Category Archives: Life

The Odd Couple

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A year ago, I was getting used to life without Newcastle. I’d retrieved his ashes, I put his food and water dishes away, and built a shrine. The hardest part was getting rid of his litter box.

I had bought him some steps because he couldn’t jump anymore, and they’re still there, fifteen months later, and I still ache a little when I see them. I don’t move them because I don’t want to the ache to go away.

I wasn’t lonely. It was almost a relief when he died because I didn’t have to give him several medications a day or clean his food bowls. I still miss him so much. I had decided not to get another cat. The loss of Newcastle hurt more than I could bear, and the last thing I wanted to do was replace him.

Life rarely listens to what you have to say.

A year ago, I was receiving a voice call, which was weird. It was from Noel, so I panicked. She asked if I could stash a feral cat for a couple of weeks. She and her partner were trying to corner a skeletal kitten who was licking a Reese’s wrapper. I said of course.

I still had Newcastle’s food and water bowls, as well as some of his food, so I whipped up a feast for my new guest. He arrived, and he was a friendly little guy who was pretty hungry. He also liked attention, which meant he had to stop eating for the ten seconds he got pets, and that was filling him with a lot of conflict. It was a bit of a roller coaster.

Noel needed me to hang onto him while he got tested for bugs, germs, and parasites. He couldn’t come home with her because he might have leukemia, or something, which could kill Henry. Henry was the love of her life.

Newcastle was the love of my life, and this creature, who I called Potato, looked exactly like he did when he was a teenager—less like a cat and more like an otter. The big difference was the white patch. For Newcastle, it was on his belly, but for Potato, it was on the tip of his tail.

He stayed with me for the next several days, eating, exploring, eating, napping, and eating. Noel was paying for all of that food and the vet visit. Her partner and I went in together, got all of the appropriate samples taken (except for, ugh, stool), a quick check of his coat and vitals. I pointed out to her partner that they probably thought we were a couple.

Because of the starvation, it was tough to get an accurate estimate, but he was about twelve-to-thirteen months old. Other than that, he was in perfect shape. That meant he belonged to someone, but there were no missing posters in the neighborhood.

Noel asked if I wanted to keep him, I said I’d think about it, but I’d definitely let him hang out for two weeks or, like, whatever. At the end of the two weeks, I concluded I didn’t know how I felt, but I did like having a roommate again.

Did this mean betraying the memory of Newcastle? I was still in mourning. I still am. I wasn’t supposed to get another cat. All I have of Newcastle is a stuffed animal, and now there’s this creature demanding all my attention.

I welcomed him into my home. Newcastle’s automatic feeder, food bowls, and so on, were getting used again. I set an eating schedule and have failed to live up to it, by which I mean I keep feeding him earlier. Soon, I’ll be feeding him yesterday. The cat tree hammock Newcastle never seemed to enjoy was now helping a young cat lounge.

Noel came by to get my final decision. She was disappointed because Henry needs a friend. He was mourning Newcastle too, and still is. While she was here, we discussed names because she was violently opposed to Potato. She also, shot down my preferred nom de guerre of Shenanigan. She’s right, that would have been a terrible name. Meanwhile, I vetoed Reese before she could even finish saying it. That didn’t stop her from suggesting it several more times.

While the little guy divided his time evenly between us, she and I tried several names on. Nothing made sense. Nothing fit. He was too young and too feral to have a personality, but I wanted to give him the exact right name. All I knew about was that he was friendly. She took out her phone and scrolled through baby name websites.

I remember she read “Oscar,” and we had kept going, but it sunk in, several names later. He did look like an Oscar. I got him a collar and a cool lightning-bolt tag.

This is really hard to say, but I don’t love him. I’d do anything for him, but I don’t feel the same way I did with Newcastle a few months into our friendship. Maybe it’s a different kind of love. I don’t know.

I do know that I like having him around. This place was too quiet. Even after all this time, we’re still getting used to each other.

I have someone I can say inane things to and not be judged. I have someone to pet. I have someone to take care of. Those things mean a lot. It’s good to share this space with something alive.

My mother thinks that Newcastle, in cat heaven, sent Oscar to me so I wouldn’t be alone. That’s a really good thought, and I like thinking it.

Playgrounds New and Old

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When Kate and I first moved to the DMV area, we lived in Alexandria. I liked Alexandria because it was a quick Metro ride to DC proper, and it was a big enough city of its own. After we returned from Doha, she made the unilateral decision to move us even farther from the District, and I had no reason to go to Alexandria anymore.

