I did something amazing last night. I went out to a bar with young people and played pool. A young couple next door invited me. I won two games even though I only sank a total of five balls all night. They were all very nice about it, partly because they were a nice group of people and partly because I was their senior by almost 40 years. I assumed the kindly grandfather role and paid for everything. They were all very grateful for my wild extravagance and pleaded to let them at least buy me one beer. I assented. Maybe more than once. I don’t remember. The entire night cost less than buying dinner for the family.

I almost never go to bars. My parents owned one for several years and I don’t associate them with fun. I spent decades only visiting bars to play music, which was enjoyable, but I would have gladly played anywhere else if the gigs had been available. I have spent a lot of time in bars and the best thing I can say about that is I have spent very much more time not in bars. However, I have gained valuable knowledge and experience from spending countless hours in bars. Here are a few items that one might not otherwise know.

Holding your racing turtle under warm water will give you the edge in a turtle race. Certainly more so than letting your racing turtle swim in beer. The person who drank the beer his racing turtle was swimming in may not have been the best trainer, though. If you find yourself in a biker bar featuring turtle races, it is best to get a feel for the room before buying a turtle and joining in. The races are contentious. The bar manager told us it had been a very successful night because there were no knife fights or gunfire. He offered us another gig because of our moderating influence on the patrons but we declined.

Any song can be played as square dance piece. I know this because I played a party in a bar where the host had a professional caller flown in even though the host and his friends didn’t know how to square dance. The caller’s name was Jet Roberts and he was, and still is, a big-time caller. He didn’t view our not being a square dance band and the crowd not being square dancers as an impediment. We were all performing well by the end of the night. Not knowing the first thing about square dancing is a lot more fun than not knowing about turtle racing.

Follow the stripper. If a stripper wants to perform close to the band, it is probably because it is dangerous to be near the crowd. The crowd has the money and if the stripper doesn’t want to go out and get it, then neither should you. Let them bring it up. If the stripper wants to sit in their car between performances, so should you. If anyone who is not a paid performer strips in a bar, keep playing. If the unpaid performer wants to strip close to the band, stop. If more than two unpaid performers begin to strip, leave. That is an even more volatile environment than a turtle race.

There are volumes to tell concerning bar etiquette, everything from extending professional courtesy to working women requesting songs to when and why to buy the house a round (hint – you are actually buying time). Now I must go and tend to another reason I don’t like bars, they give me a headache.

 

Before I became the very model of sobriety and rationality that I am now, I had trouble with dreaming. Put in context with the other troubles I had at the time, dreaming was far down on the list, but it was notable for its distinctly sharp portrayal of unreality.

Almost everyone dreams, of course. I don’t know much about the subject except to say I know my wife has vivid dreams which are often of me doing something awful. They are very detailed and she recalls them very clearly. I am not a nice person in her subconscious. She doesn’t hold it against me. I don’t know if the dreams I had at the time were extraordinarily vivid in comparison with those of others or not, but they had a bad effect on me.

The dreams I had were minutely detailed. I still remember what I was wearing and the time as portrayed on the dream clocks, and I would not describe those as the most notably detailed facets. Those which were pure fantasy were problematic in their own way as I dreamt every night and it became tiring trying to talk to the Sasquatch, who are quite taciturn (although the babies are cute), or attempting to fly a jet liner. Far more troubling than those were dreams portraying reality.

“Real” dreams were typically set at the office in which I worked or at home. The dreams of home worried my wife but as I say, they were not high on the list. The work dreams consisted of mundane occurrences such as resolving small issues or composing memos. I don’t recall that anything earth-shattering ever happened. My dreams were perfectly constructed with the characters behaving as all my coworkers normally did and portrayed all the details of the office, right down to the smell of burnt coffee and the pungent aroma of the perfume one of my employees wore.

Here is the problem with that. Occasionally some small thing would come up and I would claim to have handled it. I would have the perfect and clear memory of having done it, but not the memory that it was in a dream. When it was revealed that I had not done this thing, I would often exclaim, “Oh, I must have dreamt that.” That statement is one of the earliest “Things to not say at work” entries in Don’t Do This. It was also the origin of the axiom “Forgetting things is bad but remembering things that never happened is worse.” It eventually got to the point that I could not distinguish dreams from reality, and that is bad. It might cause one to ask, “Are you real?” which is also bad because there is no way of knowing if the person is answering truthfully. Thankfully, and to my great relief, that problem was solved with the very first round of medication and has never returned.

