The Wind and the Water

It is really windy outside right now, to the point it is shaking the foundations of the house and blowing windows open. I've also been drinking a lot of water, I'm trying to hydrate and see if that will get rid of these symptoms: red face and congestion. I don't really feel sick, maybe it's just some allergies? I'm not really sure.

I had a psychiatry appointment this morning. For whatever reason this morning I was feeling more out of it than normal. Part of it may have to to do with the fact that I went to bed after one last night. I had a a really good improv show last night, one of the most fun I've had in a while. It was with Jace, me, Ryan Rosenberg and Patrick Carlyle. The four of us had never played together as a team before and it was a blast. The first time we played as wave rhythms, where we start off by getting a suggestion and feeling the vibrations and doing scenes based on material we generate from there. Some of the scenes: guys stoked to watch Entourage until Entourage turns really gay, a hip restaurant where people pee and poo on the walls, a group getting ready to go see "Watch the Throne" but their lame friend that just got off from working at a dog grooming place has the tickets and he smells like dog and has dog hair and blood all over him and has an injured dog that he has to take to the concert (this scene had a couple of us laughing hard into the next scene so...), the next scene was about a guy who's mustache made everyone laugh and eventually have strokes, then there was a scene where Batman got shot and a bunch of butlers were squatting in Wayne Manor. It was a killer show. Then we did another show that was a monoscene, one long scene, it was fun but not as good in comparison.

On my way home I saw a ton of helicopters in the air and there was a lot of traffic downtown. When I got home I looked on Twitter and saw that cops were going to break up the OccupyLA encampments. I watched a live stream of someone at the site, kept up on Twitter and had local news on TV. I watched for about an hour but the engagement between the cops and protesters was mostly peaceful and eventually I decided nothing crazy was going to happen and went to bed.

Like I said, this morning I woke up feeling really out of it. I hurried to get some coffee before my psychiatry appointment at 11:30, but when I showed up I still felt totally groggy and glassyeyed. It didn't stop me from having a good conversation with my psychiatrist. We talked more about expressing myself emotionally and I told her I had cried the night I had smoked. She seemed a little bit concerned that I had lapsed in my sobriety and almost started crying herself when I told her that was when I'd been able to freely express my emotions about what was going on.

I told her about a lot of the recent conversations I've been having and she commented that it sounds like I am talking to everyone except the person that I need to talk to. I would have to agree. I'm sure part of the reason she is avoiding it is because she knows how emotional it is going to be. That is one situation in which I know I will cry. Even thinking about seeing her makes me emotional. Thinking about seeing her  makes me want to cry. Thinking about our current situation just makes me angry.

After my appointment today I took Dr. Foster's advice and just let loose with it in the car, yelling, cursing, etc. It felt pretty good and I could feel my eyes start to well up, but it stopped right there. I told the doctor that I usually can only freely cry when I am having a manic episode and she told me sometimes people that have had depressive or manic episodes limit their range of emotions because they are afraid that experiencing them would mean they are having an episode. It made sense to me.

Last night, during my improv show I was sobbing as part of a scene and it felt more real than any crying I've done recently, except maybe in the car, but even that was tempered. The doctor also suggested that talking about things and writing about things can sometimes get in the way of actually feeling things, which means maybe writing about this now is in vain, but I feel better to do this than nothing at all.

My goal for the next week is to think positively in the morning and get my day going early. It didn't really work today. After the psychiatrist I went to the pharmacy to have my prescription filled (good), then went on a long walk and ate lunch at Fiesta Feast (good), then came back and started writing and fell asleep for a couple hours (bad).

Once I woke up I came upstairs and tried to read Infinite Jest to no avail. After reading a couple books that were infinitely more readable, it is hard to return to something so dense. I'm going to try to knock it out, but I'm only a third of the way done and it feels like I'll never finish it. Plus, the plot doesn't seem to be progressing, it is still mostly all character backstory.

So tomorrow I am going to finally have my interview. I feel relaxed and prepared for it. I also heard back about an internship at a comedy production company that I will probably take if I don't get the job, but I'm going to get it. I have to. I have to wake up early tomorrow so I don't look drugged out when I get in there. Wake up, have breakfast, have coffee, groom it up, print out a resume and cover letter. Boom. That's what I have to do, I'm so ready to throw it down.

Alright, that's it.

Reading Like A Motha Fucka

My interview got rescheduled for Thursday.

Finished another book yesterday, it was the second book Chris sent me called, The Average American Male. It was quite a juxtaposition to the first book. This one was about a dude that is a complete perv walking around Los Angeles and imagining having sex with just about anyone, as he claims, he would have sex with 98% of women if they would just vanish afterward and no one would know about it. It was pretty funny and I saw more truth in it than I'd like to admit. There was some stuff I really enjoyed about going to the mall at Century City and going to an improv student party, a lot of truth in the way people talked about moving up at the theater, though it was Groundlings. I also agreed largely on his take with relationships and how they slowly devolve, starting with extreme passion ending with extreme ambivalence. That being said, this guy is a complete asshole and no one should ever aspire to be like him, in fact you should aspire to be just the opposite and probably fall somewhere in between.

After reading these books, I felt it was a good opportunity to open up to Chris about what's been going on with me on the relationship end of things, with Kate and what happened with Kim, etc. I was happy to provide him with lots of detail that I've never felt quite like divulging here. It is just what I needed and hopefully it will make for some good conversation when I see him over Christmas. Now that I have fully gotten everything off my chest to someone and I actually have someone to confide in, I feel like I am more able to start moving away from it. Chris told me that Jen probably did not want to talk about it with me because she knew that in order for Kim and I to have a relationship again, I am going to have to get over things, in a certain sense. I agree with her, but the only way for me to do that is to express the things I need to express and I really need an open and receptive ear to do this. I can already feel myself moving into a new level of comfort with where I am at.

I also finished Mental Health Through Will-Training, which I had been reading for the last month or two. In general, I don't feel that Will-Training alone is enough to combat my condition and the book doesn't say that it should be. It claims that you should listen to your doctor first but also try to employ the strategies from the book into your everyday life. The book is aimed toward "nervous patients" and claims that nervous fatigue and other ailments, like headaches, anger issues, abdomen and chest pain, etc. can be healed through will power. I agree with this to some extent. These passages really resonated with me today:

"The dismal dreariness of your existence stares at you. Again, one of those empty days with no plans, no decisions,  no accomplishments. You become discouraged, disgusted with the dead monotony that is in store for you, and it is the self-disgust that robs your tissues of their vitality. There is no vigor, zest or incentive with which to start out on the daily routine. Your body is devoid of stimulation; it feels uninspired, flabby, limp. This feeling of limpness you call 'fatigue.'

"You will now understand why, towards the evening, your vitality returns and why, after supper, you 'feel almost well.' There is nothing left for planning after supper, no drabness to be anticipated, no drudgery to be performed in self-disgust. The dreadful day is gone or is going. Nothing is expected of you anymore. You breathe freely now, and your vitality returns."

Here is another passage that agreed with me. This one is geared toward people that tend to be perfectionists. While I am not a perfectionist in every regard, not so much when it comes to cleaning, very true when it comes to executing my life goals, plans, etc.

"Trivial errors, trifling mistakes and insignificant failures caused her to sweat and fret, to wear herself out with vexation and self-reproach. She worried, felt provoked at her fancied inefficiency, was perpetually flustered and confused. The confusion multiplied her record of bungled trivialities and botched irrelevancies. A vicious cycle developed: The more she was confused, the more she bungled; the more persistently she bungled, the more disturbing became her confusion. In the end, she lost confidence in her ability to do things 'correctly,' developed an exaggerated self-consciousness and lost her spontaneity."

The author goes on to explain how through "Recovery" she allowed herself to be average. I could definitely take a lesson in learning to be okay with being average. It is so ingrained in me that I am not average and that I should not accept being average, that that worry probably causes me to be more average than I would otherwise be.

I am about to go to an improv show I am performing at in North Hollywood. The group is called "Wave Rhythms". It's a fun loose group, we do an opening where we "feel the vibrations" and generate ideas for our set in this kind of goofy and might I say chill atmosphere. Since it is just three of us (three cant make it) we are asking another improvisor to join us. His name is Matt Reid and he is funny as fuck. I don't think I've ever enjoyed watching someone do improv more than him.

Well, even though I've been sleeping a lot still, I feel like I've been accomplishing things through reading and writing. I feel like I am starting to make progress with not only with returning to feeling like myself, but growing and becoming better person. I'm sure sometimes I will feel like the average American male, but I would like to spend more time transcending that and becoming a superior man.

I have been able to stop feeling the guilt and blame I had been putting on myself for where I am at. I don't know what has changed, maybe it is time, maybe it is seeing that I have some good things ahead if I can seize them, maybe I am just feeling that way in the present moment. I'm not sure.

My goal: To not go back to sleep after I wake up. Tomorrow I have a doctor's appointment, so that will be easy. After tomorrow...well I will have an interview Thursday and hopefully have a job after, but after that I will go for a walk in the morning when I am feeling tired.

Will write again after I see where I'm at tomorrow; I have my psychiatry appointment. Oh, I need to refill my medication tomorrow too, always helps to spell it out.

Preparing for the big interview

Tomorrow I have my second interview at Stan and Deliver Productions. This was the perfect position I've been talking about for the last week or two. I have to get it. I took it easy today in preparation, got a good sleep and hung out at the coffee shop catching up on my unemployment paperwork. I finally figured things out with my mail. Looks like I'm going to be getting ten weeks of benefits at the same time. Procrastination sometimes works in your favor. While I was filling out the papers, I sneezed and this old man next to me said, "Looks like you're allergic to work," I assume because it looked like I was working hard. Little did he know I was filling out late unemployment paperwork.

Saturday night I slept over at Josh's so we could leave early the next morning. His friend Colin came over and we hung out and drank some wine, went in the spa, played a domino game. It was fun. We all told stories about people we know and talked about high school. I wonder sometimes if I am a story like that, like how many people in my peer group know what is going on with me and my manic episodes. I will never really know, it doesn't really bother me if they do. Maybe someday I will be able to write something that really does them justice so everyone can understand or at least empathize.

It felt good to get back to LA. It was a really clear beautiful day and the city looked prettier than normal. If you're on the 10 west and look toward the Hollywood Hills, the city can actually be quite majestic, just don't look to the right. I felt relieved to be far far away from Alamo and Danville and anywhere I could have run into her. I didn't feel sad at all to leave, it felt like it was time. My aunt and uncle were gone, so it was me and my two cousins, Chad and James at the house. We watched some football and South Park.