If you’re pondering Alexandria, you might think of it as the home of the best sushi in the world. You might think about the other Washington Monument erected by the Masons. You might think of how the Revolutionary War was planned in a pub there (which explains a lot). That pub, still serving ale, is in Old Town.

The spring following my return to the area in, my friends, Steve and Mere, joined me as we ducked in and out of the quaint shops that line the walk from the Metro station to the Waterfront, about a mile and a half. We explored an interlinking series of cemeteries, as well as the Torpedo Factory (more on this later)

It took six years to return, this time by myself. Even though I’m working on a project this weekend, I wanted to enjoy the weather and crank out a few portraits in a spot where I’d see a lot of tourists. That place was ESP, which stands for Espresso, Snacks, and Pie. I had neither snacks, nor pie, but I did enjoy an Americano, along with a sticker. Every store and café in Old Town sold stickers.

I occupied myself with my weekend project because there was only one interesting person. There was also a deeply plunging neckline, but I only observed that through my strained periphery.

Later, with one eye on my sketchbook and one eye on foot traffic, I spied an older woman, her hair long and wild, looking as if she were going to tear that hair out. To my horror, she approached me, out of breath and panted, “I know you probably can’t help me because you’re a man, but I’m going to ask anyway.”

My mind struggled against this torrent of twitchy desperation like someone walking against a hurricane.

“Are you ready?” she demanded.

No. “Yes.”

“Do you know Call Your Momma?”

I sat there, and a number of thoughts rattled through my skull. Did she want me to call my mother? Was she talking about the bagel sandwich chain Call Your Mother? That would make the most sense. And yet. What was it about being a man that would handicap me from knowing a bagel shop’s location? It didn’t matter because I had no idea where it was. Just like a man.

It took about twelve seconds to put all of this together into one coherent thought, while she waited for my answer, quivering in impatience. “Sorry,” I replied, “I don’t live here.”

She stormed away, shouting over her shoulder, “Of course you wouldn’t know! You’re a man!”

Despite being the victim of misandry, my journey of nostalgia went on. I loved coming here when I was younger. But so much had changed. The only comic-book store in Alexandria is now a spa. The coffee-and-pastry place we liked to go to is an empty, gutted building.

One thing hadn’t changed: the Christian bookstore and the sex boutique are still there…

… separated by a tiny Thai restaurant.

That restaurant is a hero.

Eventually I arrived at the Waterfront. When I lived here, this was a parking lot. Now it’s families enjoying their freedom from the latest cold snap.

The reason I took the hour journey, which included two trains and a twenty-minute walk, was the Torpedo Factory. It was once a literal torpedo factory, and now it serves as studios and shopfronts for over a hundred artists.

I was able to make it through the whole building in a short amount of time because most of the studios were closed. A lot of the open ones sold jewelry, which I am not interested in. A lot of the remaining was just not my style. And yet, even though my interests were whittled down to such a small percentage, I saw a lot of great art Saturday.

I have an expensive philosophy when I go to art fairs: if you talk to me about your shit, I will buy something from you. All you have to do to start such a conversation is say hi. You’d be amazed at how many artists don’t get this.

I had four good conversations, and I bought something from three of them. (The fourth was out of my price range, but he gave me a post card.) My longest conversation, however, was not with an artist. It was the hippy at the art store was very chatty.

As soon as I walked in, she asked, “How’s your last day before martial law?”

I asked her why Easter, and she laid out a pretty good case. She also pointed out it was Hitler’s birthday, which was less convincing. We talked more about a lot of stuff while she flipped through my portrait sketchbook and observed that I must be straight. She thinks asexuality is hormones. She is also an atheist, a bit more militant than I.

Ordinarily, I don’t like to talk about politics. It makes me sick to my stomach, and it doesn’t fix the world. For some reason, Candace made it easy to vent. She then assured me that Trump’s days are numbered. She says that the Republican party will impeach him in a few months, July at the latest.

She’s never wrong about these things because she can see the future. She wasn’t talking about any of this “woo-woo shit.” She had a talent for pattern-recognition. Take her word for it.

I enjoyed chatting with her, but I wanted to find a table in the Waterfront and work on some more art. I saw two more interesting people, who I planning on drawing when I’m done with my project. Enriched, I journeyed home.

When people say you can’t go home again, it’s usually with regret and heartbreaking nostalgia. I certainly felt it today. However, nobody talks about the new, exciting stuff that replaces our old loves. Time moves on, nothing’s ever the same, and that’s how life stays fresh.