I don’t dream much at all anymore and that is fine with me. But, two nights ago I dreamt I was watching myself being interviewed on television. The interviewer was asking about my writing. It was a boring interview. I was Asian. I think I was Chinese. I appeared shorter than I thought I was and had a terrible case of “turkey neck”. I was surprised how different I appeared on TV from how I appeared in the mirror and in photographs. I wasn’t upset except that I knew I was definitely going to do something about the turkey neck. That was the extent of the dream. The only reason I bring it up at all is it is the first time in years I have been tempted to ask the image in the mirror, “Are you real?” Of course, there is no way of knowing if it would tell the truth or not.


 

Evidence suggests that bipolar disorder can be inherited and that there is a genetic vulnerability to developing the illness. My mother was not a well person, I obviously have issues, and our oldest daughter has been struggling as well. I feel responsible for our daughter’s plight.

It has been very difficult for her, worse than it was for me certainly. I had a very supportive spouse, which she does not. I was not the primary care giver for two young children, which she is. I am able to help her cope as she can come to me wildly irrational and nearly incoherent and I will understand completely, but that doesn’t get the laundry done. Aggravating matters is that her 10-year old daughter is not stable. Dante didn’t cover this in Inferno, but the situation is firmly housed in the lowest level of hell.

Our 10-year old granddaughter has been admitted to the Adolescent Inpatient Behavioral Health Treatment center of a hospital in Portland. She could be there as long as 10 days, but she just went in yesterday so there isn’t any way of knowing yet. That part of me which is able to reason knows that this is a good thing; the remaining 98% is, shall we say, distraught.

Our daughter has been trying to get treatment for the girl for over a year. She was finally able to get an appointment with a doctor in town a week ago. The person performing the intake examine wanted to have the girl admitted at that time. That was not possible, so it was done yesterday. Our daughter was not allowed to stay so she had to kiss her daughter goodnight and leave. Our daughter has experience with how it feels to see your family leave and the door close as you lay in a very quiet room. Dante did not conceive a hell that has a mother closing the door on her young daughter as she lay in that very quiet room.

That rational and reasoned part of me that says this is for the best is buried beneath the raving madman screaming accusations and indictments over the horrible bequeathment I have bestowed upon my daughter and granddaughter. Now my daughter has to know the pain of it as well. I know the night she had last night and it was not a good one. The viscous demon in her head came at the weakest part of her over and over again all night long. Today will offer a chance to shut the thing up, but it will be back. I have learned how to deal with it, I just hope that was part of the bequeathment as well.

 

Don’t Do This has a section titled Things To Not Say in Public. It is a list of small things such as exclaiming, “I am not wearing any shoes.” The statement will attract attention regardless of what you are wearing (or not wearing) on your feet. Another example is trying to determine the existence of something. Asking, “Is that real?” will garner unwanted attention regardless of the status of the object in question. Another is, “Why are people looking at me.” Those who are won’t admit it, those who aren’t won’t know, and interested parties will believe you have become paranoid (that’s bad).

I am in Crescent City, California, for a few days. That there is still a city in Crescent City is remarkable. The welcome signs on the highway should read, “Crescent City, down on its luck for over 100 years”. Parts of the town resemble a backdrop from an old black and white Popeye cartoon. If John Steinbeck were to look for a present day setting for Cannery Row, it would be here, except the fishing industry crashed several decades ago.

The only business that is really doing well is the casino. I do not like casinos. Gambling holds no attraction. The people in them are evidently not there for fun gauging by their expressions, and they are full of noxious fumes from burning consumables of the worst type. Still, if one is looking for a decent breakfast before 6:00 AM in Crescent City, the casino is it.

The restaurant is small with seating for less than 50. When I went this morning, there were nine diners. I know this because I counted when I realized five of them were staring at me. The remaining four had their back turned towards me. A dour older man was glowering at me and only stopped when his food came. The three young men sitting to my side were leaning in and turning their heads to get a better look. The elderly lady across the room was casting glances.

There are times when I think people are watching me. I know it is not true and the feeling goes away after a few hours. The same thing goes for either believing I recognize everyone I see or for not recognizing anyone I see. It used to be problematic until I developed the tools outlined in Don’t Do This. The problem I was having in the casino was that it was absolutely true. Everyone was looking at me.

I went to the restroom to see if I looked particularly goofy that day, but I did not. There was nothing about my appearance that should have caught anyone’s attention. When I returned to my table, people continued to stare. I hurried through my meal and left hoping that I had not become anymore delusional than I typically am.

It still remains a mystery. I thought perhaps I resembled some local ne’er do well as I was being regarded somewhat unkindly, but my friends here don’t see any resemblance to known wife beaters or drug dealers and it has not happened anywhere else in town. I once had a passing resemblance to a famous musician, but no one has remarked on that for years. I would have loved to ask one of them why they were staring, but that is a very bad idea. I am going to consign the incident to the list of Potentially Hazardous Public Occurrences and call it good. By the way, if anyone asks you why you are staring them, despite whatever bizarre thing may be happening, say you are not.

ps - My friend says that since I am new to the area, and have long hair but I am not unkempt, they probably believe I am the new casino narc. That is not a good thing.