I spent most of the day reading a book Chris has left with my brother in Danville. It was called The Way of The Superior Man. It was a quick read that was essentially about being a full and complete man and how to bring that into your romantic relationships. It definitely made me think critically about how I should respond to my situation with Kim. One piece of advice in the book is to talk frankly with your male friends at least once a week and get their opinions, so I wrote him this morning and did just that. Her birthday is coming up and I am weighing whether or not to write her.

I should definitely talk to my male friends more than I do. I really appreciate the emotional support that women tend to give, but I think sometimes you need the straightforward truth of a male. I am certainly a straightforward person when giving advice and maybe I am avoiding this because I don't want to hear the Wayne Campbell (from "Wayne's World") advice, "Get over her, go out with somebody else." Of course, that is what I would tell anybody in my situation and I should.

I was a bit disappointed I never really got to have a heart to heart about what was going on while I was in Danville. Jen wasn't in the mood to talk about it and Josh was with Bridget the whole time, so it sort of got brushed under the rug. Jen and Kim are moving in together in the next week or so and this makes me really anxious, hell, just driving into Alamo Square so my dad could go to a store there made me really tense just because she lives in the vicinity.

So how is this whole thing going to play out? Now Jen and Chris and Kim all live in San Francisco and I won't be able to go over and hang out at my best friend's house when I am home in a month. It is a shitty situation. I don't understand why she can't be more rational about this, but then again, I can understand, because she is not a rational person. She follows her feelings and as I was reminded by the book I read yesterday, that is why men love women and what is annyoing about them.

I miss the simpler days when we could just both have unannounced feelings for each other that were apparent to nobody but the two of us. Is she worried she would feel that way again if she saw me? What is she waiting for? These questions continue to plague me. As much as I want to get over it, if she is living with Jen, we are going to have to deal with each other eventually. I can't just walk away and never talk to her or see her again. That seems like an easy way out at this point.

Things to do tonight to prepare for my interview:
- Cut my nails.
- Wash my hair.
- Shave.
- Read about his upcoming movie.
- Print out a resume and letter of recommendation.
- Get to bed early.

I am going to nail this interview tomorrow. I have to.

Also, I am going to eat and only have one cup of coffee tomorrow morning so I'm not jittery like I am now. Guess I should go eat soon!

It's Been A While

I am finally getting around to writing after a few days of being MIA. Well, I haven't been MIA in real life, I've actually been around in real life, I've been MIA on the internet world.

I drove up to Danville on Wednesday morning with Josh, his girlfriend Bridget and his brother Drew. It was cramped in the backseat and the drive took about eight hours, that is a really long time to get from LA to the Bay.

When I got in my dad and I went to my favorite place, the Philly Cheesesteak Shop and ate. It took forever, but it was still good. That night I went out to "That Bar" downtown, where they had dueling pianos and drove Josh and Bridget. There were a ton of people from my high school there and just like in high school, I didn't really talk to any of them. I just stayed with Josh and later my friends Mike, Jon, Neva and Andrea came. It was great catching up with them, not even really catching up, but just shooting the shit and joking around like we used to. We almost went to a bar called Meenar's until they had a cover, so we switched it up to Elliot's a bar that's been there for over a hundred years. Mike and his girlfriend ordered "Hot Toddys", which to the bartender meant whiskey and hot water. So nasty.

The next day our family got together and headed over to Burlingame. It was nice this year, I've already caught up with all my relatives recently, so I didn't get grilled at all, just enjoyed myself with my cousins. On the ride over my dad finally asked me about Kim, wondering if I had worked things out with her, I told him, "No" was the short answer to that question.

At Thanksgiving we spent most of the time playing card games, watching football and eating. It was pretty perfect. We headed back around eight and I spent the rest of the night dozing at my dad's and watching an Arrested Development marathon.

Yesterday, I hung out with my dad during the day. We went to see "J. Edgar", which turned out to be a decent flick. I wasn't super excited about seeing it, but it was good to spend time with my dad, took him back since he was alive for a lot of the events that happened in the movie.

Afterward, I went and picked up Jen and we went down to the tree lighting. Danville has a tree that is the symbol of the town and every Friday after Thanksgiving they have a big celebration with choirs and cider to light it up, then they close off the road downtown so people can hang out and shop. We ran into a bunch of friends that I wanted to see this time and it was a blast.

Last year, I was at the tree lighting with Kate and it was incredibly cold. This year it wasn't nearly as bad.

Jen was ready to go home around nine, so I brought her back and went over to my brother's to grab some books that Chris Paizis sent to me and hang out with him for a bit. We ended up going to Jack's, where he worked and had some beers, which was a deal.

At the end of the night, in the back of the parking lot at Jack's, he went out to smoke with his friends. I took one puff, which was the first time I had smoked pot since I was in the hospital three months ago. I was glad I did, but I don't plan on doing it again any time soon. I realized that when I smoked, I became a lot more talkative, I had a great political conversation with my brother's conservative friend, Rob. Then when I left, I drove home by myself and I started to cry. All the emotions I have been feeling about Kim and coming home finally came out.

It scared me that I haven't been able to cry in months and started tearing up after smoking, but it was interesting to me that it made me emotional like that, I was really not expecting that and it felt good to finally let lose with the tears. I was happy that it was all around a good experience for me and I'd like to keep it that way and quit while I'm ahead.

Today, a friend of mine was having a service for his mom that passed away. I wrote him a note, sympathizing with his experience. I was really happy I was able to go pay my respects. I picked Jen up and she just signed the lease to an apartment with Kim. I reminded her, at the current moment, I won't be able to go over there. She didn't want to talk about her anytime I tried to bring it up. It was really disappointing, since it was obviously on the top of my mind. I am really anxious about them moving in together.

I am going to call Chris when he gets back and talk to him about it, since Jen seems to be putting up a wall there, I don't know why it is.

Ready to Go

Did my laundry today, about to pack for the trip back to Danville. I'll be leaving at 10am tomorrow morning according to Keeler. I had a dream about heading home last night. In it I met a bunch of friends and I was in a house that wasn't mine, but where I was staying. Kim was there and coyly waved at me and I said hi and then she disappeared. Then I was in the car with Chris Paizis talking about how confused and consumed I was by the fact that she wasn't talking to me.

None of this is likely to happen. Chris is going to be out of town and I doubt Kim will be coming out on Wednesday or college night, if not just to avoid me. Left me feeling strange once again this morning. I took my book and went to mail some things and read. I went to get some lunch at Fiesta Feast, a Mexican and Greek food place in the Palisades and I got a phone call from Meredith from Stan and Deliver, I have a second interview with Stan at 11:30am next Tuesday. I can't wait. I feel like this is the one.

After that I went to Pete's and read for a bit. I intentionally didn't bring my computer so I could focus on reading. They had some visit from their corporate management, they of course were dressed casually and couldn't really be distinguished from customers. They helped the baristas set up displays for the holidays, focusing most of their attention on one particularly attractive female barista that seemed eager to please.

I'm 300 pages in to Infinite Jest and feel like it is just starting to take off plot wise, for what plot there is, which is not much. I am enjoying how it is just sort of meandering around filling out information about the Incandenza family.

Well, it's about time to pack up and get a hold of Josh, so I know if I can park in his spot while we are gone, if not, I'll need to park in a neighborhood that doesn't have restrictive parking near his place. His brother is riding up with us as well. I also need to call my dad and remind him that I'll be home tomorrow, not sure if he remembers!

That's about it. No Sean coming home with me, he's staying in LA. Would have been fun to have him come with me. Last year Kate came to Thanksgiving with me, I felt proud to finally be bringing a lady with me to a family gathering and she got along great with everyone. I'm sure it was nothing for her, in comparison to her bat shit crazy family. Oh, how much can change in a year.

Running Around

Damn, been so busy today I almost forgot to blog. It feels good to be busy, less to sit around and worry about, more to accomplish. I woke up at 9:30am today. That felt good too, haven't even been tempted to take nap. I guess I really shouldn't be tempted, really the only temptation is to pass a boring day faster. On days like today, the day is over before I ever even realized it was here.

I started the day as usual. The phone upstairs was ringing off the hook, two rings and then nothing, two rings than nothing, literally like a few times a minute. It was really obnoxious. Come to find out, my aunt and uncle had been called the night before by, who they thought were the police calling from LA Country Jail about someone who was in ICU and had given them their number. Because their number was blocked, these people said, they needed their credit card information and charge a couple dollars through Global Communications in order to connect them. Keep in mind, they kept this act going for over an hour before ever asking for any credit card info, so they were completely hooked in. Not until they asked for the billing address did my uncle catch on that it was a scam. He called LA County Jail to find out no one by the names of the people he was talking to worked at there, there was no ICU, etc. So, I guess they kept calling back all morning long.

So after listening to the phone ring all morning, I went to my job interview. It went exceeding well. It was for a really small production company (two people right now) and the position would be assistant work and a little bit of stuff on the creative side. I really hope I get it, working in a small office, mostly by myself, and getting to read and work on scripts a lot is right up my alley.

Next, I had to go to UCLA. I needed to get an itemized record of everything I was charged for during my stay. Turns out getting this was exceedingly difficult. First, I called billing, seemed simple enough. He told me he didn't have record of anything that had already been paid. This seemed strange, but I figured I'd just drive there and figure it out. I went to Ronald Reagan Medical Center, where I stayed and they sent me to another building, where I looked around, was finally told to go through an "Authorized Personnel Only" door, to where the medical records department was. They were out to lunch, of course, so I walked over to In 'n Out, ate and went back, 1:15pm. They still weren't back. I played some Angry Birds on my phone. Finally I got to speak with them and it turns out, they could only give me records of my stay, nothing that had anything to do with cost for services or treatment. They sent me to the 17th floor on a building on Wilshire. I moved my car because it was in two hour parking and it had been almost two hours, then walked over to Wilshire. I went to the 17th floor only to be told billing was on the 16th floor. I finally found it on the 16th floor. They seemed anxious that I hadn't made an appointment. Then, I finally got someone who could help me and they gave me exactly what I was looking for in less than ten minutes.

I came back to the Palisades and checked my mail, just a couple things, one was a bill from the city charging me taxes for last year, who knew you had to pay city taxes? and a car bill. I spent the rest of the afternoon ironing out my mailing address, which the post office says I attempted to change 14 times. No, I changed it three times, big deal. Then I tried to get a new health insurance card, which they told me they haven't sent to me because everyone is getting a new one next month. Then I tried to figure out why I haven't been receiving unemployment benefits and I finally got through to an agent after trying to three separate times and she is sending all the paperwork, which should be for like 800 bucks.