Harry Potter and the Miserable C-word

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I’m asexual. Many people, including close friends, don’t believe this. They see the fact that I like to draw sexy women as proof I’m not. They see that I’d had sex before with different partners as proof I’m not. Characters in my novels are often quite horny, which is proof I’m not. Some simply don’t believe asexuality exists. Maybe it’s a hormone issue. Maybe somebody hurt me. Maybe I just haven’t met the right person. Maybe I just have a headache.

I wrote and erased a point-by-point rebuttal to these because this is not about me, but it’s still very personal.

April 6 is Asexuality Awareness Day. This is a fairly new role for April 6, and I didn’t even know about it until this happened. JK Rowling knew, and she put out a snarky tweet. I considered posting an image of that tweet, but I didn’t want to google it. It basically says that it’s a day so people who don’t “fancy a shag” get to feel oppressed.

Fuck you, Joanne, we are oppressed. Google “acephobia” to see. There are conversions and
“corrective” rapes, as well as just straight-up violence. Did you know that the word “groomer,” so crucial to the stigmatization of Trans people, became popular describing aces? Apparently, we’re trying to indoctrinate children, when we just want to be left alone. Like Trans people.

The reason you don’t hear about acephobia is because we are, I believe, the smallest subset of the LGBT+ umbrella (if we’re included at all—that’s a gray area), and there are no legal protections for us. Currently, there are no pogroms directed against asexuals, but that could change soon.

Why should the government care who you have sex with? If you ask that question, you clearly did not live in the eighties and nineties, before gay people are such a part of society that even bigot Joanne Rowling (barely) supports them. No, the government is obsessed with who you have sex with.

When I first saw the tweet ten days ago, I thought she was just being a bitch. She is, after all, a bitch, and bitches do bitchy things. But the responses were increasingly unhinged, agreeing with her, denying we existed, telling us how we can be cured, or just threatening rape. Any time an ace stepped in to challenge this, Joanne herself mocked and dismissed them.

Trans people are under attack, and it will escalate even more as soon as the people who voted for Trump (i.e. most of the country) run out of immigrants to terrorize. Transphobia is not new, but it could be argued that JK Rowling made it mainstream. They can talk about how scared they are of men in dresses using the ladies room, but they’re not in any danger. And they know it. Trans people are a weak minority, and nobody’s going to stand up for them while they’re being harassed by the people who are supposed to protect them.

And now she’s coming for the asexuals. Like all fascists, she’s picking on a target that can’t fight back, and she’s raising the profile of us, mocking us then making us out to be a threat somehow. This will escalate.

I can blend into the allosexual world if I want to, but I don’t want to. I am fairly outspoken about being ace, and I intend to stay that way, even facing down the barrel of a gun.

Here’s the thing: Harry Potter is fine. I am not going to talk about how badly written it is (the word I’d use is competent, and leave it at that) or say I knew how problematic it was the whole time. There’s some good stuff in there, but much of it could be found, and presented better, in any Terry Pratchett novel. I’ve read all seven books and seen all the movies. I even think of myself as a Hufflepuff (without all the hard work stuff).

Lately, I’ve been forced to consider “The Death of the Author,” in which an author can be separated from their work. This is important when the artist behaves badly, as in the case of literary giant Neil Gaiman, and my favorite comic book writer, Warren Ellis, as well as comedians Bill Cosby and Dave Chapelle. So much of what I know about storytelling comes from these men, but I can’t separate the hate speech and rape.

Harry Potter fans with an inkling of a conscience use “The Death of the Author” as an excuse for putting on their Gryffindor scarfs and playing Quiddich, despite that the creator of this nonsensical sport is hateful and petty. She is the richest author, ever, and she wants Trans people in prisons, if not dead, for the sin of existing. And now the eye has turned to me.

Maybe they won’t come after asexuals. Maybe they won’t inspect my penis to make sure it’s being used properly. Maybe they won’t try to convert me. But American citizens are being sent to foreign countries to be imprisoned in hellish conditions. Trans people are being attacked by endless legislation. Gay teens are still being tortured legally.

Don’t tell me I’m overreacting. Don’t say it can’t happen. It is happening. You may not know any Trans people, but they’re still people, and you should care. It always starts small, with a little mocking and dismissal, and the next thing you know, you’re public enemy number one. And it looks like I’m next. You might be next.

In conclusion, if you’re a Harry Potter fan, I urge you to reconsider. I get that it’s part of your childhood, but Sandman was a crucial part of my life, and I’ve boxed it up and put it in the corner of my closet, along with my autographed copy of Norse Myths.