 

My friend in Crescent City for whom I am working is a very competent person. She worked as the budget officer at the Redwood National and State Parks until she retired a few years ago. It was a demanding job. The organization is a combined Federal and State of California parks system and the budget was tangled and complex. I have always admired her for being able to do the job and wish I had a portion of the organization skills and intellect it took to do it.

She recently became the director of the interpretive association for the park with an office in the largish park headquarters. It is an even worse job. There are visitor centers all over the place. They sell thousands of dollars of books, t-shirts, maps, and a million other things. Managing the place is crazy even by my standards. They have inventory coming and going, money coming and going, people coming and going, and doing it in remote areas a hundred miles apart. Hence the need for the computerized point of sale system we are trying to implement.

The job has been tricky. The work has been frustrating with our small success being met by bigger setbacks. Nothing works the way it was advertised to. Our equipment is inadequate and our resources are limited to my friend and me. In short, it is a real pain.

Yesterday had a number of ups and downs. We got two systems configured but the one we had deployed the day before somehow self-destructed. My friend decided some popcorn was in order as there was no liquor available. I continued working. A beeping began outside her office. I thought it was a car alarm. A short time later my friend returned looking crestfallen. She said, “I burned the popcorn.” I thought she had taken it rather badly and offered my condolences. She said, “It set off the fire alarm.” I couldn’t stop from laughing. Then she said, “They are evacuating the building.” I fell into hysterics and almost fell out of my chair.

She had tried to explain to the evacuees that it was she who had set off the alarm, but they were not to be deterred. After all, what do you do when the fire alarm goes off? It is a “no brainer”. The visitors in the visitor center were escorted outside. The massed employees counted heads to determine if everyone had made it out with my friend all the while exclaiming, “It was just popcorn!”

I feel my friend is to be commended for her achievements in burning popcorn. I think we all have done it, but no one I know has ever caused an entire office building to be evacuated for it. Having done it on a Friday afternoon when everyone was trying to get out of the office was a masterstroke. She was being far too modest when she said it was “just popcorn”. In her capable hands it was a tool of complete chaos. As I say, I have always admired her.


 

This year is starting out as a potential record breaker. Here it is only February and I have already had an operation and a trip to the emergency room.

I felt a slight discomfort in my hip when I left home on Sunday headed for Crescent City. The discomfort grew steadily until by Wednesday I was in severe pain and almost crippled. I went to the immediate care facility in Crescent City and was seen by a nice woman of reassuring age. She examined me and then said, and this is a direct quote, “I am very impressed by your pain”. I felt I should say thank you but risked being rude by not.

She was so impressed that she called for a person to wheel me across the street to the emergency room in the local hospital. The young man pushed me to the curb and said that we might have a long wait because it was a very busy street. It was just a moment later that a large truck stopped to let us cross. The young man said, “Oh! Somebody stopped”, which is evidently a noteworthy occurrence. When we got to the middle of the street, he said, “Oh! It’s my sister”. She waved. I asked him to thank her for me.

They saw me after a 2-hour wait during which time I impressed everyone with my pain. I was taken to a room and given an IV, which qualified it as a “real” ER visit for record keeping purposes. The doctor who saw me was a pretty little 17-year old. I wasn’t concerned by that, many of the medical professionals I meet are in their late teens. She wasn’t so much impressed as she was mystified. She called in another doctor, one of a more reassuring age, who was also mystified. That is typical. I was kept in the hospital for 5 days a couple of years ago for a simple gall bladder operation because something about it mystified them.

I then impressed a young imaging technician with my pain as she tried to get me into position for xrays. Having impressed everyone, I was given pain medication after that. I enjoyed a restful afternoon on a gurney while nurses and doctors stopped by to ask if I was OK and to describe my pain on the 1 to 10 smiley face/frowny face scale. I told them I was fine, which was not what they asked, but I hate the rate-your-pain game. I would like to interject here that if you find yourself in a similar situation, experience has shown that you should avoid impressing ER people with your pain too much because there is really no telling what they will do. Just something to keep in mind.

After having put in a good 8-hour day in the ER, the pretty young doctor came in and announced that I had bursitis. That was very good news because it is not unusual for mystified doctors to operate and bursitis is not something that an operation will fix. I was offered pain medication which I declined as I have a lifetime supply, so they gave me a prescription for an industrial strength anti-inflammatory and wheeled me to the front door. I went to the pharmacy and bought crutches, something I should have done 2 days prior, received my prescription, and returned to the home of my poor friends whom I manage to terrify every time I come.