I played guitar for a little bit, got a couple songs down pat and am starting to expand my repertoire, learned "I'm Gonna Find Another You" by John Mayer today. Okay okay. I won't go into writing a bunch of lyrics for you today, if you see the title, you get it.

Then, I offered to give my cousin a ride somewhere, turns out it was to yoga, so I went with him. Jesus. I haven't done yoga in almost a year. I sweat my fucking balls off. Sweat was dripping onto my mat. My feet and hands got so sweaty I had to flip my mat over. There were a lot of really hot yoga girls. One right next to me was in some deep stretch and the yoga instructor came over and basically gave her a back rub. That is the privilege of being a yoga instructor, I didn't see him help out any dudes or actually anyone else like that, whispering, "Yeah, that's it, deeeeeeeper." I almost touched my toes, but not quite.

So yeah, that was my day, not spent inside my head at all. Though I thought about checking myself back into Neuorpsychiatric at Ronald Reagan when I was trying to get that billing mess figured out! Yeesh. Talk about bureaucrats.

Ready to watch some Daily Show and go to bed. Tomorrow I have nothing going on, but it's cool, Wednesday I'm headed home and I can spend my day getting ready and being excited about that. Have to write a follow up email to Meredith from the production company. That's something.

Yeah that's it. Peace.

Go Niners!

The Forty Niners are winning again. This game has kept me company through the afternoon. It was actually pretty close through the first half, but then they pulled away. It's about time that they're good again and just in time with basketball not being around this year.

It felt good getting back here last night and hanging out with my family. My cousin just got back from college for the Thanksgiving break. I just missed a phone call from Stefan and a text from Jace, of course, just after I got back on this side of town. Oh well.

I went to bed early last night and slept for about twelve hours, this is becoming kind of standard and it's a bit alarming. I don't think that is a healthy thing to do and I end up feeling tired the rest of the day anyway. I managed to do some stretching today and that felt good. I also found a forum for people with bipolar that I posted on and have been looking at some different books on people dealing with the illness. I have three books now that I've started and not finished, Infinite Jest, The Elegant Universe and Mental Health Through Will-Power. I need to finish at least one of them before I start yet another book.

I feel mostly the same today as I did yesterday. I wish I had more energy and more stuff to do. It's raining today, so I feel alright about hanging around a little more than I normally would. I also ate some chicken soup, which was good. Other people in this support forum echoed the message that some people understood, some didn't, some people said bipolar ruined most of their relationships or marriages, others seemed to think in time most people that care come around to some sort of understanding.

I am definitely feeling the distance of living in the Palisades today. Really missing hanging out at the house where the game would be on whether I wanted to watch or not, where I could call people up more casually and invite them to my place, where I could do literally whatever the hell I wanted with no regret or guilt, where I had improv practice at 3:30 and would get to hang out with those friends in the evening, where we would go out to eat at places we saw on food TV shows on a whim or just hang out and watch Treme or Boardwalk Empire or Curb, where I would go buy food for the week or BBQ outside or go to the park and play basketball or play Scrabble or Risk if it was raining like it is today, where I would stay in sweats all day and be unapologetic about waking up late or taking a nap.

Well, at least I can still watch Boardwalk Empire tonight. I am ready to land this position at my interview tomorrow. It would be really nice going into Thanksgiving knowing I'm coming back with a job.

All I Need Is Some Sunshine

Listening to a great song right now by Timber Timber called "Black Water" and "All I need is some sunshine" is the chorus the singer repeats over and over. That is what I am looking for right now, something good to pick me up and carry me out of this drabness.

I wrote a post earlier and decided to delete it, lets just say the title was "tragic". Felt a little melodramatic. Was what happened to me tragic? Let's deconstruct. In order for something to be a tragedy you have to have a tragic hero, okay check there. In order to be a tragic hero you must have a fatal flaw and what would this flaw be for me? What is it inside of me that allowed for this situation to happen? Maybe that I was two open when I should have hid some of the thoughts and feelings that I had. I trusted too much, I believed too easily. If the same situation happened and I hadn't sent those emails, I would have avoided a large part of this.

And what are the consequences? Well, I'm not dead, happy to say, so in that way this whole thing hasn't been totally tragic. I certainly have a chance to right things and I will, in time. In fact this time I put myself in much less danger than I had in the past. I might have been driving to El Salvador, but I was cool and collected and very patient, also when things didn't work out on the drive I turned around and went home. I didn't end up naked in a cop car and I didn't drive erratically, which I did both of the first two times.

However, the first two times I didn't do any permanent damage to any relationships in my life. Most people kind of heard about things second hand and the few that were around were supportive. In both cases I bounced back quite quickly, I felt "good" again within a couple weeks. I know my brother was thrown off by things for a while, but he was still talking to me, so we were able to build a relationship back. This time isn't so easy, for one reason. Hate to keep harking back on it, but now that I am going home in a few days it is more and more on my mind.

When is she going to talk to me again? When she gets word that I'm over it? I really don't know. It just feels so shitty. Ah, here I go again, getting all gloomy, the exact reason I deleted my last post. I started trying to write an outline for a script about what is going on with me, thinking it might be a good way to vent some more and especially since I am getting some good feedback from people saying I should do something more with my writing. It is so hard to delve back into that past specifically though, especially considering I have no closure with the experience yet.

Closure will never come, I don't think. I have been looking for closure since the first time I tried to get over her, since my mom died, I got it with Kate, but I doubt she did, maybe she did, now that she's engaged to someone else.

So what's the next best thing to closure? Forgetting? I am trying, but obviously not doing a very good job, considering I am sitting here writing another post similar to one I just spent an hour or so writing just to delete. In fact, like I said before, over time I am thinking about it more, well first a lot then less then more and I'm sure it will be more and more until I go home, probably not until deep into next year will I really be able to start to put it behind me, maybe. It's really going to bother me if we're not talking by then.

Some more good lyrics from this band:

I'm afraid I'll never understand baby,
I'm so sorry you had such a bad time.
Well I've done some truly awful things
And you must be very terrified
Well you have every reason to be frightened
Since you been reading my mind
Who am I to deny this moment
And who am I to even question it?
There is a cross on a mountain baby
There is a cross glowing over your head
Please break this spell you have me under
Every heart is a lonesome hunter
Please break this spell you have me under
Every heart is a lonesome hunter.

Now listening to M83 Midnight City

Waiting in a car
Waiting for a ride in the dark
The night city grows
Look and see her eyes, they glow


Know how that is, M83.

I came over to Silverlake tonight figuring I'd find something to do by the time I got here, but no one is around. I have a show at 9:30, I think I'm going to stick around for another half an hour and if I don't here from anyone, I'm going to go back to the Palisades and I'll send them an email letting them know I can't do the show and just tell people I'm not up for going out tonight. I am honestly just feeling really down, like I can feel myself bumming people out right now just typing this. It would probably help to hang out with people, but maybe I can get that going tomorrow if people are less busy, sitting here in this coffee shop all night is no good, at least in the Palisades I can hang out with whoever from my family is at the house, maybe call Jen. I could use a good conversation with her right about now.

Eck, don't even know that I want to post this, but I guess I will.

Back to the Palisades for me. What a waste of gas! Well, considering how I'm feeling, probably best that I don't drink tonight in any case.

Coffee Machine is Fixed

This is the big news in my life. My aunt fixed the coffee machine here and now it is better than ever. Such a great example of how fortunes can turn around in a flash. I am drinking a cup right now and it tastes delicious, especially considering I thought I would have to go without it for yet another day.

I never was able to continue my post last night. Traffic getting over to Silverlake was terrible. The nice thing about not living over there and having a job in Santa Monica is I don't have to sit through that shit twice a day. Last night, it took me over an hour to get out there. Terrible. Luckily, along the way I was able to make plans with a friend to go get some dinner and go to the show I wrote about.

It was pretty fun, there was an awkward vibe about the whole evening though because of what was unsaid. She was down here visiting this friend a couple weeks ago and he never said anything about it, even though I'm sure he knows I figured out she was down here while they were together and tried calling her. He may come home with me for Thanksgiving, his parents recently moved to Nashville and he isn't going out there for the holiday. If he does come with, it will make my anxiety even worse, since I'm sure they'll want to hang out and because of the circumstances this will have to be without me, then I'm going to be forced to pry for details or awkwardly not bring it up. Also, my best girl friend is moving in with her in San Francisco soon. So frustrating not being in the loop.

Somehow I got really worn out in the middle of writing this and had to take a nap.

I had trouble getting to sleep last night and didn't totally fall asleep until around three. Was pretty proud of myself for getting up at 10:30am today, until I just took a nap that is.

So, yeah, everything feels sort of fucked right now. I am having trouble writing again today, just feel totally exhausted. Part of me wishes I had just brought this stuff up to him, but for whatever reason I just wasn't able to and as I've found, no one is going to bring it up to me.

Once again I am feeling mad about what happened to me, wondering where I would be if my life had continued on the path it was headed, without this drastic change of events. Would I still be in my house? Maybe. Would I still be at my job? Probably. Would I still be pursuing Kim? Definitely. Would I feel this tired if I had stuff to do everyday? Probably not.

I feel like the whole not using names thing has been stifling me a little bit in my writing, so I'm just not going to worry about it. I can always not use a name in a given situation if it's appropriate. The friend I went to visit last night was Sean. He and I have been really good friends since high school. My senior year he was probably the person I spent the most time with, even taking into consideration my family. He has a great life down here. He is producing commercials, which means he works really hard, but then gets free time whenever he wants to plan for it. He just went to visit his love interest in London, she is British.

Before this whole manic episode happened I'd met up with him in a bar called the Cha Cha Lounge and completely updated him on what was going on with Kim, I had been home, confessed my love and it had been well recepted, then I told him about her trip to El Salvador and how I wasn't sure when she was coming home. He suggested we go to El Salvador together and visit her and I thought this was a great idea, even though I'd never be able to afford it. This first planted the idea of going to her in my head.

The day I left to drive to El Salvador, I was very close to going by his place to see if he wanted to make the drive with me spontaneously. I wonder what would have happened had I gone by there first. My uncle had dropped me off at work that morning, because I had gone slept at their house the night before and carpooled with Kevin the day before. When he dropped me off, I went right across the street to the bus station. I took the bus downtown, telling Kevin I was sick and throwing up and to let my boss know, then took the subway to the stop closest my house. I went into the house and started packing things up and told Josh, who was home that my uncle had invited me to go with him on a trip to Hawaii for the week. It was uncanny how good I was at keeping the attention off me and slipping out the door before anyone was able to question me.