You are not your entertainment. You are a human being, and we need to look out for each other. If I can kick Neil Gaiman and Warren Ellis and all of my favorite books and comics to the curb out of solidarity to women, you can kick Harry Potter and the Insufferable Monster to the curb too, out of solidarity to Trans people, and hopefully not asexuals.

Late Bloomer

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I tried to catch the tail end of the Cherry Blossom festival today, but I missed all the flowers but a small patch away from the water. I was taking pictures of them when three women in their fifties asked me to take their picture. When I handed Woman 1’s phone back, she said:

WOMAN 1: Thank you, sir. Now, are you an expert on cherries?

ME: No, I don’t believe I am.

WOMAN 1:  I thought maybe these were a special kind of cherry tree that doesn’t have any cherries. Are they a special kind of cherry tree that doesn’t have cherries?

ME: I—

WOMAN 1: Have you been to the tidal basin? Are there cherries?

ME: N—

WOMAN 2: Where are my cherries!

WOMAN 1: He says these are special cherry trees that don’t have cherries.

WOMAN 2: Is he an expert on cherries?

ME: I live here, and I’ve never seen cherries.

WOMAN 2: It’s cold!

ME: You should have been here last week. I thought I didn’t have to wear socks anymore.

WOMAN 1: We’ve been here four days.

WOMAN 2: It’s too damned cold!

WOMAN 3: Nice to meet you!

Grave Matters

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I woke up directionless On Saturday. I wanted to draw, but nothing was coming to me. You can imagine what a relief it was when one of the most influential people from college shared with me his very good artwork. Dude’s got an eye for color and chaos. We chatted all morning, mostly about philosophy—not like two guys in togas, but rather about the decisions and circumstances that led to where we are. I picked up a lot of insight into my friend and into myself.

I wanted a café near the Metro so I could hop the train over to Union Station and see if Ember was around. I settled on Ididos, nearish to the Metro station, and would leave when I was good and ready.

Just as I was about to eat what I knew was going to be a fantastic, Ethiopian breakfast sandwich, my phone made a noise. It was an unusual noise. It was telling me I was getting a phone call. The only people who call me are the robots at the pharmacy, so I pulled it out of my pocket with sweaty hands.

The caller ID told me it one of the most influential people from New York. Immediately my mind said, “I can’t lose another one.”

There is nothing wrong with my friend. She was checking in because she had some precious, precious time, and she thought she’d spend some of it on me. She was such an amazing friend because she was a hilarious and filthy (and really professional) degenerate, and she was also the most loyal, sincere, protective, Mama B you’ll ever meet.

Energized by my friends and the four golf caps I saw, across all demographics, I decided not to go looking for Ember. Instead, I walked south. It was miles to the next station, and I had no idea how I was getting back home, but I didn’t care.

That’s how I stumbled onto Rock Creek Cemetery. I had been there in 2011 with a friend, seeking out Clover Adams’s grave. I remember how haunting it was. While I was in the neighborhood, directionless, I thought I’d find it again.

Clover is how Marian Adams was known to everybody. In the late 1800s, she was married to famous writer named Henry Adams, and they lived in Washington D.C., near the White House. She was a prolific photographer, and, by all accounts, their marriage was a happy one. However, after her father died, Clover sank into a deep depression and drank a lethal amount of photo-developing chemicals.

When I first heard this story, I was reminded how my then-father-in-law coped with his wife’s death. He purged every photograph with her in it, every tchotchke she collected. He even remodeled the family into something completely unrecognizable. Likewise, Henry burned her letters and photographs. Neither Henry nor my former father-in-law ever spoke of their first wives again.

Her burial was ostentatious. He hired celebrated architect Stanford White to design a memorial to mark Clover’s grave. There is a grove of trees with steps leading into the center. There you’ll find a large, curved marble bench that could seat six comfortably. Across the expanse marked by small, tumbled stones, sits Grief.

The full name of the statue is The Mystery of the Hereafter and the Peace of God that Passeth Understanding, by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. The newspapers saw that title and said, “We’re going to call it Grief.” The subject of the statue is not Clover Adams. It’s neither male nor female. Its only purpose is to mourn because Henry couldn’t.

As a skeptic, I can’t explain the vibe of that place. It was sad, but it was also kind of frightening, requiring me to push through a lot of fear to get that close-up. Then I did the unthinkable. I stuck around with my sketchbook. I’m going to put a lot of time and care into this one.

Henry Adams built an actual monument on top of the final remains of his beloved wife. Her name is nowhere to be found.