This event was very disturbing to everyone but me. Lying on a gurney with an IV in my arm has become routine, as has my ability to mystify doctors. I no longer wonder why this happens to me over and over again. I suppose one could say I am tired of wondering why. If I knew, I would enter it in Don’t Do This, but there wouldn’t be a need for Don’t Do This if I did. Anyway, I am glad to have escaped the ER with only a prescription. I can now return to the task that bought me down here. I am staying another week and I sincerely hope that I do not impress anyone else. Mystify would be OK, that’s normal.

 

I am in Crescent City, California, working on the point of sale system that my friend’s predecessor bought shortly before she came to her senses and quit. A very accomplished software salesman told her that it was simple to use after a short learning period. The salesman is to be congratulated for his persuasive representation because the system is a simple one only when the computer is turned off. But, we made unexpected progress yesterday (we had given up on making any progress at all), so things are looking up.

My friend says the board’s image of me is one of a luminous being that has miraculously appeared to rescue them from a disastrous mistake, which is true. I won’t reveal the source of the luminosity to them. It might tarnish my otherwise glorious qualities. Luminous beings are not known for having a talkative, ebullient nature anyway (with the single exception of that goofy Glinda), so I will simply go on glowing.

I don’t want to dwell on Glinda, but I would say that scaring the living hell out a little farm girl so she could learn some kind of lesson is not an act worthy of luminous beings. We shouldn’t all be judged by the actions of one sadistic and obviously deranged “witch”. Although, the flying ball trick is a good one.

That aside, we were able to complete a transaction yesterday, something which had alluded us for months. Now if we can describe how to do it to less luminous beings, there is a chance the system might work. I need to find out where we are in terms the Heroic Cycle, I might be on the verge of a big defeat before I rise to victory. I think that has already happened a couple of times so I am hoping for some kind of victory. Even a negotiated truce which I could declare to be victory would be fine.

Anyway, today we try to turn yesterday’s unexpected success, which was really more of a “proof of concept”, into something which unpaid volunteers and long, long, oh-so-very long time employees can use. This is the part of the Heroic Cycle where Jason explains to the crew of the Argos that a boat is a floating vessel which is driven by the wind. Tomorrow we will get into the purpose and use of sails. I am going to leave out the part where sea monsters suddenly rise up and crash the system. They already fully expect that the system is going to destroy them all anyway. I will also leave out the part about them possibly being right.

 

I think I have managed to dodge the psychotic bullet and have been feeling much better yesterday and today. It is quite a relief. Aside from being a real drag for me, it scares the living hell out of my friends and family. Just in time. I am going to Crescent City tomorrow to finish up the project I left hanging when I injured myself and had to come home last December.

I take these things somewhat in stride. It is all pretty much the same thing that has been going on for years. Some are not so bad and some are not not so bad. This last one was quite the latter. Unlike my wife, who gets to experience all of it in full living distorted colors, my friends only see some of it. When I was in Crescent City last December, I was ramping up for the epic manic period I just went through. To them it must have appeared that I had suddenly lost my mind, which was true, but it wasn’t unexpected for me. They are really going to be glad to hear I am better.

As strange as it sounds, I am much better now than I use to be. Before my symptoms were relatively under control, I was a raving lunatic in the guise of a normal person. Once while in the throes of full-blown mania, I agreed to network our offices in four states. My employees were horrified. It is a paradox, but everything is in perfect focus during mania. I was able to project the cost, lay out the design, and get the contracts out before I crashed and wasn’t even sure what a network was. I was lucky. I could just have well fallen apart and left my poor employees holding the bag. They didn’t realize it, but they were lucky too.

We’ll see how lucky everyone is this time. It could be that the present state is just a way station on the trip to the depression that typically follows mania. There is no way of knowing what with the medication changes, an operation, and the family turmoil (which I haven’t written about but is intense). I (meaning everyone around me) may get lucky again and my little plane will pull up before hits the ground nose first. If I do land face first with a resounding thud, I won’t be able to form a simple thought, let alone one on how implement the thorny Point of Sale system my poor friend is saddled with. I sure hope she doesn’t read this or she will REALLY be worried.

 

I went for years having no real anxiety to contend with. I thought I did at the time, but in retrospect I didn’t. I felt great during ’09. Then I had some kind of surgery in ’10 and then another in ’11 and things began to go downhill. Pain is very destabilizing, in case you were considering it. If you are already consulting Don’t Do This on a daily basis, put off any major accidents or surgeries (especially when combined).

