Tag Archives: mental health

The Revenge of the Tryptophan

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Thanksgiving, while my hosts were occupied, their five-year-old daughter found me, first thing when she got out of bed.

It had to do with the watercolors I had given her and her eight-year-old brother the day before, to the soundtrack of Spaceballs. He wasn’t as moved, but she taught herself how to use them because she was smart enough. Remember, she’s five. She doesn’t understand most of the words that come out of my mouth, and she has the grace, precision, and attention-span of a concussed monkey on mushrooms. She wasn’t afraid to ask for help, though.

Meanwhile, I was painting a self-portrait for my new sketchbook. She found this fascinating, not as fascinating as what she was working on, but fascinating indeed. She handed me the sheet of watercolor paper and told me to draw a picture to paint. I told her I would, first thing in the morning, and Her Majesty deemed this acceptable.

When I asked, she told me she wanted a portrait of herself and her Chihuahua, Wendy, who looks like she just drank two Red Bulls and swallowed 100 milligrams of Adderall. Before everybody else awoke, I sketched away while Owlman gave me some pointers.

She was delighted by my work, and I took a photo of it before it was defaced.

She was so excited, she scrambled all over her house to show Mommy and Daddy. Daddy was working, and Mommy was not feeling great, but they both appreciated my staggering genius.

As I prepared myself to talk her through the process, she disappeared for a few minutes, returning with a deck of Uno, a game she loved. She instructed me on the intricacies of the game, but I’m don’t think some the rules were regulation. When I won best out of three, she didn’t like Uno anymore. Next, she showed me a game called Sleeping Queens, and I’m pretty sure she cheated.

Next, she wanted to paint my picture. I critiqued and encouraged her, but she was horrified by the smear of blue paint she put there. I suggested it might be a magical portal. She added in her reaction, and maybe there should be a tree in the background, and told me she was going to write this down, followed shortly by, “Jeremiah, I can’t write. I’m five.”

I asked her what her what her favorite color was. “My favorite color is gold with sparkles. My favorite color is pink. My favorite color is purple and orange, and blue. But it has to be a dark blue.” Luckily, I have a pink pen (and I’m confident in my masculinity).

I watched as she used her delicate brushstrokes to enhance my inspired lines. (Delicate brushwork below).

She had planned on composing an intricate background, but after finishing the tree, she took me outside to play on her tree swing in her pajamas, and then hide-and-seek.

This one was challenging for me because here aren’t a lot of places for a man my size to hide. I told her this and pointed out that it took her six seconds to count to ten. Graciously, would count to thirty from then on, and she also gave me tips for places to hide, such as Rock Taco in the distance.

Rock Taco is what you might expect if you’re thinking about a rock taco. Getting on all fours, she soiled her pajamas. To hide, I would have to lay down on the mud and the decayed leaves. She took me on a sweep of the perimeter of her two-acre backyard, twice, her armed with a tree-branch sword to keep the thorns at bay.

She had explained that we would take another circuit, which I sighed and accepted. Instead, she asked me to help her gather acorns for the squirrels, then she wanted to show me her favorite climbing tree. My knees and back ached watching her perform her best tricks. “This is the easy one. It’s really hard.” Finally, we came back inside, and I went to talk to my family for the holiday, only my mic wasn’t working. When that was over, I laid down on the bed and woke up an hour later. Downstairs, she waited for me because she made me a bracelet.

Actually, she made it before I came. I love wearing bracelets, so I am honored to be wearing one of her fine pieces. We beaded for a while, but the string we were working with was too thick for most of them. Usually, that kind of frustration would make me flip the coffee table—her too—but we held it together. I think neither of us wanted to embarrass ourselves in front of the other.

After that, guests started filtering in. The group were all related to the hostess, and the whole time, I had no idea who was related to whom. This morning, I had it explained to me. The hostess’s brother was here, as was his wife and twenty-year-old attitude problem. Also there was their mother, and her sister-in-law’s mother, who was spry, charming, and witty. I thought she was my dad’s age, but she’s ninety-three!

To help out, I took the overwhelmed little girl upstairs, where she could enjoy some well-deserved screen time. The rest of the evening was spent discussing non-alcoholic beer, which I enjoyed for the first time (note: I did not say “consumed for the first time”), New Mexico, the intrusion of algorithms into our lives, Teslas and Cybertrucks, and politics. The latter was delightful because all of us agreed, as in everyone at the table had the same views.