I took my guitar and pawned it off at guitar center for $300, this gave me a grand total of $600 for my trip. I somehow had convinced myself that she had fled the country because she knew something bad was going to happen. It's too bad my episode lent itself to this sort of thinking.

The drive down felt amazing. It felt like I was freeing myself from a trap, I was about to go to the real world. Unlike my other manic episodes, during this one I drove patiently and with purpose the entire way. I never was out of control and I never put myself into direct danger by getting naked or by driving super recklessly. I just tried to get to El Salvador and when I realized this wasn't possible, I turned around and went home.

I'm not sure whether or not I was imagining things on the drive home. I would have to make the drive again to know for sure. Some strange things:

- In Mexico my tank was filled up with 20 gallons of gas, much larger than my tank and I made it home with over half a tank left.
- A special entrance at the border called "Senti".
- The beautiful "Nobel" building and UCSD campus.
- Big buildings for the Navy and one for NASA or something like that on the coast.
- Long stretch of beautiful beaches that look like the Gaviota coastline.
- Can't replicate this, but perfect weather the entire way, rolled with the windows down and fog holding off just at the coast line.

When I got back everyone was really worried about me, all of my friends were together at my house. It felt really good for all of them to be there when I got back. The last two times, my journeys had been to meet up with all of my friends and this time, I came home to them. It was a nice ending. I literally thought I had just visited a different dimension and gone through the gates of heaven and hell. I was sure something bad was going to happen to Los Angeles, then Chicago if I wasn't checked into the hospital by 8am the next morning. So the next morning, Jace took me, thank goodness, nice and early. There was a big earthquake in Washington DC the day before, which was very strange and which I thought was somehow related to my experience.

At the hospital I waited a very long time to be checked in, I wanted to flee many times, but having Jace there, telling me that staying was for the best, was really helpful. I trusted his judgement and listened and stayed.

Yeah, I think I am going to have to go back to using names again, it makes things flow for me so much more. It is much more informative and cathartic, I will definitely keep information confided to me by other people out of this thing, but I need to be able to confide things on here and I don't think I can do it without writing openly.


I guess that's good for now. Maybe I'll try writing some more later.

A Bad Good Dream

I dreamt about her last night, really fucked up the beginning of my day. The coffee machine is broken permanently, this is a disaster! I'm out at Starbucks right now, but I didn't get near an outlet and my battery is running a little bit low. Looks like I will have to type quick.

So, I woke up at noon today, after getting home pretty late last night. The show was alright. People seemed to enjoy my performance, even though I was downbeat. We did a monoscene (a one scene set) and I played the same character the whole time. I honestly didn't have much of a character, but we were at a casino where the dealer would let you bet anything and I bet one of the customers.

Today, I had no idea I was even getting up late, I thought it was going to be 9am or something. Because I took my medicine so late, I was still kind of out of it. Rather than going upstairs and being embarrassed about waking up late to the housekeeper that I knew was upstairs, I jumped in my car and drove down to the ocean and listened to the news on NPR and read for a while, turning into a new pastime of mine and then came here to the coffee shop.

I texted Hanna and she is meeting friends in Venice tonight, so looks like we may have to put off our date a little longer, it's okay, I'll keep persisting. She definitely is interested.

So about my dream last night, it was a heartbreaker. In it, I was back in Danville, with her and she was totally accepting of everything that happened and things were back to how they were before my manic episode. Then I woke up. It is always hard to wake up from a really good dream and realize you are back in the real world, where things are infinitely more complicated.

Like I was saying last night, I am definitely stubborn about letting her go. As I was feeling pretty shitty about it, I decided to write her last night. I expressed some of the feelings I've written about here and tried to make her understand why her presence is a positive influence in my life. I'm not sure she'll write back and I didn't pressure her to, but I hope she'lll at least read it.

More than anything, I just wanted to express how I was feeling about coming back to Danville for Thanksgiving and let her know that I wanted to see her, even though I understand (sort of) if she doesn't want to see me.

So, I guess I can blame myself for having a dream about her last night, since I had been focused on writing her this email much of the evening. But the truth is, even when we haven't talked for a while or even when she is on the other side of the world, she manages to creep back in to my conscious in one way or another. I can't help it, my brain is just wired to think about her. After a decade of this, I think it will take considerable time to undo it, certainly, I don't feel like I'm at all there yet. In fact, quite the opposite. I was definitely thinking about her most right after I found out she blocked me on facebook and then for the next week. Things started slowly getting better, but now that I'm getting ready to go back to Danville, it is increasing again and making me feel like crap.

I think my time is almost up here, my parking validation only lasts an hour, but I'm going to continue this somewhere else.

Well, I'm back at the house now. On the way home I got an email about an interview for an assistant/creative executive position. This would be just about the perfect position for me. I'm very excited to interview for this. Not sure what I'm gonna do now. It's Friday, so I should do something.  I think I am going to go to the UCB Thanksgiving Day Parade show, even though I can't really find anyone to go with me, I guess I'll see people I know when I get there. I think I am going to head over to Silverlake now, maybe continue this at Silverlake Coffee.

Slow Day

As I sort of expected yesterday, I had trouble getting myself going today. I don't really have much on the agenda until my show tonight at 11. I saw the story about the guy who tried to assassinate the president, he is obviously suffering from a mental condition of some sort. I worry that people will read that story and think that could happen to anyone suffering from mental illness, including me. I know I will never be like that. I've never wished violence toward anyone, let alone the president. I love him, usually.

My neck hurts from sleeping funny last night. I hate when this happens. Never blame sleeping. It is because I haven't been stretching enough and keeping limber. Maybe I'll do that before I go to the show.

When I woke up today I found out the coffee machine is broken! Maybe that is part of the problem here, no coffee.

I am feeling more lonely than usual today. I miss having work, having roommates, being able to hang out in Silverlake without having to travel all the way back across town or having to hang out in a coffee shop for hours between activities. My dad gave me a call and I need to call him back, not sure what it is about, maybe I can express some of this to him.

I want to look forward to going home next week and I am, but it would be so much better if I could see my friend while I was back. I'm missing her a lot today. I know I am going to be thinking about her and wondering what she is doing the whole time I'm home. Also, even though I am excited to go home, I am thinking about how excited I would be to go home and see her. People say this kind of stuff gets easier with time, but for me it doesn't. I am stubborn about letting her go.

It is hard for me to write today. Every day until now the words have just spilled out, but today they are trickling. 

I am really thankful for my aunt and uncle and for their help during this trying time for me. It is nice to have my cousins around in the evening. I am thankful for all of my friends down here, even though they seem far away at the moment. I am thankful for improv and the release it gives me. I'm sure I'll have fun tonight.

That made me feel a little bit better.

Well, maybe I will go upstairs and hangout for a little while, I think one of my cousins is home.

Literature Continues to Follow Me

As I've eluded to, sometimes books relate to my life in strange ways that seem beyond coincidence. I had already told my psychiatrist about the latest book I've been reading, Infinite Jest. This is a 1000 page monster that I've been trying to tackle. I've wanted to read it for a long time, that being said, I knew nothing about the book before I started, except that it is supposed to be one of the best satires in recent history. So far, the main character is dealing with mental illness, there are many characters dealing with addictions, many with pot, there is a character with Crohn's disease, the list goes on, here's one quote I marked from a couple weeks back:

"But then I quit (smoking pot). And a couple of weeks after I've smoked a lot and finally stopped and quit and gone back to really living, after a couple weeks this feeling starts creeping in, just creeping in a little at the edges at first, like first thing in the morning when I get up, or waiting for the T to go home, after work, for supper. And I try to deny it, the feeling, ignore it, because I fear it more than anything.

"And then but no matter what I do it gets worse and worse, it's there more and more, this filter drops down, and the feeling makes the fear of the feeling way worse, and after a couple weeks it's there all the time, this feeling, and I'm totally inside it, I'm in it and everything has to pass through it to get in, and I don't want to smoke, and I don't want to work, or go out, or read, or watch TP, or go out, or stay in, or either do anything or not do anything, I don't want anything except for the feeling to go away. But it doesn't. Part of the feeling is being like willing to do anything to make it go away. Understand that. Anything. Do you understand? It's not wanting to hurt myself, it's wanting to not hurt."

I can certainly sympathize with this, I've never tried to hurt myself but I have definitely put myself in harm's way unintentionally, while I was trying to make the feelings go away.

The real coincidence was today though. Today in therapy I did a lot of talking about my mom's death and the doctor seemed concerned that I am largely unable to display emotion about it, I talked a lot about it in my last post, maybe read that before you read these quotes, in order to really appreciate just how applicable they are.

Let me preface it with saying I don't feel this way about my doctor, but, well I'm sure you'll be able to see how it connects. In this scene, Hal, the main character is talking to his brother about his sessions with a grief therapist after his father's death:

"What could I do? I was panic-stricken. This guy was a nightmare. His face just hung there over his desk like a hypertensive moon, never turning away...He was my worst nightmare. Talk about self-consciousness and fear. Here was a top-rank authority figure and I was failing to supply what he wanted. He made it manifestly clear I wasn't delivering the goods. I'd never failed to deliver the goods before.

"And here but here was this authority figure with top credentials in frames over every square cm. of his walls who sat there and refused even to define what the goods here would be.

"I began to despair. I began to foresee somehow getting left back in grief-therapy, never delivering the goods and it never ending...I wasn't going to get to go with the contingent to Indianapolis unless I could figure out some last-ditch way to deliver the emotional goods to this guy. I was totally desperate, a wreck."

Okay, now this got even weirder. I actually hadn't read this last part I am about to quote to you. I wrote the other day about helping my cousin with a writing assignment about a book of poems by Walt Whitman, he just walked in the door and I asked him what the book of poems was, it was Leaves of Grass. Here's the rest of the quote...

"Lyle turned out to be the key. He was down there reading Leaves of Grass. He was going through a Whitman period, part of grieving for Himself (what they call Hal's father)...Lyle's key insight was I was approaching the issue from the wrong side. I'd gone to the library and acted like a student of grief. What I needed to chew through was the section for grief-professionals themselves. I needed to prepare from the  grief-pro's own perspective...

so he does and goes back in with this

"What I did, I went in there and presented with anger at the grief-therapist. I accused the grief-therapist of actually inhibiting my attempt to process my grief, by refusing to validate my absence of feelings. I told him I'd told him the truth already. I used foul language and slang. I said I didn't give a damn if he was an abundantly credentialed authority figure or not. I called him a shithead. I asked him what the cock-shitting fuck he wanted me to feel toxically guilty for not feeling anything. Notice I was subtly inserting certain loaded professional-grief-therapy terms like validate, process as a transitive verb, and toxic guilt. These were library derived.