A Tale of Two Baristas

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I’m a very boring person. It can take a crane to get me out of my apartment. If it’s raining, forget about it. I’m living in a working retirement, so I’m making the most of my time.

Ordinarily, my day goes breakfast, hygiene, art (or draw on the train and for an hour before doing my job), then work in the morning, veg out in the afternoon and write in the evening. On the weekends, instead of working in the morning, I go to a coffee house.

This weekend in particular, I mostly lavished my attention on an ambitious art project, but I also wrote two thousand words of a new short story, and on Saturday, I had an outing. I went to my new favorite café, Ididos, my now-second-favorite café, Kaldi, and stopped at the art supply store for an art emergency. I came home, began this very post, and looked over my proofs.

The reason I don’t think of myself as a boring person is because I see every inconvenience as an insurmountable obstacle, every irritation a test of my moral character. Every time I get lost, I’m exploring a new territory, and my walk home from work is a journey. It’s how I keep myself from going insane.

My outing for this week was to hang out in Kaldi, because it was close to an art store. I had to go to the art store because either Oscar or myself lost my eraser. If you’ve tracked my artistic progress over the past two years, you know it took a while to pair with the best eraser for Jeremiah. This could not wait until I could visit to the one around the corner from work. This was urgent.

I raced to catch the first train to Maryland, which I thought was 7:15, but was actually 7:45. I was not waiting thirty-plus minutes in the station. But if I went home, I would immediately have to turn back around and take the uphill walk to the station. Basically, if I went home, I was staying there.

I strategized and concluded that I’d go to my Ididos and make the art store a tomorrow problem. From the Metro station, I was halfway there anyway. I ordered an egg sandwich, an iced coffee, and a berry beet smoothie, some of which smeared a page of my sketchbook.

I first discovered Ididos last Wednesday, so I was unprepared for the weekend crowd. They were Elder Millennials, and they looked like they were handling the economy just fine. Most of them were hauling babies around in papooses, except for the dad who hauled around a small Scottish Terrier. There were anywhere between three and forty-seven more mobile children, demanding the attention of parents who ignored them.

And let me tell you, I was fucking awesome. I did not get overwhelmed, I did not get frustrated, I did not get infuriated. At worst, I was annoyed, because I knew with conviction that this would end. I drew the barista and left when I started feeling antsy-in-my-pantsy.

Energized, I caught the train to Maryland, sat at the counter in Kaldi, enjoyed another fantastic smoothie (among its diverse ingredients were pineapple, ginger, and turmeric), and drew a barista, who was very different than the last one.

I was not feeling overwhelmed, like I often did during my outings, so I finished my drawings. However, while I was self-bussing, I realized my belt was malfunctioning, and I was about two steps away from my pants being around my ankles. I deposited my empty glasse, grabbed onto my pants, and walked, with dignity, to the men’s room.

That was not the most awkward thing to happen to me today.

The art store was not awkward. The art store lady did not look happy to be there. When I asked her to open the marker cage, she hemmed and hawed and rolled her eyes. I bought my eraser and the markers and left, to stand on the aboveground Metro platform while an older woman announced, with gusto, that Jesus allowed horrible things to happen to him four our benefit, and maybe she should be grateful for something for once in our lives. When the train arrived, she had the car to herself.

The first thing I noticed after I settled in was that the big, balding dork was reading a physical book. Point to the nerd. Then I noticed it was a Dungeons and Dragons monster manual, and he won all the points.

You know what? I was going to tell him. I was making it my mission to complement people more, so I tried to catch his eye and give him a thumbs up. This was the extent of interaction I wanted to have with anyone at that point. I’d had a long morning.

No luck. He was deep inside that manual. He was memorizing it. When the train pulled into the station, I was going to step outside my comfort zone. I was going to use my words. The best part was that I had timed this perfectly. I could say, “Good job!” then jump off the train before it got awkward.

I waved at him. I stepped closer and waved again. He looked up, and I said, “Hi! Dungeons and Dragons is awesome! Let your geek flag fly, man! You’re awesome!” I even gave him a thumbs up.

He pulled his earbuds out and said, “What?”

I went through the whole thing again, without as much passion. He told me was going through the new edition to see what’s different from the last one. I told him I wasn’t up to date, and he said, “I know. It’s pointless.”

And a hush fell over the car. I suddenly realized the door hadn’t opened yet. I wasn’t going anywhere. I had no idea what to say after that. How do you follow, “It’s pointless”? And the door still hadn’t opened!