As the weight of the off-Broadway-style food took hold, and the other guests left, desperate to get home before they lapsed into comas left.

The girl was too tired to sleep, but a soft pillow fixed that. Mommy and Daddy, who both had a tough day, settled in for the night. As for me, I barely got into my pajamas.

Today Is a Great Day

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Of everything I saw, there is one thing about that morning I can never forget: the weather was perfect.  The summer had been difficult for me. I lost my job, and I had sunk into a deep depression, and my relationship with Andrea was getting rocky. The weather was full of peace, the sky was blue, and the leaves were still green. My step picked up a spring. I sat down at my desk and stuffed envelopes with energy and panache. That day started out so full of hope.

They Say It’s your Birthday

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I don’t like to make a big deal of my birthday, but I still have three iron-clad rules:

  1. I will have finished a self-portrait and summed up the previous year in one word.
  2. I will take the day off from work and from doing anything I don’t want to do.
  3. I will eat cake.

Here’s the thing with cake and myself: neither of my parents were chefs. The food wasn’t terrible, but, they managed to collapse a Betty Crocker recipe every year. We called them Charlie Brown cakes, and I wish I could have one again.

Monday, I posted my portrait, I shuffled around my apartment, nowhere to be, and I had some cake. The rest of the day, I worked on my project. My friend Emily tells me people-watching is addictive, and I’m inclined to believe her. I needed my fix.

Luckily, I had accepted an invitation to the Blood Editors’ Retreat Dinner. The choice of cuisine meant I was having Indian food on my birthday, and I wasn’t paying for it, so happy birthday to me. The best part was that they served entrees tapas-style for sharing. Usually, I just order Tikki Masala (the Official Dish of England), but this dinner introduced me through so many exciting new dishes.

I took my seat at the end of the table, and the two people closest to me were Dr. Mario, an Italian, and Dr. Erica, from Australia. Dr. Mario’s accent was very thick, and the room was so loud as editors caught up and had a good time that I struggled to understand. He is from Pavia, which I’ve heard of, probably through Shakespeare.

Dr. Mario was very interested in where I’m from. I usually tell people I was raised in New Mexico and leave it at that. But that skips over Nebraska, Indiana, New York adjacent, Oklahoma, and Central Jersey, Qatar, etc. I stuck with the Southwest, and he told me how much he loved Ansel Adams.

I’m not entirely sure why I went off on a rant about Italian drivers in the presence of Dr. Mario and the Editor-in-Chief, but I committed to it once I did. “These guys will drive up what are clearly pedestrian walkways,” I said, “where there is not an atom between the car and the wall.” If they were serious about catching Vin Diesel, they’d send Italian cab drivers.

Dr. Erica did not want to talk about work, so she talked about me. These editors are academics and science writers, and they think fiction is magic. When Dr. Erica found out I’d written and (almost) published a novel, she had to tell everyone.

Blood publishes research papers, and when they find one that’s really good, they ask one of the peer reviewers to write a brief commentary on why the paper is worth reading. I tell you this to put some context into the following conversation, which took place among several accents.

“Which one of us is going to write the commentary for his novel then?”

“We can’t publish one in Blood without a hematology angle.”

“Jeremiah says it’s about a werewolf.”

“Do werewolves suck blood?”

“No, that’s vampires.”

“It’s a shame your book couldn’t be about vampires, Jeremiah.”

“Wait. Werewolves turn people into werewolves by biting them.”

“A pathogen then?”

“More of a transfusion.”

“I’m a transfusion specialist. I can write the commentary!”

I do have my limits, and I reached them shortly after the last course. I retreated home to enjoy a second slice of cake before curling up, while Oscar did the same, just out of arm’s reach.

Another Dad Idea

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I read this to my dad on the occasion of his eightieth birthday.

***

Edward “Murf” Murphy is a man who is not afraid to ask for directions. This alone says a lot about him. He doesn’t even need to ask directions to talk to strangers. Sometimes, it’s because they have Jersey plates. Sometimes, it’s because he has to tell someone something, and his family ran away while his back was turned. Sometimes, he’s just saying hi.

