The cat's out of the bag.

Big crowds of people make me skittish.  Skittish is probably not the right word, but I can’t think of anything that succinctly describes the flesh crawling feeling that potentially being jostled by strangers fills me with.  Skittish is the cat you want to pet, but runs away from you.   What I feel is the very specific urge to dig my nails into my flesh and rip my skin off.  Or that my skin is all hot and raw and each time someone touches me, or comes close to touching me, I’m set on fire.  It's like everyone is centipedes.  You know that sickly, prickly feeling when a centipede crawls across your bare flesh?  It's like everyone is a centipede and I can feel them under my skin, their clamouring thoughts crawling around the inside of my skull and across my eyeballs.

Stupidly enough, I often find myself in places that can’t help be densely populated.  For example, I’m writing this from LAX.  Albeit, a moderately quiet corner of LAX, but there are still enough people here to cause some serious trouble if a zombie outbreak occurred.  Despite being steely and grey, I don’t think this airport would be a very effect zombie shelter or container.  The tension is already high enough that we’re almost tearing out each other’s throats, and most everyone is sleep deprived enough to pass off as undead. 

Last Sunday found me at Bay to Breakers, in SF.  It’s a party spanning several miles, masquerading as a foot race.  I’m sure there are actual runners, but by the time we go there, public urination was the modus operandi.  I went with some friends.  And we entered a throng of sweat, glitter, and possibly urine soaked people. 

I have the best friends anyone could ever ask for. I’m sure if I had told them, “I don’t know how I’ll deal with large crowds,” they would have understood.  But. . .

Explaining that you have a food allergy is pretty easy.  Explaining dietary restrictions is easy.  Explaining that you’re not too sure how you’ll react to a massive crowd isn’t gluten sensitivity.    “I don’t know, depending on how I feel that day, I might be okay, or I might just want to curl up in a ball and try not to die,” isn’t something that usually comes up in polite conversation and will probably not get you invited to the next thing people are planning together.  And I want these people to like me and being around them is fun, usually regardless of the situation. 

 I don’t care too much for the half-dressed/naked throngs of people, though.   I must have gone from cautiously optimistic to bubbling homicide in about 45 minutes flat.   Oddly enough, being smashed up against some man’s flaccid, sunburnt penis is not nearly as traumatizing as some bleary drunk girl, hugging you and getting her sweaty body glitter all over you. 

I don’t know when this started.  I can’t think of one singular event that made me think, “No more of this.  Let’s stick to small crowds, preferably people you know.”  Was it the clubbing?  Was it the sweltering streets of Hong Kong and Manila?  Or maybe everyone has a quota of people they can rub up against without feeling like they’re about to cry, and I just reached mine early on? 

I’d like to think that these large, hive-mind organisms known as crowds are just friends waiting to be made. . .but maybe next time.  And maybe after several showers.