"The grief-therapist encouraged me to go with my paroxysmic feelings, to name and honor my rage. He got more and more pleased and excited as I angrily told him I flat-out refused to feel iota-one of guilt of any kind...

"I absolved myself with seven minutes left in the session right there in full approving view of my grief-therapist. He was ecstatic. By the end I swear his side of the desk was half a meter off the floor, at my grief-therapist-textbook breakdown into genuine affect and trauma and textbook earsplitting grief, then absolution."

Then his brother replies, "But you got through it. You really did grieve, and you can tell me what it was like so, so I can say something generic but convincing about loss and grief for Helen for Moment." (a magazine he is being interviewed by)

Pretty humorous, most of the good parts of this book are ironic in the way that scene is. I relate to the feeling of having to deliver the goods and not pulling through, the challenge for me will be to stop thinking about it in these terms and just feel real feelings in the moment. Not easy for me, in any setting let alone a clinical one.

Well, you got to see how literature follows me live, in action.

I wrote a poem about death today. Turns out a friend of mine had her grandpa pass away today, I didn't know this when I wrote the poem:

A Strange Fate


It's a curious storm
as death is born,
washing down the street,
clearing away
the leaves astray,
repeat, repeat, repeat.

It's a wonderful cry
when death does fly,
ringing out it's tune.
Humming notes
that whirl and float,
broke from it's cocoon.

It's a maddening time,
as death does chime,
ringing at the noon.
As shadows leave,
a cruel reprieve:
the bell will toll for you.

It's the easiest wind
as death blows in,
swirling down the hall.
Loose papers fly,
you wave goodbye,
as never there at all.

11/16/11

Well, maybe it is time to read me some Leaves of Grass.

Psychiatry Appointment

I managed to wake up 9:30am today. Knowing I had an appointment at 11:30 helped, gave me some purpose. There was a lot of news about how the republicans are having trouble finding a serious candidate and a lot about the Occupy Wall Street protests getting shut down, pretty much what you would expect.

I left here without giving much regard to my appearance. My psychiatrist told me that I looked tired when I got there, even though I felt pretty good, I think it was one of those cases where I wasn't worried about presenting myself because I was feeling good. My hair is really messy and I am wearing basketball shorts and sandals and a beer sweatshirt.

We had an interesting conversation today. I left feeling more confused than when I came in, which usually isn't the case. First of all, she suggested I not mention people more generally on here so it doesn't affect my relationships and cause people to close off. I think I've been pretty judicious so far when talking about other people and definitely haven't been lashing out, plus, most people reading this either know me well enough that they know who I'm talking about. Those were my arguments. Let me know if you think it is better one way or the other, I'm really not sure.

Today we went into a lot of things, how I tend to hold things inside and have trouble expressing myself emotionally, even though I tend to be very open when it comes to talking about things and revealing things about myself, I rarely cry or get outwardly angry. Usually, when I do cry, it is when I am in the middle of a manic episode. I cried a lot while I was with my ex-girlfriend. I think it is because when we fought, I felt an enormous amount of guilt for wanting to leave her while she was sick. I didn't but I still felt guilty about it.

This sort of relates back to another thing we were talking about today, which is my stepdad leaving after my mom passed away. My brother and I totally had our lives upended, we went from living at the house with my mom and stepdad to living with my dad, luckily he lived nearby, but this was a huge change of pace. I only saw my stepdad twice after my mom passed away, once at Chili's near our birthdays and another time at her funeral. He wasn't even there when we went to spread her ashes up in Mendocino and I don't recall ever wondering why he wasn't around until this moment.

He was very withdrawn, more so as time went on and he seemed checked out from being a stepdad long before my mom died. My family really kind of turned on him durning this time and he just kind of accepted it and moved on. We went over and brought him cookies on father's day, I felt bad for him and wanted to reach out and express that we appreciated him helping raise us over the years, he said he was surprised and he thanked us and that was about it. Soon after, he told us we couldn't just come by the house anymore and moved the key we hid outside.

A year or so late he moved up to Washington, where his brother lives with his family. He never told us he was moving. My brother still went by every once in a while to check in, but I never did. My brother had always been closer with him than I was.

My doctor seems to think this is somehow related to how I am dealing with this issue with the girl I drove to El Salvador for (no longer to be named specifically). Fear of being abandoned, fear of losing someone forever, maybe because this has happened to me in the past, I jump to conclusions about it happening again. Maybe I felt I was being abandoned and that is why I left to get her in the first place. Funny how by playing into my fear it was able to manifest itself in a real way.

Why am I not crying right now?

I remember being at my mom's funeral and wanting to cry, but then, feeling like everyone was watching me and wondering why I wasn't crying and that made me try to cry and then that felt disingenuous and I couldn't force myself to do it.

The only person I've ever been able to cry openly in front of was my ex-girlfriend. I also felt comfortable expressing my anger toward her, which I normally can't do and sadness followed. I knew I could get angry with her and she wouldn't leave me over it. That is a rare thing for me to feel. I definitely didn't feel this way with the girl who won't talk to me (feels a little clunky, right?). I was afraid if I ever expressed anger or frustration toward her, she'd be off and I also was never able to cry in front of her. I've also cried in front of my dad, I've definitely expressed anger toward him, but not in a long time.

So it seems like being able to express legitimate anger in front of someone and being able to cry in front of them go hand in hand, maybe not for everyone but for me. I've cried once during my psychiatry appointment, but it was a week I was not at all stable. It would be good to be able to express more emotion and feel like I'm doing better, but this is hard for me.

Who and what am I angry toward, what am I sad about? I am angry and sad about my mental illness, about having to deal with my mom passing away at a young age and at my stepdad for leaving. I am smad (sad and mad combine into one word) about other people leaving me, about not having a job and generally feeling like I'm not where I am supposed to be. I am smad that when I go home I can't just enjoy myself and be carefree, that this shit will be on my mind, regardless of what happens. Do I feel more sad or mad about any one of these things? I guess I will not know until I let those emotions pour and and see what comes through. It will be a real challenge for me to do that.

Well, my aunt is working out of the house today, so I am feeling like getting out of here for a bit, unfortunately I don't really want to drive far. Maybe I will grab my book and go pull up next to the oceanside for a bit and read and listen to NPR, maybe doze off for a quick minute, then I can come back around four or so and think up something that I've been doing, maybe my go to, basketball in Venice. I guess I could actually go play basketball in Venice, but I probably won't.

I cannot wait to get a job and get the hell out of here.

Trying to Work

Last night at UCB was blast, Gilli and her team had a great show and I think it is the start to what will be a successful Harold Team. The Harold is a style of long form improv and if you are put onto one of these teams, it is your real indoctrination into the theater. After the show we went and hung out at a bar called Birds, which is right next to the theater and where people typically go after shows.

Like I said before, it is really nice to finally feel like I'm part of this community. I'm not great at getting out there and meeting new people, but after three years I've managed to soak my way in. It's cool being able to go and talk to a lot of different really funny people, especially now because I know enough of them well enough to not feel like I constantly have to put on a show. Being a good friend is enough.

After staying out last night, I slept in pretty late again. I first woke up at 8:30, then 10:30, at which point I got up for a while and ate and read the news and then sort of lounged around until about one. I'm disappointed police are breaking down the Occupy camps, although they are probably doing them a favor by providing them with more press coverage.

I had a big interview today at a management company called The Hoffland Company, they represent Julia Louise Dryfus and Kenneth Braugnah, Kevin Kline and some others. I had a really great time, I felt totally relaxed and in the zone, the woman interviewing me seemed more nervous than I did! I'm going to write a kick ass follow up tonight and send it off early tomorrow, so it looks like I'm up early.

I really can't wait to be working again. Even though it seems like it sucks while you are doing it, it gives you purpose, keeps you busy and makes you appreciate your free time so much more. I have constantly been thinking about how much money I could be saving if I had kept my job at docstoc, ugh, regret feelings sinking in! Let's talk about something else...

Also, Hanna and I have been texting and have a date in the works, it was supposed to happen this afternoon, but I ended up having this interview, which makes me sound cool, so I'm alright with it. Hm, guess I don't have a whole lot to say today, this is one of my shorter posts and it is the only post I have written today, probably because there isn't too much new to say and I delved into a lot of stuff yesterday.

A friend of mine just wrote openly about his depression on facebook and it was cool to see how many people openly supported him. He wrote about having suicidal thoughts and not wanting to go out of the house for days and days. Maybe someday I will openly talk about what's happened to me, but probably not, I'm too worried about getting a job, I don't even let people know that I worked at docstoc, let alone have a mental illness. Maybe if I wrote a really good book about it, but that is harder than it sounds! Delving into traumatic experience is no fun, especially for long periods of time like that.

Yeah, that's it, good day so far, feel good. Tomorrow is Wednesday, which means I have my psychiatry appointment. I'm looking forward to it. Definitely feeling better this week. It will be interesting to see if she has anything specific to say about my blog, as it's gone pretty in depth, even though we've already talked about most of the stuff. The rest of the day I'll be here with nothing to do. Maybe I will do push ups and sit ups and go on a run. That'd be good. Maybe I'll read! I've barely done any reading since I started writing this thing. Maybe I'll write something else other than this blog. Who knows? The possibilities are endless.

What Am I?

This has been a struggle for me and the doctors to figure out for years. The first couple times after I was hospitalized, the doctors never even really went into detail with me about pinning down a diagnosis, maybe because they just weren't sure. I was happy about that, like I said, I never really wanted the stigma of having a mental illness and because I didn't have a label, I was able to brush it aside like I didn't have one at all.

Now, my doctor has told me it could be bipolar or schizoaffective, but last time I saw her she eluded to the possibility it could be something else all together. To me, it sounds more like schizoaffective, but my case doesn't seem as extreme as the symptoms they detail, my truly psychotic symptoms seemed to last only a few days in every case.

So, maybe bipolar, but I'm not positive I suffer from "major depression" either. Once I was out of the hospital, I had a week or so of what I would call major depression, where I was having anxiety attacks and stuff, but I have never felt that way before and haven't felt it since. Then with this situation the last couple weeks, but I was hurt really bad by a specific situation and even though I was personally really hurt, I didn't feel completely overwhelmed as much as I felt like I cut myself some slack and allowed myself to wallow a bit, so I'm not sure it really counts. Normally in my life, people tend to comment on how my mood always seems to be the same, pretty upbeat. When I worked at Red Robin, people often asked how I came in with a good attitude every day, same with when I ran student council in college.