I don’t know much about my dad before I came along. He’s dropped hints about his past, like when he told me he’d been to jail more than I. He’s also writing his memories out for his kids, but it’s been a long time since the last chapter. Hurry it up, Dad—the clock’s ticking.

I’ve seen photos when I was very little, and my dad was a cool guy, with his hat and shades and an aversion to shirts. He had the bare minimum of fucks to give, through fatherhood, the empty nest, and retirement.

He had no idea what he was doing, but he took to fatherhood with the same focus that he put into everything. He worked a number of jobs to support his family, my favorite being the pizza parlor. When I showed up, we were living hand-to-mouth. Thanks to Mom and Dad, we always had clothes and stuff to play with. We never went to bed hungry.

I didn’t always like my dad. Like all young adults, I disagreed with how much I should be allowed to do. I never appreciated just how much I was he was allowing me to do. The kids I was arrested with pitied me because my dad was a tyrant, and I had been sentenced to fifty-to-life. Even back then, at my most rebellious, I pitied them because their parents didn’t seem to care enough for discipline.

A big part of our difficulties was mental illness, setting in at a time when we didn’t know very much about it. Poor Dad, our primary caregiver, had no idea what was happening. It must have felt like he was losing his son. The more time I’ve spent learning about my illness, the more I understand how hard it must have been to live with me. Bipolar disorder has taken a lot from me, but my teen years with my dad, when I needed him the most, might have been the worst.

I know everything I know about comics because my dad is a big ol’ nerd, and I spent countless hours going through his collection of Marvel books from the seventies and eighties. One of my favorite childhood memories was when the girls were all out, and Dad let my buddy, Alex, and me watch Star Trek from the dinner table, feasting on spaghetti and meat sauce. It was the episode with the alien who looked exactly like a plate of spaghetti with meat sauce.

Dad was at the forefront of the personal computer, and he was a Mac guy before Macs were cool. He tried out exciting new software and games and learned how they worked. He eventually built his own. I remember how awestruck he was when he saw Uncle Ralph’s Museum of Obsolescence.

During that same visit out East, when Uncle Larry and I waited for him to show up, Larry stressed the importance of not letting Dad get bored. “When Murf is bored, things happen.” For example: the furniture in the living room getting reshuffled every few months.

There were the home improvement projects, like how he converted a carport into a toolshed using an old fence and some plywood. When he couldn’t fix something, he repurposed it, meaning he had one of the only junk drawers in the country that actually saw use.

Dad has a sense of whimsy, which didn’t show up more than it did with our vacations. Yes, we visited family, and yes, we did take a trip to Disneyland and Universal Studios each, but mostly we hit the roadside attractions. I know they were Dad’s idea because Mom wouldn’t have dragged us to Tombstone, Arizona.

I could go on about how stole the show in Gallup Community Theater, or volleyball, or his affinity for old, foreign, working-class cars, or how he always has a book with him because you never know when you’ll be waiting, or how he’ll smuggle in a bag of hard candy to the movies, how he never accepts violence as a solution. or how there is never any doubt that he loves us and will do anything to give us a better life.

My dad’s not like other dads, and for that I’m forever grateful.

Duke of Earl’s

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They say, “They say you can never go home again.” You can, but it’s complicated.

The last time my nuclear family got together was at my wedding in 2005, and my bride couldn’t get me away from them fast enough. Over the years, sibling has seen sibling, and kids have seen parents, but the five of us who grew up with each other in New Mexico in the eighties and nineties have not gathered.

It took some doing, but we finally arranged it so the five of us could get together to celebrate our parents’ fiftieth anniversary a month late, on May 6. That’s why I was sitting on a Southwestern flight next to a guy who looked like Ted Cruz’s head on a jacked mercenary’s body.

Picking up my reserved rental in the past had been an exercise in tedium and frustration. The last time took an hour of waiting in a line that didn’t move. This time took fifteen minutes, no line, and about five of those minutes were me waiting at the wrong lot.

I came to Gallup three years ago to work with Shane on a project, and I remember being tackled by nostalgia. This time, it was for the aesthetic of the state. I don’t think I noticed New Mexico like I did yesterday.