Then I made a classic blunder. I went to the doctor. That was two months ago. He turned an adjustment screw here, loosened a bolt there, added a few chemicals, and then sent me careening off into public to see how it went.

I have not had a psychotic break for over 10 years. I would also recommend against those. That will put your fun meter into negative numbers and break it because they aren’t built for that. Extreme anxiety, referred to as "agitation" by concerned professionals, is the precursor of fun meter failure. I don’t think I will end up there, but there are a few warning signs cropping up. Here is what to look for if your fun meter is maxed at either end of the scale.

You are informed that you have been staring blankly into space with your mouth open. Turn towards the television. That behavior is not atypical for television viewers. DO NOT stare at the TV unless it is on. Hold something that will remind you to close your mouth. A beer works best.

You are informed that you have been rocking back and forth with arms wrapped around chest for an unacceptable amount of time. Say you were thinking of a song. DO NOT say it was a Nirvana song. Say it was a Beatles song. DO NOT say it was Strawberry Fields.

You are informed that you have been staring intently at the wall. This is probably due to the unexpected movement of wall paper patterns or the appearance of small bugs. DO NOT give that as an excuse. Say you were thinking about something. DO NOT say it was how the wall could be covered in small bugs and not be noticed by anyone but you.

There are three likely outcomes for someone in this position. 1) The anxiety will go away and be replaced by something that will cause you to lose your fun meter. 2) The anxiety will get worse and you will be placed in the care of some very polite people in a very quiet place. 3) Your present state will become the new normal.

If you find that it has become normal to talk to trees or dead people, that is OK. If it has become normal to talk to the clothes dryer or disembodied voices, that is not OK. Consult Don’t Do This for the full list of things you should not talk to and, more importantly, how to tell the difference.

 

I have had cause to brush up on mania recently. I became manic a month ago and never came down. Two medication changes didn’t change anything (in a positive way). After a few aborted takeoffs and rough landings, I have finally gotten the hang of it. In the spirit of providing valuable free advice (the best kind), I offer these Tips for the Manic.

1. Shut up. If you absolutely must make comments to interested parties or medical professionals, deliver them in Latin or Elvish. It is probably far better they didn’t understand what you said anyway. Silence is particularly important if the corporeal nature of anyone is in question.

2. Smile pleasantly. Do not gape, glare, gawk, or grin. Think Elwood Dowd. Don’t stare (at real people, noncoporeal people are OK). Look at the people around you for clues as to whether you should laugh, frown, smile, look concerned, or look worried. Pull out your cell phone and stare at it if you are in doubt.

3. If you commit an error and someone asks what is wrong with you, don’t divulge the real answer. An anecdote is in order. I contracted Scarlet Fever in my thirties. About 20 years ago I developed a vocal tic which has been attributed to brain damage caused by Scarlet Fever. It has become progressively worse until now I do it in public. This is sometimes a cause for alarm for the people around me. If I were to try and assure them that I am OK, I might say, “It’s alright, it is only brain damage”. That would not make things better. If someone asks what is the matter with you, say, “I have bird flu.”

4. There is no denying mania is fun. It is the Trifecta of disorders: elation, energy, and euphoria. Medical professionals are correct when they say mania is not good for you, so don’t let anyone see you being elated, energetic, or euphoric or you will be relieved of your mania.

It is an immutable fact that mania will be followed by something much less fun. It might be an epic episode in my case since the mania has persisted so long. One day you may wake up to find you are decidedly not elated, energetic, or euphoric. That is the time to pipe up to your doctor. If your doctor asks if you experienced mania, do not say it was bird flu. Pull out your cell phone.

 

I neglected to get my annual Don’t Do This Valentine Gift Suggestions note out on time this year, I hope no one made any serious mistakes. The list of Valentine gifts to avoid is pretty standard. No gym memberships, weight loss program gift cards, or anger management DVDs. Do not buy anything that could be described as an “appliance”. Shopping on line is OK, but don’t buy from romance sites that have pictures of half-naked models. Buy from sites that have puppies and kittens. Finally, avoid humor. This is not the time for it. You are most likely far too much fun the rest of the year, play it straight on Valentines day.

I heard a local newscaster refer to today as a holiday. It isn’t of course, except in one essential way. It is synonymous with chocolate. That makes it a blessed event. Roses are also associated with the day. That is fine because this is the only time Dove chocolate roses are plentiful.

The difficulty is that most of the chocolate is “candy”, a euphemism for terrible chocolate. We don’t have fine chocolate here except by mail order. I can never plan that far ahead so I shop stores. There are a number of types of chocolate in boxes. Some of those are marginally acceptable and some better than that. Lindt, maker of the Lindor truflles, produces Valentine packages. Lindt is good chocolate, no complaints there.