Even on a day like today, where I don't really have much going on and I am by myself most of the day, I feel alright. Yeah, I've been sleeping quite a bit, but it's not like I haven't been able to get up and do things or enjoy things. I've also, thank goodness, never had suicidal thoughts or the urge to hurt myself at all. I have had some manic symptoms, but those are few and far between. I don't know if I really get mild mania, except the few times it has been a precursor to these manic episodes. I can think of one time, when I was with Kate and I was really into making these videos, I had trouble sleeping for one night, but then was able to catch up. During this time, I also told Kate I wanted her to move closer to me, which was big mistake. It felt really nice to have someone there to help keep me grounded at the time.

I also don't feel like I suffer from hypomania, I know someone that was diagnosed with hypomania and he is constantly planning and scheming about how his script he is writing is going to blow up, etc. I don't have those kind of big expectations.

So what do I have? I feel like my depressions are pretty mild, it has never really felt overwhelming to me, except like I said, maybe when I switched my meds this last time I got out of the hospital from Zyprexa to Geodon. It is the mania that is completely overwhelming. Maybe people thinking I am always in a good mood in these work situations has to do with me being a people pleaser more than actually being happy. In general, I want people to like me and think I am nice, so I don't go into situations with people I don't know well with a bad attitude.

Depression may run in my family. My mom used to sleep a lot, like I do, her mood always seemed pretty stable, but she was a people pleaser like me. She was always worried about how my brother and I acted and how that would reflect on her as a mother. Maybe she wasn't always as happy as she seemed. My dad on the other hand would have long periods of being angry with my brother and I when we were younger, for basically no reason. I think this probably was undiagnosed depression and may have had something to do with why my mom and him got divorced.

In the end though, I know it isn't my job to be diagnosing myself, it is the job of my doctor and I'll trust whatever conclusion she comes to. I know the experiences I've had regardless of whatever label gets put on them.

--

I just talked to Jen on the phone, she was giving me an update on her new boyfriend, Jean Marc and told me Kim was her only friend that had met him. For whatever reason hearing that made me sad, probably because I was imagining Kim and Jen and this guy I don't know all having fun together and know there was no way I could have been there and now I am thinking about how Jen and Kim probably hangout more than Jen is letting on. So it goes.

Tonight I am going to see Gilli and a bunch of other friends on a new Harold Team at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, called Winslow. I am extremely proud of her; she was the first of our group to make it onto a team. We have all been fighting for this for the last couple years and it is extremely pleasing to see someone I know and have done improv with for years succeed in that way. A lot of other friends are on the team too, I've had other friends get on teams, but this is the first team to be made up of mostly all people I know. I feel like a new era of UCB is finally arriving and after three years am finally starting to feel part of the community in a real way.

Yay.

Nothing but Time

My aunt and uncle are both out of town in New York, my aunt is coming back tonight. Last night, it was just me and my two cousins at the house. Chad had to write a paper relating some poems by Emerson to a poem by Whitman. It was fun helping him out. I think I would enjoy being an English teacher if things turned out that way. He had been working on his topic sentence in the kitchen for a long time and I overheard him trying to iron it out with his sister over the phone, so I rewrote it and presented it to him and he liked it, then we broke down the poem he was using and found good quotes to use in each supporting paragraph.

This morning no one was at the house, even though I went to bed at 2am last night (I stayed up with Chad while he was working on his paper), I still woke up at the same time today, around 10:00am. Knowing no one would pass judgement, I went back to sleep until 11:30. At that point I went upstairs, poached some eggs and had coffee. They had no milk or cream, so I used chocolate milk, which was kind of weird. Now I have the whole day ahead of me with no plans and I've pretty much exhausted the job hunt already. I need to bring a check in for health insurance. That is something.

--

Since I have a little time and I am sitting here, comfortable on the guest room bed with Rambo, their Australian Shepherd, I figured now may be a good time to write a bit about my manic experiences.

1. The prednisone disaster: I was released from the hospital after a week of battling Crohn's disease with a bunch of prescriptions and a new lease on life. I would have to make some major changes to my diet and lifestyle. I was ready for this. Crohn's Disease had a major impact on my life the previous months, causing me to lose about thirty pounds, making me sleep about fourteen hours a day, giving me terrible stomach cramps every time I ate, I really couldn't do anything.

When I was got out, it was the end of Spring Break and I was ready to get back to school and back to my life. However, prednisone had a different idea. I was taking the steroid as it is a kind of miracle drug for Crohn's, it gives you more energy and helps your body regenerate faster, at least that is my understanding. For me, it also made my thoughts race. At first, it seemed under control. I was planning more than usual, putting together a schedule for myself and being very strict about my diet and taking my medication on time.

Next, I started having a religious sort of experience where I believed that in my head I had proved the existence of God. After this night of not really sleeping much, I returned to Santa Barbara with Jen, there was a point where I literally though her car had disappeared, when I told her this, she brushed it off as a joke--I couldn't really believe that!

When I returned, things continued to spiral, with a lack of sleep and more and more intense thoughts. There were moments where I believed I had come to the brink of death in my head. I had strange interactions with the internet, where I believed I was controlling or interacting with technology. I dialed a random number into my phone, and listened and swore that the message had the word Kennedy hidden in it.

The next morning, I walked to the bank, thinking I could make my account have unlimited money. It didn't. I then started to believe that I was invisible to everyone around me, even my roommates wouldn't interact with me unless I provoked them. I decided this was because they were all robots, made only to respond to humans, like aim bots or something.

I decided I needed to leave to join the secret society that had been trying to reach out to me through the internet, the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York. I started driving, I would go up to Danville, say goodbye to my dad and brother, grab of my stuff and leave. I thought when I got to New York all of my improv friends from college would be there living in the nicest apartments in the city and I could rotate living with each of them.

I was driving extremely recklessly, as I thought all the other cars were patrolled by robots. There was a point where I thought my car was driving itself. There were times where I gassed it to 110 miles an hour, then pulled into the median, which was dirt, and rolled to a stop. I went the wrong way up an on ramp. I drove into the middle of a field and busted off my side mirrors with a big metal water heater thing I had in my trunk. Then I kept driving. Eventually, I pulled off on the side of the road. I figured I got completely naked, someone driving by would know I'm not a robot and would pull over and take me into their secret society.

Someone did pull over, a hispanic mom in a minivan. Her kids got out of the car and I jumped into it. I don't think they were expecting this. I told them to take me to New York, when they said no, I started screaming. They called the police. I saw them pull up and I got out of the van, this was all part of the challenge I figured, to get the robots to take me to New York. The cops approached me and I refused to do what they were saying, until a guy came around behind me with his club, I was naked and afraid he was going to shove this up my butt, so I fell onto my knees and told them I had picked up a hitchhiker and he had raped me in my car.

At this point they became considerably less coercive and stuck me in the back of the cop car. I watched them from inside as they tried to figure out what the hell to do. There was four of them and it seemed like a regular comedy team. They had no idea what was going on, a naked kid who hopped in a van and started screaming, then said a man raped him and ran off into the fields. Should they go after the man?--or was that a ridiculous lie? Should they take me to the hospital, the police station? Should they go pick up my clothes first? I sat there for what seemed like forever while they made the one cop, wish I could remember his name, go do all the "bitch work" as I deemed it at the time of picking up my clothes and filing the report an everything, another cop drove me back to the police station while they tried to get in touch with my dad.

I sat in the police car the entire time. Finally, when the cops got in contact with him, they decided to take me to the hospital, they of course, were going to make the cop that had done all the work earlier drive me all the way to the hospital in Salinas, which was about an hour away. When one of the other cops told me that I said, "Hey, that one cop (I remembered his name at the time), he's like, your bitch huh?" The cop laughed and said, "Yeah, I guess he is."

That cop drove me to the hospital, where I admitted that no one had raped me because I had forgot that I made that lie up. I was admitted into the hospital in Salinas and taken into a room in the front of the hospital to be monitored. There was a big camera in the corner of the room, where people had thrown wet paper towels to try to cover it up. They gave me a sandwich, but I thought it was a test and didn't eat it. When I went to the bathroom, I thought it was a test not to contaminate water with my urine and peed on the floor.

Some asshole nurse kept coming by and provoking me and making me scream by opening up the door a little bit then slamming it shut, he knew I wanted out. There was an old man in a Giants baseball cap that didn't work at the hospital and for some reason was just sitting outside my room. I had no clue what he was doing there, watching me. I came to the conclusion that he was God. He was watching me, seeing if I could pass this test. I got up and decided I was going to run out of the hospital, still naked. I tried to run but when I did the old man stopped me and then a nurse came and helped. Then they put me in another room tied down with leather straps. This was when I thought I was done for, I pulled and squirmed and tried to get out but I couldn't. The more I felt trapped the more upset I became, until they came in and sedated me until I passed out. When I woke up it was the next morning and the straps were off and my dad and brother were there. That last night had been more scared than I ever had been in my life. Even the next manic experience, which ended terribly, would never feel as bad as being strapped down, unable to move in that hospital bed.

I somehow convinced my dad to let me go back to Santa Barbara, with my brother watching me. The very same day, I called all my friends from improv to meet in a room on campus and then tried to get there, I felt a heavy weight on my left side, like in a dream where it becomes hard to move. I took off all my clothes, this time for the purposed of getting the weight off of me and jumped into some girls van in Isla Vista and told her to take me to that room on campus. When she told me she was taking me to the police, I once again thought, "Great, they'll bring me there." Instead they locked me in a tiny little room while I screamed and my muscles spasmed  in what I thought was my body trying to pull itself into a loop.

They brought me Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, where they gave me a spinal tap and essentially put me under for an entire day. At some point I woke up and tried pulling all the things they had attached to me out and run out of the hospital and they had to sedate me again. I was there for a week, which was how long it took for me to myself back together somewhat. I would take the next quarter off from school and live at home with my dad.

2. New Year's 2008: I've actually written about this one before, some prose that I was trying to make a book out of, so I'll just paste it in.

            The first night was at the cabin in Tahoe. I went up with a couple buddies right after the new year to relax, play cards, smoke weed, have a couple beers, build a fire pit, pee in the woods, all usual fare for a recent college graduate. I remember starting to doze off on the couch, but when I tucked in I just couldn’t manage to fall asleep. I just kept staring and thinking, my thoughts racing, wondering: Holy fuck, what the hell am I going to do? I am paying rent in Santa Barbara, I am camping and I have no job when I go back because I quit the one I had at the end of summer to finish school.

            Here’s my original plan: If I get back down there, I can get my job back at Chili’s, where I worked for the last year, live downtown or well, close to downtown in the Mexican barrio, literally across the train tracks, and freeway from downtown, and take my last class at city college so I’ll finally receive my diploma. This is where the thinking should have stopped, but it didn’t. That is something I could pull off.