While I drove from Albuquerque, I was in awe of the sky, and of the pink and red and white landscape, covered by a lot more green than you’d expect from a desert. Layers of rock and fossilized animals jut out of the desert floor. Bridges span channels that had once been rivers. In the distance, the empty desert is dotted with houses far from civilization. Halfway to my old home is a lava bed miles and miles across. Even closer to my old home is Red Rock State Park, so named because there are rocks in it.

I arrived in Gallup, driving a car that literally drove itself on the interstate. Before I met my family, I stopped at the office supply store, Butler’s, for supplies. It took a long time to get out of there with my purchase because nobody is in any hurry to do anything in this town.

Gallup doesn’t have a bookstore, so imagine my surprise to find one in this privately owned Gallup landmark. The owner is a guy named Barry, whose name is on the building, and we discussed putting my book on their shelves. He can be difficult to talk to because he listens to you speak, waits, and gives you a look like you’re supposed to say something else. I babbled.

Finally I arrived at the house my sister rented for the reunion, the walls of which, like every vertical surface in the state, is covered in adobe. It was also without right angles, and with no clear direction as to where everyone’s room is. Stairs can go to nowhere. A tesseract is a shape that cannot exist in Euclidean space. This house is a tesseract.

I talk to my parents every other week, and through video chat, it’s not clear just how old they are. My mom moves slowly and is in a lot of pain. My dad’s still really spry, but he’s hunched over, and his hearing aids don’t ever seem to work. I spend a lot of time listening to him go, “Huh?”

With the addition of my niece, my niece’s stepfather, and my niece’s husband, there were now eight of us. As football was to the Kennedys, hanging out and talking about nothing is to my family. We did that for what turned out to be hours until we got hungry. That meant Earl’s.

Earl’s is a Gallup landmark on the east side of town. Earl’s is a diner like Johnny Rockets is a diner, which is to say it’s not, but it has characteristics of one. Earl’s has a brand. Earl’s is a family restaurant, not a joint where you hang with friends for hours. Earl’s was where Natives, usually adorable children, went table-to-table selling you jewelry. Earl’s was fine dining when I was growing up, and most of my happy memories in my adolescence were there.

I always remembered the place being crowded, the silhouettes of patrons framed by bright colors. I remember a unique entrance that made you feel like royalty. I remember the six-foot pie case to my right and the miles-long dining counter to my left. I remember the carpet. I hadn’t been there in twenty-seven years. What kind of facelifts had it been given in that time?

None. I could have been stepping in here on the eve of moving to New York in 1998.  

Lately, I’ve been taking pictures of buildings for references. For art and for nostalgia, I photographed Earl’s unique façade, as well as the sign that has remained unchanged for at least fifty years, even in the unforgiving desert sun. As I approached the restaurant, a shadowy, smoking figure called out, “Ya takin’ pitchers uh me? Ya better be takin’ pitchers uh everybody! Ha! Just kidding.”

I told him, “I grew up here. Earl’s is a big part of my life.”

“I know the owner!”

“Cool.” I attempted to retreat.

“He’s the son of the last owner.”

“Fascinating! Gotta eat!”

I escaped and joined my family of misfits, just in time to order. I used to love the patty melt, so that’s what I got. The good-natured, but direct, waiter, hit me with a barrage of questions. When I answered the last one (“Tater tots.”), the family chatted. I told stories, I made bizarre observations, and everybody related.

The food came, and it was time to eat. There were some things I was unprepared for. My brother-in-law, Shafiq, asked for a half-order of an Indian taco, and it was a slab. My niece, Sera, ordered a sandwich of some sort made with fresh frybread. My sister Becca ordered a mound of fries. My mother ordered the split-pea soup. She said it was very good.

I have no memory of this from my youth, but tater tots at Earl’s look like onion rings. They also served a small pile of sliced pickles next to a spear. The waiter explained, “Some people ask for sliced pickles, some people ask for spear pickles. Some people ask for both. Some people don’t want any pickle. Whatever, so we just gave them the pickles.” I’m a “don’t want,” but I appreciate the effort.

The waiter returned with the check, and I handed him a credit card. He said, “There’s a gratuity included, but if you can leave me more of a tip if you want to.” When he came back, I saw how inexpensive dinner for six was. He reminded me, “Like I said, there’s a gratuity included, but you can leave me cash, or you can fill it in right here.” That was about as aggressive as I’ve ever seen a server before, and I respected the hustle enough to persuade my family to leave him more.

