Stalled out in In which our ignoble friend

no longer climbing.

Went to Thorpe Park a few weeks ago. Standard theme park: enormous queues, overpriced food of questionable provenance, < 10 rides in a full day. It didn’t rain much.

(I’ve been about this pleasant to be around for a couple of months now, I’d guess. Can’t shake the compulsion to be a painful downer.)

I rediscovered liking roller coasters. I also discovered that falling is the thing that I like least (aside perhaps from uneven spinning - constant outward force is preferred, plzthx). A ride which can best be described as an outsized mechanical swing rendered me grey-green and digestively inconsolable for the better part of an hour. Why? Unplanned freefall. That moment of lower intestinal inertia, organs gently colliding and fascia curling together and strained, the literally visceral dread that dawns like that Hemingway line- gradually, and then suddenly.

Academically, I’ve hit that point. I’ve stretched my luck, and all of my deadlines, as far as they will go.

The engine stalled a while ago/ but I was still ascending/ there’s nothing left but waiting/ and the fall