Had another manic episode last night, which was bizarre, though welcome. After the rough week I had, I was overdue a couple hours of mania, even a night or two.

I’m actually still ridiculously sore. Every inch of my body hurts the way it usually does after 4-6 hours of jumping and dancing around like an idiot in a cocktail dress and a pair of break-neck stilettos.

There might not have been the cocktail dress or the stilettos, but there sure was a lot of inexplicable dancing. Which is by default, what happens during one of the stronger manic episodes.

The milieu encouraged it, of course. A bunch of dance-starved nymphets, a dark bowling alley with a black-light and light show, and pumped up nightclub music? Yeah, dancing had to ensue.

The fact that Chulis invited me a couple beers only enabled the already overwhelmingly manic side of me, pushing it to that exquisitely raw, high state I’ve only ever been able to achieve in a dance floor.

I mean, I know I’m a lightweight, but beer has never been able to do anything to me. I never expected it to get that far.

I was neither drunk nor tipsy, maybe a step removed from it, but it canceled my inhibitions enough to joke around with my cousin’s cousin, which just does not happen.

The sheer transition was actually very amusing to me.

There was the very distinctive point where my inhibitions were at their peak (as they will usually be when my cousins are involved), where I was increasingly sarcastic and defensive, closed body language— anxious even, dreading being directed, even observed.

I forget if I’d already been dancing around like an idiot, but that’s never really been an issue in terms of inhibitions under the proper circumstances, which there were.

I was tremendously high strung by the time Chulis invited me a couple drinks, which I downed rather fast (flat beer = not fun). Then my little cousin arrived, which was perfect, because she doesn’t mind dancing around like an idiot, so we kept twirling each other around, nearly choking up with laughter.

I began to notice the shift as I noted myself getting a little more daring, which is what happens when Jules begins to take over, except Jules wasn’t awake. It felt bizarre, because it was like falling into her behavioral patterns (the mindless dancing being one of them), without dealing with her being conscious (which I kind of miss).

And in a way, it was that same out of body experience, in the sense that I’m acting before I’m thinking, reflecting in the unwontedness of my actions only as they occur, or a moment after.

I’m sober in terms of frame of mind and rationalization. The shift simply consists in losing one’s self, an acting before thinking.

Which is to say, that the co-occurrence of mania and the outset of mild inebriation trigger those behavioral patterns, which is kind of a whole hell of a lot of fun, and something I have yet to achieve without being manic.

There was a point where I was chatting up my cousin’s cousin, who qualifies high in my list of Gorgeous Bastards. He has a gorgeous set of eyes, and the most exquisitely expressive face.

His hidden agenda consisted of setting me up with one of his friends, but what stood out for me, was that I get so shy around him, the fact that I was randomly chatting him up and kidding around, and even getting him to dance with my contagious dancing mood, made the whole thing just seemed bizarre.

I’ve had a high school crush on the man since I was a kid, and still fall every time I see that pretty face (never mind his personality type isn’t really my thing), causing me to get red in the face, and all those other girly symptoms on gets when you have one of those little crushes

The other distinctive moment consisted of my sudden Jules-like behavior towards the camera, which also involved my cousin’s cousin, and then my overall open body language towards it.

Again, bizarre.

Only times I recall that feeling sans alcohol was that one winter reunion two years ago where I humiliated that poor boy and made out with one of my female friends, and this winter, when I met the brothers from California on my birthday.

It’s interesting, every time an overwhelming manic episode comes along.

I really missed it.