Notably absent is Moonstruck Chocolate. Moonstruck is made in Portland Oregon and further cements Oregon’s place as the best beer/chocolate place in the world. Moonstruck was on Oprah Winfrey’s “O” list in 2003. It is very fine chocolate, you should try it if you can find it. Bring money.

This year, while looking for anything acceptable to buy for my wife (meaning me), I found a heart-shaped box of Godiva chocolate! Godiva has started producing chocolate bars which can be had at many stores. They aren’t bad, but the real thing will cost in the neighbor hood of $50 for a box. Well worth it. The box I found was much more reasonable and very good as well.

The other notable chocolate event is Easter. The highlight of the holiday is the day after Easter when the Lindt chocolate bunnies go on sale. They are the bunnies wrapped in gold foil. Warning: I am not the only one who is on to the Lindt bunny sale, so show up early.

The rest of the year, not so good. I have never found a Verdun Chocolates Santa Claus figure or Xocolatl de David chocolate Thanksgiving turkey, which is a shame because they make chocolate that is better described by the metaphysical than taste (transportive, state of grace, turned on my inner light and melted me from the inside out, etc).

I wouldn’t want you to accept it on my word alone that a box of John DePaula's fleur de sel caramel bonbons and a bottle of Ninkasi Tricerahops ale are a good substitute for a meaningful life. The Ninkasi, you can take my word on that. But for the chocolate, I cite the Wall Street Journal:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203889904577201324229095242.html::...

 

I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t have survived success. Fame and fortune seems to have a terrible effect on some people, and I surely would have been one of them.

This may surprise some, but I was not a temperate person when I was younger. I had the restraint and judgment of a rabid cat. If there was any single thing that I did not do, it was because it was not offered. This was not a good attribute for a young musician in the sixties, a time when moderation was defined as maintaining consciousness.

I have known some very famous people, most of whom I met in the sixties when we were all young musicians. Some of them didn’t survive it. I wouldn’t say I have had any brushes with fame. Aside from a brief note in Downbeat magazine, a jazz periodical, I have managed to remain nearly invisible. I now find that it is my preferred state.

Why so many people are destroyed by fame is a difficult thing to puzzle out. Fame is probably what they had been striving for all along. I suppose that once having achieved it, the pressure to maintain it must be immense. I am not good with pressure. I freeze when asked if I want paper or plastic. Being required to produce an album every year would drive me right off the cliff.

It always feels like a judgment has been made when some poor person fails at success. I will read that they destroyed themselves or maybe that their demons ate them alive. I think that at each step, they took the only path open until there are finally no paths left. I don’t think we should be so hard on them when it was we who loved them to death. If you are ever momentarily stymied by the question, “paper of plastic?”, think what it would be like to try and hit a C6 every night. It is no wonder it killed her.

 

The town crier in my head can’t make up his mind. Waking me up at 2:00 AM to tell me all is well reminds me of being in the hospital, which is the worst place in the world to sleep. Yelling in a panic that the world is about to end on a quiet afternoon seems a bit of an overreaction. One would expect more of a commotion if that were true. So, I have become skeptical of the crier’s pronouncements and wonder how he got the job in the first place.

I may have promoted him from Little Voice in My Head. It was supposed to give hints about things such as Common Sense and self preservation. That one went missing some time ago. Self restraint is also absent, but I wouldn’t have promoted that one. I’ve been trying to shut it up for years. What a buzz kill.

The interpreter has never worked right. I never know what people are talking about. By the time I run through all the iterations of possible meanings, the next sentence has come and is worse because I haven’t puzzled out the context. Take the sentence, “Did you water the plants?” When? I watered the plants last month. All the plants? Cactus too? It isn’t something one can answer out of hand despite what concerned parties think. The answer, by the way, is always “no”.

The inner voice that knows what I want is stuck. I always want a beer, unless chocolate is available, and then I want both. It makes the question of “Where do you want to eat?” easier because I always want to eat some place with beer (and chocolate). I have memorized the list of things one shouldn’t say to doctors or officers, so I guess discretion is still working. Logic is over-active but unreliable. If one is over thinking things but is not thinking correctly, it just makes things worse. For example, over thinking “How are you?” leads to when are you, why are you, who are you, what are you, and where are you. Picking the wrong one to answer is bad.

The crier has been quieted by this last medication change. I am glad it has been, it was starting to get on my nerves. “Four PM and you are four feet tall” is not useful information. Unless the beer is on the top shelf of the fridge. It might be helpful if it were demoted to Common Sense because I really need someone there. Even somebody as loony as the crier would be better than nothing. “Nine AM and Benedict’s solution will stain the kitchen counter” would definitely be helpful information.