He got an additional 20 percent, on top of the 18 from the gratuity.

Shafiq pointed out that we had stayed past closing, and we were keeping these people from their homes. Feeling awfully rude, we shuffled out. Despite this, though, our waiter ran out and caught up to us because Shafiq had forgot his food.

Today’s Dad’s birthday, and I have a speech prepared. I’m really nervous.

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.

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.

Whistling While I Work

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It was inevitable: I needed to return to the office. But first, my schedule: I wake up at four a.m. I know, I know. I catch the 5:15 train to Farragut North, followed by a four-block walk, a brief detour into the Wa-Wa for a breakfast sandwich, which for me is tuna salad on a croissant, and at my desk by 5:50. Take another five minutes to wake up the coffee machine (my ungrateful coworkers will never know what I have to endure being first in), and I have a solid hour to draw, not a minute wasted to get here.

So when I arrived at the metro station, a mile from my apartment, without my magical badge, my entire morning was fucked. I went back, grabbed the goddamned thing, disappointed my cat, and called an Uber, the only way I was getting a full hour in before work. As a man whose strict routines have kept him sane, I craved that full hour.

For some reason, the Uber GPS led the driver to the other side of the roundabout, and I thought he left, and then he picked me up, then he apologized and explained himself for over five minutes, and I didn’t need this kind of chaos. I was still twitchy.

I should have just worked from home. But I needed to be there. I needed to sit down in the breakroom, listen to podcasts and work on a piece of art for an hour. I needed to reset myself. I needed to be around people I knew. I needed to do this for myself.

The Uber dropped me off a few minutes after six. I did not get a full hour of art in, though I did finish one drawing. When you look at it, try not to think about the height of the counter. Like, what is she standing on?

A few minutes after seven, I dove right into the 171 emails I received, between the three inboxes I monitored, confirmed that my boss and my colleagues had already taken care of most of it, and moved onto where I was needed.

While I got caught up, the second person in was Work Dad, dressed in workout gear and looking like a Gen-X skateboarder. This was a side of him people who showed up on time never got to see. I weep for them. The third person at the office reminds me of a gray golden retriever because she is simultaneously shy and effusive, and she’s got a little slouch.

The fourth person who shows up is my Emergency Backup Boss. (She’s still a boss, but she’s not my main boss.) Before the vast office reshuffling, EBB and I were neighbors, and we’d check in with each other every morning. She is far away from me now, so we don’t see each other as much. But she dropped by to check up on me this morning, and I filled her in on everything.

I noted that I was talking very fast, and I was having a difficult time shutting myself up. That is a bad sign.

There was an employee luncheon that afternoon, and she and my boss talked me into going. When the hour arrived, we left with a group, but EBB and I got way ahead of everybody because it was cold, and we were hungry. I followed her around because either she knew what she was doing, or she was acting like she did, and I needed that confidence to hold onto.

There was too much chaos, but I had a plate full of boutique quesadillas I needed to shove into my mouth before I ran out, screaming, whapping people square in the face with my backpack. I found myself at the bar, sipping a mocktail called a DuPont sunrise, with Mr. Production.

Mr. Production and I are a lot alike. We’re both middle-aged white men with gray hair. We are both devoted to making our colleagues’ jobs easier. And we’re both really fucking awkward.

We had a lovely conversation, and I ended up staying almost a half an hour later as a result. He told me how he worked at the same society as the Loquacious One, but not at the same time. I told him that hemoglobin was a weird thing to select for in evolution.

Despite that fact that the chips and guac line was behind him, this turned out to be a great getaway from the hassle of the restaurant. I had a lot of work to do before I could call it quits for the day, so I finished my DuPont sunrise and left the restaurant calm and a little rested, if you can believe it.

How did I do? I think I talked too much, which is bad. I figured out how to tip without getting a bill, and I tipped the staff a lot. Throwing money around is bad.

On the other hand, my thoughts were under control, I was focused, and I was patient. I adapted to inconveniences more efficiently because I wasn’t resorting to violence.

I have an appointment with my doctor this evening, and we’ll see where it goes from there.

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.