill me. Music. Mountains. Have you ever been to Music Pass? You used to be able to drive all the way up there but you can't anymore, it's closed. I guess the mountains are my gods now. Religion. Psychosis, suicide, et cetera. They should start teaching Latin in schools again. No, that would never work, there are too many idiots these days. Social media has collectively dumbed us all down to the point that I think we're a lot closer to Idiocracy than most people realize. Leadville. Winters that last for eight months. Cabin fever. My brother's getting married next month. He literally designed and machined his fiancée's ring. I have a hard time just trying to thread a needle let alone machine a fucking ring. Shaky hands, DTs, that weird sense of impending death. I can't think of anything worse, anything more completely evil in the entire universe, than the concept of God. God is the purest form of evil I can think of. Let me tell you about the three different books I'm currently halfway through. Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo (he was from Colorado, did you know that? Yep. Montrose), The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, and I Won't Be Coming Into Work Today Because You're All Dickheads: A Guide to Office Survival by David Thorne. To be honest, I've been putting off Johnny Got His Gun because it's so bloody tough to read. I like that plant, what kind is it? Flowers. My mom used to collect hibiscus plants and mowing the lawn took forever because you had to work your way around all these fucking flowers growing everywhere. She loves me, she loves me not. Work is going fine but have I told you about growing up in the jungle yet? I had a pet monkey once but it died and I had to bury it in the backyard.

_{6:30am. Time to walk to work. Sky pretty, me like. I wonder if I'll lose my shit on any idiot customers today.}

_{6:30pm. Great. Another successful day of not getting fired for losing my shit on any idiot customers. Sky pretty, me like. Time to walk back home.}

I know that last big block of text was mostly just mad rambling, and anyone who took the time to suffer through it deserves a pat on the back. It's all very therapeutic for me, though, and it's much better than letting the gears in my head stay seized up forever. And I'm not gonna lie—it's kinda funny watching my therapist scramble to take down notes while my thoughts are redlining like that. Bless her heart.

I feel good.

Maybe I'll go for a walk.

_{It's freezing. Sleet is falling, and everything's cold and wet. I think I'm going hypothermic. What a splendid evening! How come I'm the only one out here enjoying it?}