 

It took some doing, but mental order has been restored. It is a good thing because a disorderly mob had gathered at the gates and had begun to chant rather negative things. But, thanks to the miracle of modern medicine, all is well (mostly). I am going to go visit the psychiatrist tomorrow to get a read on just how well things are. I can be wrong about that sometimes.

It is rather a relief now that the world has been put back in proper perspective. It has been an interesting couple of months but I have returned to that blessed insentient state I thought I didn’t like. I was mistaken. The test to see if I could handle a bigger slice of reality bombed and I am back where I started, and darn glad of it. That was a frightful little trip.

(Flash forward 2 days)

As I have observed before, I am lucky. I am lucky to have an acknowledged expert in Bipolar Disorder as my doctor, and I am lucky to be able to see him almost immediately when I call. He must have my file flagged or something. Anyway, I saw him yesterday and the result was a new medication plan. It seems that my having the cognitive powers of a potted plant is not acceptable. It didn’t matter that I was OK with it because, as it turns out, potted plants always are. I was not disposed to argue the point at $300 per hour, so the motion stands.

I would not venture a guess and the number of medication changes I have had in the last 20 years. The most common outcome is that they don’t work quite as expected. One pill may make you bigger, and one may make you small, but they aren’t labeled correctly. The only thing to do is watch for trouble signs such as the dryer becoming chatty (it never has anything good to say), or the truck trying to drive itself (it is terrible at it). Then it is time to call the office. The conversation will go like this:

“Hello, this is Dave Gordon. Can I get in to see the doctor?”

“Is this an emergency?”

“Define emergency.”

“Can you come in tomorrow?”

I now regret having said anything about how I was feeling in the first place. If this latest change produces anything short of psychosis, I will report that things are just swell. The new pills are big so I guess they will make me bigger. Not too big, I hope. It is hard to dial the phone like that.


 

I don’t like to make unsupported assertions or cite something as fact when it is not. I like to be able to defend my statements with documented proof or by referencing acknowledged experts. It is in that spirit that I reference myself as an expert in Knowing the Difference when I say that it is a darned strange world you all have here.

I can say this definitively because during my brief visits, things are completely crazy. When some mishap causes me to lapse into reality, things are chaotic, disordered, and frenzied. My reaction to it is not all it could be and I have to sound a retreat. All I can do is thank God that the doctors recognize what a mess things are here and are quick to take action.

It has been a tough week. A combination of factors prompted me to call all of the doctors whose job it is to ensure my unfettered access to the outside world. Many people have trouble seeing their doctors. I’m lucky. All I have to do is tell them who I am and I have an appointment that same day. They have seen to my orderly retreat from reality and I am now viewing it from a comfortable distance.

As a provider of free advice (the best kind), I offer these items in hopes they aid my fellow refugees from reality:

Even though time and spatial dimensions are variable and somewhat unpredictable, gravity is not. If time and space have conspired to distort the stairs mid-step in your dissent, accept that you are going to fall. That part can’t be changed. What can be changed is how others react. Blame it on the cat or stepping on a tack. DO NOT blame it on the variable nature of time and space.

If you are enjoying a particularly energetic chaotic, disordered, and frenzied event and everything seems to recede into the distance, do not run to catch up. Especially if you are the cause of the energetic chaotic, disordered, and frenzied event. Don’t try blaming the cat or stepping on a tack. Stop, drop, and roll is probably as good as anything else so try that. Grabbing your big toe and yelling in pain might help.

Once you have been relieved of reality, apologize to everyone including the cat. Don’t be too specific. Promise that you will call the doctor the moment things become chaotic, disordered, and frenzied. Don’t call every day. Finally, if things recede into the distance, just let them go. Reality is best viewed from a distance anyway.

 

I am not an incompetent person generally speaking. There are things I don’t do very well, such as speak or think, but I am OK with shopping, paying bills, or handyman chores. This last statement requires a generous interpretation on “OK”, but with the exception of a couple of operations I have done OK with them. The one notable exception to my claim of competency is preparing tax returns.

I have never done one correctly that I can confirm. I have come close a few times. The state of Oregon reviewed a return in the 90’s and found an error. They sent me a check for $2.00. I know that return was pretty close. The rest, who knows? The obvious question is to ask why I don’t have them prepared by a professional. I am cheap, that’s why.

I never knowingly fudge (otherwise known as “lie”) on taxes. I don’t mind paying them even though it is painful at times. I think I get some nifty stuff for it such as pretty nice roads and an army. I disagree with how a lot of it is used, but I firmly and adamantly believe that I could not do better. I have trouble operating an ATM, I think the defense budget is out of my reach.