It did, and I rushed to the escalator so I could walk down the stops, but a Maryland-bound train had also arrived, so it was a full platform. As I navigated the agreed-upon flow of foot traffic, I realized, to my horror, that D&D guy was behind me. The escalator was clogged, so I had to ride it. With him on the step behind me. I lost him at the turnstiles.

Tuesday, when they’ll ask me what I did over the weekend, I will tell them, “Went to the art store. Worked on my art.” No wonder people think I’m boring.

Pi in your Face

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I’m a little more lighthearted today, because it is Pi Day. Pi, as you might remember from geometry, is a less-than-rational number, calculated by assuming the cosine of circumgourds to the numfloppens and divining them with the abacusometers, before estimating a riff based on the interginalist figure to the nearest taurudite.

The first three digits that result are 3.14. After that, it’s sheer madness. Apparently, there are human beings out there who can recite it to hundreds of digits because they have something broken in their brains.

14 March, or 3/14 to normal people, is considered Pi Day, when we, as a world, stare in awe at this number, stretching off into infinity. And then we get bored and eat some pie.

That is not why I am celebrating 14 March. I’m celebrating 14 March because of Stephen’s birthday.

The first time I visited Kate in Indiana, I met Steve. The most notable thing about Steve was that he had panache. He was a dork. He knew he was a dork. And he strutted around like Tobey MacGuire in Spider-Man 3. I was dying to be his friend.

By the time I had moved to Bloomington, he had moved onto Cornell with his future wife, Meredith. After law school, they relocated to Alexandria, Virginia, shortly before we moved there. Steve and Meredith helped me feel welcome in a place that was otherwise confusing and lonely.

The first thing you must know about Steve is that he’s always right. If something doesn’t jive, he makes it known. He has a brain the size of a planet, so he probably is right, but if you contradict him, he will give you the benefit of the doubt. He won’t rule anything out if you have evidence. If you don’t know something that is in his wheelhouse, he will tell you. If he doesn’t know, he’ll look it up.

Steve nitpicks like a professional. He pointed out all the flaws in an episode of Justice League as we watched it to the point that the only thing left of the DVD was a smoldering puddle of plastic. When we put in GI Joe: Resolute, and he couldn’t find a single thing wrong with it, I knew I found a new classic.

Somehow, and I’m not sure how, he beta-read one of my Urban Fantasy short stories and returned with a scathing indictment. Some of his criticisms were spot on, and some of them completely missed the point of the story (which means I probably didn’t communicate it as effectively as I could have). Too late, because it got published as is. Suck it, Poindexter.

Steve is also one of the most inviting, attentive, and loyal people I know. I had pushed away all of my friends when I was married, and all the couple friends I’d made disappeared when the marriage was over. Steve, however, assured me he and Meredith weren’t going anywhere, and they took me out to dinner the night I got the news.

Steve laughs at all my jokes. All of them. And on the rare occasion that he doesn’t find it funny, it’s because he doesn’t get it. When I explain it, he laughs. As a nitpicker, his expertise would be greatly appreciated on my latest novel because I think I might have something here. If I don’t, or if something’s not working, he will not hesitate to let me know.

Steve is vibrant, curious, generous, goofy, a little smug, and can beat you to death with a stick. If anyone can and will tell me the technical differences between barrister and lawyer in more than just the Atlantic Ocean, it’s him. I’m honored to be his friend.

Busy Being Dizzy

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I’m not going to list everything I did today, suffice it to say, at one point, I crawled under my bed with a broom because somehow Oscar got kitty litter under all of my suitcases.

I’m back on the time-release stimulant, and I have so much freaking energy right now. It’s got me concerned because it feels manic, but my thoughts aren’t racing, and I’m not irritable. I did have to tell the woman at the cafe I discovered this morning how awesome their place is, which is not typical for me.

I go back to work tomorrow, and I have no idea what to expect. I’ve got 74 emails in my personal inbox, but the staff has been working to cover for me for everything else. They didn’t need my help in my absence, and that kind of makes me feel unloved.

That’s just tasks. I don’t know how I will be in an office. The headaches are ongoing and a little more frequent, even as I’ve been back on Vyvanse, so it’s not withdrawal, as my doctor suspects. I’m incredibly calm, focused, and productive, so maybe it’s not the mania.

I don’t feel out of the woods yet, but I have a life, and I need to return to it.

In the meantime, here’s an actual photo of me being manic.

Psycho Killer, Que L’Enfer?