            Over the night though, I have hours of thinking time, to slowly develop my idea in my head. Finally after hours of thought, I decide I need to go to sleep. I’ve tried everything. Maybe I should smoke more pot. I toss off the covers and carefully back down the steep staircase. It is still warm in the cabin from the fire. As I come down, Rob notices me. He jolts and looks almost intensely awake instantly.

            “Hey man, I can’t sleep, think I’m going to smoke another bowl.”

            “Man, I can never sleep, like maximum six hours a day you know?”

            “Wow, I usually sleep a ton, like nine or ten hour nights.”

            I light a bowl and take a big bong load. So does he. We are sitting on the couch, I am rapping on about where I am in life and what I am going to do next, even though he never really asked. “I should buy Nintendo games in bulk on ebay. I should buy the cheapest system, currently N64. The prices of Super Nintendo and especially Nintendo are now rising as originals become more rare. I could eventually open up a store that sells classic gaming consoles and games. For now I’ll look on ebay for bulk N64 sales, price each game and each individual item, decide what is a good price to bid, scoop them up and resell them, all through ebay. That is something I might be able to pull off. I’ve decided this is way better than working at some fucking stupid job, this way my destiny is all in my control.” Rob is kind with his smiles and nods.

            I head back up stairs and manage to get a few hours of sleep.

            The second night I am in San Francisco at Paizis’ apartment on Petrero Hill. I look out at the ball park and the Bay Bridge from the kitchen table and writing down stocks I might like to invest in, Apple, Google, Vizeo. Forget the fact that I am about four thousand dollars in debt. I just had a two thousand dollar credit card come in. I figure I’ll have shit together before that fills up. My stomach is hurting. You see, I have something called Crohn’s Disease. I still don’t understand what the fuck it is or why it happens, but it makes my stomach hurt. It is probably a mixture of things: a poor diet, lack of exercise, God saying fuck you for being alive. We all get a little of that. I stay up all night lying awake on the couch.

            I look around the apartment and feel like I am in the future. Like how I thought the future would look when I was a kid. Every thing is sleek and angular, the room is devoid of any comfort, but in a cool way, a way that makes you feel like you are rising above the dirt and grime of the world on the ground floor, like the Jetsons. I stay up all the way until dawn, my thoughts maddening.

            The next day Paizis, his sister and I walk to Golden Gate Park where we throw a Frisbee and go to the observatory in the De Young Museum. I buy a book called The Poet’s Guide to San Francisco. The cashier tells me that she writes poetry and but that it isn’t online and I let her know she should post it, as I would like to see it.

            When I’m short for Bart a nice old woman taps on my shoulder and lends me a dollar. She has a gentle disposition and she and her husband seem happy seem surprised to run into such kind, young people. There is softness in the air and the world feels wholly a part of me.

            I go back to Danville and my brother is at my Dad’s with a bunch of his friends. They partied the night before while my dad was in Arizona, enjoying a vacation with his girlfriend. At this point I am really tired. All I want to do is get some sleep. The last couple days had been strange and wonderful. It was time to celebrate the New Year and go back to Santa Barbara, but first I had to sleep.

            It was loud in the house, footsteps running up and down the stairs and down the hall. I told my brother I would be in my dad’s room and to stay away it because I really needed to sleep. He said fine and stayed pretty quiet. My attempts to create a perfect environment for sleep didn’t work. I lay on my dad’s king size bed, surrounded by pillows, wrapped in the fluffy down duvet, the blinds pulled tight, my pajama pants on, my teeth brushed, flossed, my body showered, my socks off, water by the bedside, my cell phone on silent, every thing is quiet, empty, I am alone. Completely alone with myself.

            My mind starts wandering…

            I am driving to the top of Mt. Diablo. The New Year is eight hours away and when it comes the largest terrorist attack ever perpetrated is going to occur on US Soil. All car computer systems are going to be taken over by hackers and it will cause them to crash. Yes, I know, computers don’t control all cars, but enough of them are that it will cause an accident with almost any car on the road. Only being on the top of Mt. Diablo would I really be safe.

            I fantasize as the clock strikes midnight and all of the airplanes explode, illuminating the night sky like the millennium fireworks show. This is going to be bigger than just a terrorist attack, I think. This is going to pull at the whole fabric of our society. This is going to tear us apart from the people that we love and the places where we grew up. I need to go to my Aunt and Uncle’s, I think. They are well connected. They will be the only one’s that can save me, fly me out of the country to somewhere safe. Eight hours until the New Year, just enough time to drive to LA and make it to an airport.

            I can do it. I turn the car around and get on 680 south. 680, to 580, to 5 south, to the 405, exit Sunset. I dial 911 and throw it out the window of my car and step on the gas. Here I come. The radio is static, I turn it up loud and listen for any signal. The freeway is the machine, the car is the machine, the radio is the machine. We are in the machine floating down the river to Los Angeles, the heart of the blinding lights.

            The power comes from those in power. Those that control the power have the power. I imagine the lights and the internet and the power plants and the oil and the fire turning off and the people coming out of their homes and shaking their neighbors hands and the police never come and the military never comes and those that kept telling us we are addicted to fossil fuels saw the money facet that flows into their pockets turned off and we would see who the real addicts were and who was addicted to what. They are addicted to that faucet, that faucet made the river that is floating me down stream.

            I put on Justice, Cross, as this a biblical moment. The booming base and and shaky buzzing synthesizer penetrate to the middle of my conscious. This is death and rebirth, I think. I have no idea where I will come out on the other side. On the hillside I see big candles arranged in a giant cross. I drive into the Altamont, the end of free love, the end of the most beautiful pure existence any American had ever seen, when the Rolling Stones headlined a Woodstock style concert in the large yellow rolling hills of the Altamont. The Hell’s Angels were hired for security and the whole thing was one bad trip.

            I see a large cross, carved into the side of the hill. I’m not a Christian. I’m not even really a believer, but sometimes it believes in me.

            My car is being controlled. I am flying through traffic like it’s a video game race. My friends are here! They are controlling me, waiting for me, directing me to you, if I can only let go of control and just listen to the universe. I am cutting and swerving, slingshotting through traffic, I’m being controlled from above. Traffic is pretty heavy, but with help fro the divine, I can still make it on time. I get passed the Altamont and swing my car sharply, moving over to the I-5, my back right tire bursts. It happens closest to the exit of Mountain View, California, the home of Mike Garner’s parents. Mike is a close friend of mine. It must be a sign. Maybe this is where all my friends are, controlling me to come to them.

            Pretty clever, I think. I pull off and drive my car over on to the side of the road on both sides of me are flat open fields, the Mountain House suburban community looks to be about a mile down. I sit there, waiting for my next sign. An old farmer pulls up in a Jeep Cherokee to get the mail; I am parked right behind mailboxes for many of the farms in the area. I take my keys out and throw them on the floor of the car.

            I get out and shut the door. I am in the middle of moving apartments in Santa Barbara and most of my possessions are in my car, but I don’t care. I am about to be reborn. I am still positive of it. I walk up casually to the Jeep.

            “Hi there, sir. I got a flat and I’m looking to get over to Mountain House, would you mind taking me down the street?”

            “No, that’s fine.” He says, barely noticing the engagement. I buckle up as he creaks his way back into the driver’s seat.” For a minute I am in another life that I never lived. It feels like a deep sigh.

            “What do you think about what is going on in this country?” I ask.

            “I think it’s terrible.” He says. “I think it’s terrible what’s happened to his country.” He pulls over at my stop and I take out my wallet. I hand him my driver’s license. I tell him to take it and remember me; he tells me that I should keep it.

            “I’m going to leave it on the seat.” I tell him, with some weird sentimentality in my voice. He looks at me strangely and I start walking into the neighborhood. I don’t have my phone; I have no idea where this house is. It will come to me. I will be directed there if I let myself be guided. I’ve been taken this far.

            The entrance loudly proclaims, “Mountain House.” The roads carefully curve, the lawns are watered, the grass is cut, the blowers are growing, and the houses are warm. There is a New Year’s barbeque going on in a garage. I wander over. “Hi, there! Do you know where the Garners live?”

            “No, do any of you?”

            “Sorry, I drove all the way over here and I my cell phone is off, I have no ideas which house is theirs.”

            “Yeah man, I don’t know if we can help you, good luck though.”

            “Thanks. You guys look like you’re having a fun. Do you mind if I have a beer?”

            “Sure.” They say, handing me a Heineken.

            “Thanks.” I am overwhelmed by the openness of people. I pop it open with my keychain bottle opener and start sipping away. “Well, I guess I’ll continue the search.” I walk off, going by the pool, the elementary school, getting lost in the maze of streets and perfectly planned parks. I am lost, I am far away from my car, which has a flat, I am more determined than ever to get to Mike’s, it is getting dark, I am running out of time until New Year’s, I need to be with them by then.

            I need to get on a computer, I’ll find someone on online and get Mike’s number and give him a call. When I have the idea, I look over to the house closest to me. That must be the one. I walk to the door and knock. A young blonde woman answers with an attentive look on her face. Her husband is on the computer. “Hi there, I am trying to find the Garners.” I step inside, I see the look on their faces turn from that of happiness to those of horror for a brief moment, but the smiles return, fake this time. They have a clean and sterile but mostly empty home.

            “I just felt something switch.” I tell them. I flick the light switch. “Something just, changed, something is happening and I need to find the Garners so I can be with my friends. Can I please use your computer?”

            “I know where the Garners live.” The man calmly tells me, getting up from his seat, he guides me out of the house, reciting some directions I can only now assume were the directions out of the neighborhood, the whole time pointing at an one story house straight down the street. It is dark but Mike’s house was one story and their weren’t a lot of them in the neighborhood. I knew what he was getting at.

            “Thanks.” I say. The house is dark. It looks empty, but I will get in there, I have to before midnight. I knock on the front door and ring the doorbell; there is no response. I will get in; I have to get in. I hop over the back fence; I look through the back window and bang on it, no response. The stars in sky in look brighter than at any time in my life. I see all of the planes and satellites flying through the air, I watch they float in an array of brilliant colors.

            I imagine at midnight everything in the sky will explode from a terrorist attack, lighting up the clear night sky like fireworks.

            I am naked, standing by the back door. My clothes are spread around the yard,  hat, resting on the concrete by my feet. I buzz the doorbell of the ominous metal door in the backyard. I am buzzed in.