I finally received all the documents I needed to do our tax returns a few days ago. My guess of what we will either get back or have to pay is never right, or even close. I try to prepare emotionally for having to pay an additional $1,000 before I start in order to alleviate the extreme despondency which upsets my wife so much. I do the taxes as early as possible so that I can have more time to imagine a world in which we can produce $1,000 in order to pay them.

Preparing the taxes electronically has been a good thing for me. Having an electronic head master to rap my knuckles with a ruler when I enter a ridicules figure is great. And, it has made me hope I get audited.

It was only two days ago the head master informed me that if I owned property, as I had said I did, then I probably paid property taxes, which I said I had not. This will seem incredibly stupid to people who do not know me or entirely understandable to people who do, but in my mind I did not pay the property taxes, the mortgage company did.

As a result, we will be not paying $1,000. It also explains why some years we do and some years we don’t. I now firmly believe that I have overpaid taxes for a number of years. It has reduced my fear of being audited greatly. The mitigating factor is that I do not know what other ludicrous errors I may have made, so I am not going to request one.

Be that as it may, I have accomplished another tax season with no hospitalizations or disturbances in marital relations so I am declaring victory. I hope I get the same head master next year, I like him.

 

It is hard to kill something on the internet. I thought I killed a blog over on Blogger.com but was mistaken. There are still hits on it so I guess I will leave it there. It isn’t any different than this one, really. I can’t remember why I switched. I remember there was a reason, but that is all. That is pretty good by my standards.

I had some visitors from the Balkins recently. That is interesting to me because that is the only region in which my writing achieved any popularity. I wonder if they went looking for me because of having read one of my Ebooks?

I bring this up because I was in the news lately (along with a few thousand others). I am an author with published copyrighted works that have been pirated and distributed illegally on the internet. To this I say: What? You didn’t know that would happen when you published on the internet?

One of the pieces is available for purchase on the Franklin Publishing site, which is primarily an educational materials distributor. Of all the superlatives I would use to describe the piece, which range from “OK” to “Sort of OK”, educational only applies in the “Don’t Do This” sense. I hope they make more money with it than I did because it wasn’t much.

Some time ago a person somewhere in the world bought 242 science fiction Ebooks from Fictionwise. Then they bundled them up with a glowing recommendation for all and cast it out to the BitTorrent community. Two of my pieces are in the file. Search for 242 Science Fiction Ebooks for an idea of the distribution.

Well, that is my tale of success. I am thinking about buying the Mobi/Kindle version from an Irish Ebay seller. I might do a post on the Blogger site thanking people for caring enough to bother looking. Maybe I will list the file on Ebay myself. Then I could be both the pirator and the piratee. On Talk Like a Pirate Day (9/19), I will mark my accomplishments as a pirate with a rant in Piratese. I probably won’t remember why I am ranting like a pirate, but I will probably remember that there was a reason. That’s good enough.

 

It is funny how much a little encouragement can help. I’m not talking about things such as “This will make you feel better”, or “This will help calm you down”. I’m talking about nice words from a stranger (who isn’t holding a suture and a syringe of Lidocaine). It was a very nice note.

It helped because I need it. There is an event approaching such as many have come to call a perfect storm. I feel an analogy of the movie The Dark Crystal is more appropriate. In the movie, three suns converge to initiate a world changing event.

The three suns in my world are a medication change that appears to have been ineffective, my inability to recall my Social Security number, and a change in our domestic situation which is going to increase the number of short people by 200% (from zero to two). (Based on the notion that a 100% reduction of the number one is zero. Questionable, but that describes me in toto.)

My doctor has often cautioned me about not taking the medications he prescribes. He says that once stopped, they might not work the same, or at all, once started once again. I have the feeling that might be the case with this latest change. I live in fear of medication weirdness because the fact that I am not currently housed in a very calming place that doesn’t serve beer indicates that the meds are working well enough.

My inability to recall my SSN is quite disturbing. For all of my other cognitive issues, I have had a very good memory for numbers and things I have read. Most of it is useless information, such as the atomic weight of hydrogen and chapter nine of the Fortran 77 manual, but the ability is sometimes useful. Having it called into question is unsettling. The Strategies for Avoiding Hospitalization section of Don’t Do This specifically requires one to know their address, phone number, and birthday. I had better write them down and put them in my wallet.

Lastly, my daughter and her seven and nine-year old daughters are in transition and are going to be living with us for a time. We have enough room and it is a very good thing she is coming. However, I am concerned about what I can only describe as my worsening disorientation and tenuous stability. I need to review Self Medication Do’s and Don’ts and Recognizing Hallucinations (hint - they always agree with you). I am committed to making this work because if it doesn’t, I will be committed. First up, a pre-emptive doctor appointment. It would be better if he heard it from me than the ER.