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A common trigger for manic episodes is a sleep disruption. Starting with tech week, I’d been going to sleep three-to-four hours after my bedtime. I’d wake up at my normal hour, which is ungodly, feed Oscar, and start my day. I was tired at work, but otherwise functioning. Then the manic episode kicked in.

My doctor prescribed a medication he described as a “sledgehammer,” which I was looking forward to, but no pharmacy had it. To be fair, there are hundreds of pharmacies in town, and I only called eleven, but I sensed a pattern. He even called his ace-in-the-hole drugstore, and they didn’t have it.

His solution was to prescribe another antipsychotic for my first night, this one like “a sledgehammer, but heavier,” which I couldn’t wait to try. That night, I went to the theater, regretted some things I said, and looked forward to one more evening of that. I took an Uber home, welcomed the sledgehammer, and curled up in bed.

I woke up at my usual time Friday morning to feed the cat, then I went back to bed for three hours. I was sluggish most of the day and took a lot of naps. Since I had to leave early the night before, due to being overwhelmed (which I described as “sick”), Monique texted me and told me not to come in that night, but rather for closing Saturday. I said, “Thank you,” and I took another nap. I fell asleep at six p.m. and woke up at my normal time.

I felt like a zombie all day Saturday, and all I wanted to do was lie in bed. I’d sit at my desk, look at a partial sketch, strategize, then lie back down. To shake some of the rust off, I explored my parking garage, and the next day, I went looking for Fort Totten Park, which is on the map, but is hard to get to. Turns out, there is no park there, only a conservatory. I did find a park, but it was more of a memorial next to an endless expansive of community gardens.

Feeling slow, I braced myself to go to St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, where Maddie was already there to do all the work. I was needed to help with strike, and to make an appearance at the cast party.

From the opening trumpet of act one, I had an excruciating headache—not a migraine, but a cousin at the least. Maddie found me two Tylenol, and I stuck it out. Somehow, after the final bow, I found myself wrapping up running lights and removing their gaffer tape, while also getting electrocuted. This did not give me superpowers.

I did another awkward thing, where my brain was shouting, “Abort!” but my mouth kept going. It’s surreal. I used shrooms on Shane’s birthday, and I hated it. But it’s nothing compared to what I’ve been going through. But, yes, I told Elizabeth she was “Really cool,” and I didn’t exit so as to avoid creepiness. She was gracious, but I can only assume she was uncomfortable.

By the time I finished with the gaffer tape, most of the work was done, and they didn’t need my help with anything. I still had the headache, so I sat in the changing room and physically held my head back from exploding. I was about to leave when I noticed a gift bag with my name on it. Even though they’d understand, I would feel rude if I left without it. Also, I wanted to know what was in the bags.

The mushroom is baffling, but greatly appreciated. Monique said she’d be in touch, and I’ve been talking to some of the producers about donating some art to future shows. The problem is, if this sleep situation led to my psychotic break, like I suspect, I won’t be able to go out and play like I want to.

After all the gifts were given out, I hired an Uber, which smelled of stale weed. So I did what I’ve been doing since I had my first meltdown: just grabbed onto the “Oh Shit handle” and just let it happen.

Manic Panic

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As you know, I’m bipolar, specifically, bipolar 2. That means I’m depressed more often than I’m anything else, leading to misdiagnoses of clinical depression. I have been on all the depression drugs, from Abilify to Zoloft, which has led to discussions that go like great scene in Silver Linings Playbook where Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence discuss the medications they’ve tried the same way Comic book fans talk about their stashes. What I’m trying to say is that I have lived my entire adult being miserable, except for brief breaks where I’m actually myself, or I’m hypomanic. 

Being hypomanic can be a lot of fun. It’s like having a couple of drinks, and you’re funnier, better looking, and more charming. I’m pretty sure every woman who’s fallen in love with me has done so when I’m hypomanic.

Also, I’m irritable and downright angry. I can’t stop talking, and I’m grandiose. I regret so much of what I do when I’m manic. There is a member of my pantheon of fictional characters who is based on my mania. His name is Max. (Same first two letters—see what I did there?)  Max is an asshole. When I’m hypomanic, I become an asshole.

I spent the least amount of time being normal, and it was tough to tell if anyone actually liked the real me. I wondered how I could be an asshole a third of my adult life without actually being an asshole. Or if I spent six months miserable, did that mean I was just miserable?

Fifteen years ago, my brilliant doctor and I figured it out. It wasn’t some sudden eureka moment. (DOCTOR: “It’s a great day to come to the zoo and see a polar bear … wait. Polar! That’s it!”) He isn’t House. He’s actually like this guy I met in North Jersey who used to hang out with my Uncle Larry. But I digress. It took months of experimentation and patience for us to reach an accurate diagnose because psychiatry isn’t a science, it’s art.

