I can hear the pouring rain

I reminisced playing the "Sugar Plum Fairy" from The Nut Cracker piano accompaniment with my middle school orchestra. It had a long piano solo in the middle of the song where it was just me without any other instrument. This was the most difficult piece I have ever mastered. Every time I was called up to the front of the class to practice on the piano with the orchestra, my face turned the color of a juicy ripe tomato. Normally I played the ginormous string bass with the orchestra but not for this song. My fellow bass players always made fun of me for my face turning red but it was worth it in the end when we performed this piece as one of our "finale" pieces. Even as I grew as a piano player in high school I have never been able to play that piece as well, if at all.

Meth doesn't exist in nature. It was man made originally by the government to keep the military and pilots awake for long periods. It is still administered in small doses to pilots and possibly the military as well. It is also in common ADD medications given to children in smaller doses than the recreational use. Meth-amphetamine works on the Norepinephrine and Dopamine systems in the brain keeping neurotransmitters in the synapse longer. What does this do? In addition to making you feel really good, it makes you hypervigilant in recreational doses. This is why this drug is highly addictive. Some common side affects include Meth mouth, malnutrition, and bad hygiene. Chronic users of meth begin to lack circulation of the blood to the teeth so oxygen cannot reach them thus upping the likelihood of cavities. The part of the brain that makes people want to have good hygiene is tampered with in chronic meth users so on top of lack of circulation to their teeth, they'll stop brushing their teeth. On top of that, the nutrition part of the brain is also affected so instead of eating healthy, a chronic meth user would eat candy all day for example. This is just a glazed over description of all the great things about Meth. My cousin fell into its seductive trap. It got him kicked out of his high school and arrested. Getting his life back on "track" he graduated job corp and got a job at a grocery store. In the process he fell off a roof because his landlord asked him to do some job up there and he chose to do it high. He was lucky to survive with a broken back. His excuse then to get high some more was the back pain. Now he faces rape charges for something he did that he doesn't even remember because he was drunk and high on Meth. Lucky for him he may be able to take a plea bargain for assault which looks better on your record than rape and has less of a penalty. He has not been to a family dinner in a year or so because the timing "hasn't agreed with his work schedule". Is he guilty? I don't think he even knows.

Cocaine works on the Dopamine system in your brain. It makes the dopamine neurotransmitters stay in the synapse longer by blocking reuptake and stimulating the release of dopamine. This makes you feel really good, aroused, high energy, and you lose your appetite. I moved to a new school in the second grade. This put my older brother in a new school in the fourth grade. This is where he met his best buddy in the whole world. My brother's best buddy grew to become a family best buddy along with his family. When they graduated high school, my brother's best buddy moved away to an out of state college, and the separation of best buddies was the saddest thing in the world. This didn't last long as his adventures at an out of state college lead him to cocaine use which brought him back home since he flunked out. Cocaine works on the Dopamine system of the brain, the same system that when not working healthily, can cause symptoms of psychosis. Therefore, chronic cocaine users eventually become schizophrenic and we begin to see positive symptoms of schizophrenia like hallucinations because of the damage caused by cocaine use. My brother's best buddy was already suffering from bipolar disorder. He has been in and out of rehab and has been back and forth through relapses. He is now back with his crazy ex girlfriend from high school and even though he is still in the state, it has been another tragic separation of best buddies, separated by a disastrous case of cocaine addiction. I pray for peace.

My left arm throbs as I type this, as does my heart for two potentially young gentlemen caught in a windstorm of poor decisions. "One. Two. Three. Poke," said the nurse as she stabbed me with the HPV vaccination. She definitely didn't need to say poke when she poked because I felt the poke part, no words necessary. That was it and I was on my way out to the waiting room where my boyfriend sat reading a magazine article. I was done so quick he made me wait on him as he finished his one page article. I felt so much more comfortable having him with me at the doctors office. It's such an amazing feeling to look over and see him driving next to me, side by side. But our relationship was tested when we couldn't put together a simple bed frame without arguing. Obviously I was wrong because he's supposed to be the one good with tools so I made a delicious soup and made myself useful that way.

I think I really like Preludes for the piano. I used to love playing them. Even the most simple ones to play sound so complex. I'm listening to Preludes (10) For Piano, Op. 23 by Rachmaninov and I can hear the simplicity in it yet the complexity. I can hear how the left and right hand take turns with the hard parts while the other balances it out with some sort of chord until the grand finale where they both run around together in synchrony. This is how I choose to end my night, in perfect synchrony with nature and the man so natural for me to be with.