We found a cocktail that worked. I know it worked because I went to bed depressed one night, and I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed, but not manic. I was myself, and I’ve been myself since 2017. The downside is that, when you’re on enough lithium, your emotions are muffled. I’m like a cruise ship: when the waves slam into me, I may tip for a second (I have a bad temper), but I return to normal pretty quickly. This may be one of the reasons Kate divorced me.

There have been a number speed bumps along the way.

Sometimes, when you have a mental illness, and you are relying on drugs to function, they stop working. You have to start from scratch. It happened to me in 2015, and took over a year to right myself. I brush my teeth, get ready for work, work, come home and pet my cat, write and draw, make dinner, and go to bed, all the time being aware this will happen again.

Sometimes, I’ll get hypo-depressed, where I can’t sleep, but it’s all I want to do. It doesn’t make me feel sad and worthless, but I experience a lot of the physical symptoms, like aching joints.

Sometimes, I’ll get hypo-hypomanic, which is the good parts plus some crankiness.

I don’t tell my doctor about either of these because I don’t want to mess with my medication. We have been polishing this cocktail for years, and I’m afraid to live without it. Also, if I’m being perfectly honest, it’s kind of nice to be hypo-hypomanic.

Otherwise, the real me is a hermit, and I haven’t made any long-term friends for a very long time. When I’m hypomanic, the relationships may last minutes, but they’re life-changing.

Weeks ago, when I started getting involved with the community theater and having great conversations, and meeting protestors and hanging out, I wrote ten long blog entries over two weeks. I was clearly hypomanic. I hesitated to call my doctor because I was enjoying myself. It’s so easy to go from manic to depressed, and I didn’t want to rush that.

I melted down at work on a Thursday, and again the following Wednesday. I missed a train and screamed “Fuck!” in a crowded platform. I feel like a cat on stilts. If the internet cuts out, even for a minute, I’m going to throw my laptop out the window.

I called my doctor, and he prescribed me an emergency supply of an antipsychotic to keep me calm and he helped me sleep. He told me to take the next week off work and to stay home and sleep as much as I can. I’m need to lay off my ADHD medication because it’s all stimulants, as well as the devil weed, which is a mild hallucinogen, and it would stimulate me. I am to stay in my apartment with two exceptions:

One exception is my commitment to the St. Mark’s Players. After a long Day One under house arrest, I had to pull myself together and be around other people when I keep losing control over myself.

For example, I was pleasantly surprised to see my favorite eccentric, platinum blonde theater volunteer, Elizabeth. She remembered me and was genuinely excited when she caught my attention. I said, “You look great! Really great!” She assured me it was just work clothes, but I reiterated how great she looked. And she did, but still.

I did not want to do that. She is half my age. Even though my motives are pure, and I genuinely wanted to compliment her, there are rules, and I was stepping over them. My body wanted to keep talking, but I tried to reel me in, resulting in words that sounded backwards. It happened again when I was trying to give directions to my favorite bar in New York, which is probably not there anymore.

I had two more conversations like this at the theater. On top of that, I had to call eleven pharmacists earlier to find the antipsychotic he prescribed, but I still couldn’t find it. I was an asshole to every one of them. I didn’t want to be, but I was. I was telling my mouth what to say, and my mouth was being a real dick about it.

That’s just words. I want to assault people for moving too slowly. I want to beat my desk to death with my ergonomic chair. I am holding myself together with all the energy I have. As I told my boss after my second meltdown, that was me holding myself together.

I don’t have control over my own body. This has been my constant thought since my first meltdown. What happens when I have low blood sugar, and I can’t keep it contained? What happens when I stub my toe, and the bad me gets loose? And there’s nothing to stop my mouth from saying something it shouldn’t. I can’t even regulate my thoughts.

I can see treating this creepy asshole as a separate person, like the Hulk. But it’s not. It’s my voice. It’s my body. It’s my mind. Unlike a cranky Bruce Banner, I don’t get to black out when I’m being destructive. I have to watch myself do it and live with the consequences.

I have to go out to St. Mark’s Episcopal Church again tonight, with all those people, and Elizabeth (who, at least, didn’t act creeped out the rest of the night), and maybe something that’s going to set me off.

I don’t know what I’m going to do or when I’m going to do it, but I’m awaiting this next fuckup, as I have been for over a week. I’m scared. I’m in an ongoing state of vigilance, and I’m so, so tired.