            In the house, it is dark and empty, I don’t see anyone, are they in the basement? A loud figure appears in the shadows. “What the fuck are you doing here?” I take a punch just above my right eye, I keep standing as more appear and I take punch after punch. I fall to the ground; the back end of a broomstick hits me repeatedly in the face, on the forehead, on the back of my eye. They push me into the laundry room. One of them says he is going to get his gun to shoot me. I want to run, but where would I run, into the street naked? Into the backyard to get my clothes, to be hunted down, bloodied and bruised? I sit on the dryer and wait for him to come back and shoot me in the face. I wait and I wait and I wait, to die. He never comes.

            I finally get up, not knowing what else to do and walk out into the garage. They are in there.  I press the button to lift the door and start to walk out into the streets, naked. They kick me out and just as I do a police car pulls around. I run over to it, crying. I fall down on my knees in the grass. They cuff me and put me in the car, stuffing me in the back seat.

            I hide from the men as I see the cops line them up against their Lincoln Navigator. A cop comes to wait in the car with me; she sits driver side, smoking a cigarette. “I never want to see any of them again.” I say. “I never want to see any of them again.”

            A cop comes back and hands me my hat, “Is this yours? We found it in the back yard.”

            “Yes.” I say. It is a trucker hat from the Topaz Lodge, with a salmon on it. “This will remind me that this is actually happened.”

            The police see me walking naked, out from the garage of the house and get out of the car. “Stop!” They yell at me. I do. I am crying. They probably came because a neighbor heard the screams coming from inside the house.

            “I’ll do whatever you want!” I tell them. They come up behind me and put handcuffs on me and lead me to the car. When they put me in I just keep my head down. I see them line up the three men against their Ford Navigator. Eventually a cop gets into the car.

            “They got you pretty good.” She says as she lights up a cigarette. “What were you doing there?”

            “I was looking for Sandy Garner’s.” I tell her. “I never want to see them again. Please just make sure I never see them again.” I never do.

            “Don’t worry.” She says. “We’re calling the ambulance for you right now.” I lay in the back seat cuffed while she smokes. I start feeling the need to escape.

            “I need to get out of here.” I say. “Extradite me to Paris or Amsterdam. I can’t afford to go to the hospital.”

            “We can’t do that.” She tells me. “Don’t worry, you’re going to be just fine.”

            The ambulance pulls up about ten minutes later. The team gets out with a gurney and loads me up on to it. “Do you know your name?” They ask.

            “Chris.” I tell them. “Take me to Amsterdam. I can’t afford to go to the hospital.” They all look at me with disdain except for one enlightened young man named Steven. “Why Amsterdam?” He asks?

            “They have good health care there. I could go to France too.” I say, making sure to give them options.

            “Why do you want to leave your home?”

            “I don’t like what’s going on in this country.” I say frankly. “I think we need a new president. I hope it is Barack Obama, but maybe it could be Barack Obama, then Hilary Clinton, then Ron Paul, if he’s still alive.”

            “Ron Paul is very different from the other two.”

            “Yeah, but I trust them all.” The rest of the ride happens in silence. Maybe this guy can help me get to Amsterdam, I think.

            They check me into the hospital and put me in an observation room. They bring a paper, attempting to check me in and get some of my information. Because I don’t have my ID, they are having trouble identifying me. They bring me a bunch of papers, I just draw a straight line on them. I get up and get some paper towels and put them on my face.

            The tall thin old man in a giants ball cap walk by. I look at him and he stares back. He tips his hat and moves on. Finally, the nurses are fed up. I wont talk to them. I tell them I like Steven, the guy from the ambulance but he is back on the job. I give them my dad’s phone number. A police officer calls my dad and arranges for me to be dropped off in Mountain House, where my car is still sitting. He takes me and leads me to the police car. On the road I see a train of police cars followed by ambulances and fire trucks. “There’s going to be a terrorist attack.” I tell him.

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He replies frankly and calmly. We drive by werehouses for Carl’s Jr., Best Buy, Pepsi, and Kraft. I feel like we are driving through the ether, the subconscious of corporate America. I fall asleep. In my dream I am in a hospital in Paris, the doctor calls my name, “Christopher.”

            It is my father. I am back in Mountain House. He is home from Arizona. “You came home.” I say.

            “I made plans to leave after you called me last night. I knew something was wrong.” He is with my brother.

            We get into his car together, headed for San Ramon Valley Emergency Medical Center. “We need to take you to emergency.” He says.

            “I’m sorry.” I sob. “I don’t know what to do. Should I go to AA? I don’t know what to do.”

            “If you want to that’s your choice.” He says. “Do you smoke pot?” He asks.

            “Some. Maybe like fifty times.” I lie.

            “What were you doing out there?”

            “I was trying to find Sandy Garner’s.”

            “You know, I talk to Sandy Garner sometimes.” I still don’t know what this means. But he said it. I don’t think he knows Sandy Garner, my friend’s dad, but I guess it is possible.

            We enter the emergency room and I sit in the office with a doctor who scribbles on a note pad. He asks me where I was going, if I wanted to hurt myself or others, if I was doing drugs. I tell him no to everything. I smoked some pot.

            I get admitted into the emergency room. They put a partition around me. The buzz of the air conditioner is ominous, humming through my entire brain.

            “Christopher?” The nurse asks.

            “Yes.” I reply.

            “Hi. I’m going to ask you some questions.”

            “Were you taking any drugs?

            “No. Some pot.”

            “Do you want to hurt yourself or others?

            “No.”

            “Do you have any thoughts of suicide?”

            “I already answered these questions.”

            “Christopher.” My dad says firmly. He is sitting in the corner of my partitioned area, trying desperately to hold it together. My brother’s gone home.

            “No.”

            “Okay. We are going to keep you here for a little bit and get some x-rays. Okay?”

            “Okay.” She leaves.

            My dad shakes his head back and forth. “You don’t know how to take care of yourself.”

            “I’m sorry.” I cry. “That air conditioner is annoying.”

            “Just try and rest.” He says.

            I listen to that blaring hum and eventually doze for a moment, until I hear people shouting and hollering outside. I wake up quickly. Someone is banging on the emergency room door. “What’s happening?” I ask, scared.

            “A man in here had a heart attack. His family wants to come in, but they won’t let them,” my dad answers.

            “Why not?”

            “I don’t know.” The banging and hollering stops. They take me for some x-rays, asking me to lay on the sterile table under the giant radioactive camera. They put on their goggles and jackets and stand behind the glass as they aim it at my head.

            They bring me back to my partition and a doctor approaches me. He gives me some medication, which I swill down with some water. I try to sleep but mostly just lay with my eyes closed. I hear the nurses wishing each other Happy New Year. I get up from the bed open my curtain and walk out into the emergency room. “Happy New Year.” I tell them. No one even turns. It’s like I’m invisible. I go back and lay down. The x-rays turn out negative, no concussion. It’s 2008.

3. El Salvador: I already gave some insight into the lead up on this one. I thought I needed to get to El Salvador to have a baby before a certain date or else the world was going to end. I spent the night before at my uncle's house and when I walked downstairs and saw 1984 and The Road on the desk in the guest room, I took it as a sign. I had been thinking about 1984 literally all day, it was quite a coincidence, I knew it would be a struggle, like in The Road to get to safety. I sold my guitar at Guitar Center for a few hundred dollars and tried to get a same day passport so I could get a flight to El Salvador. The same day passport place couldn't get me one that day, so I decided to drive.

When I got into TJ I bought a map to direct me down, got insurance for my car, etc. I saw the signs that listed the exchange rate of the Euro and dollar and was sure this was a sign, that when they matched up perfectly, it would be the beginning of a war between American and Europe and the rest of the world. I saw strange signs about getting free pesos and had a man in government garb clean my windshield, there were many signs about "The Americas", all the latin American countries coming together as one. I was sure our government was hiding this impending war from us.

On the drive to Mexicali from TJ, I drove along the boarder and saw many factories and empty white trucks. I'm sure a lot of this was for the drug trade. I kept driving and eventually got lost on their incredibly twisted and strange highways. I came to a point where the road became dirt and they were literally paving it out in to nowhere. For some reason, there were still quite a few cars on this road. There were also desperate looking famished men walking down the road with jugs of water. It all came a little bit to close to The Road. I got scared and decided to turn around, when I got back into the US things changed drastically, here is the last correspondence I had with Kim, it was after this email she told me we shouldn't talk anymore...

I wanted to let you know I'm okay. I got home from the UCLA medical center today and haven't really been able to email. I had a good conversation with Jen tonight. She told me you were worried I would be mad at you, but I'm not, at all. I know you had my best interests at heart. Roads in Mexico are really hard to navigate, so after driving for a while I got scared and turned around. I hadn't been sleeping very well the days prior and when I crossed the boarder back into California it was like crossing through the gates of hell into heaven. I was treated to an incredible visual hallucination of California in a utopian future, hopefully it's where I go when I die. K-Earth 101 the oldies radio station here in LA was playing for my entire ride and it seemed like every song was playing just for me. The fog was rolling in right along the beach and all of the buildings were architecturally stunning. When I got back all my friends were here for me, trying to figure out where I was and were very worried. I decided I should check myself in to UCLA medical center and went with Jace the next morning. They kept me there for a week.

I feel kind of selfish for trying to run away like that, I did it for love, but it was a foolish thing to do, especially putting myself in danger like that. My family and friends were really great to me. The doctors can't really pin down a diagnosis, as much as they want to. To me, it was a mystical experience. They found no drugs in my system and my blood test came back clean. The good news is I was able to have a straight forward talk with my uncle and Dad about where I am in my life and what we can do to make it better. Sounds like they are going to help me with some bills and keep me afloat while I look for a job more suited to my sensibilities. My uncle is also paying for me to go see a therapist and a gastroenterologist, so I should be able to take care of some lingering health issues I couldn't take care of on my own and he is going to help me out so I can stay in Silverlake. Thank God for him, I feel really lucky.

They have me taking an anti-psychotic medication right now, it's main side effect is weight gain, they said I may gain about twenty pounds, which is the exact amount of weight I'd like to gain. Apparently, if I am adamant about it they will transition onto something else and then off meds completely if I'm doing well, which I'm sure I will be. They also told me never to smoke pot again, so even though I'll never say never, I'm going to listen to their advice and not do it for a long long time and when I do it will have to be with extreme moderation. The doctors at UCLA were all really great, it seemed like quite a benevolent place, so I kind of have to trust them.

This experience taught me a lot about the power of perception. I still think I was able to visualize the world in the forth dimension. Earth would have two very similar sides, the one we are on and another more heavenly side, separated by a big sea of lava serving as the equator which the sun rotates around, each side has it's own moon and Earth would once again be the center of the universe. Sounds kind of crazy, but I believe we will go to that other side when we die and if we have good karma we will end up on the right side of that gate. It makes me wonder if when they perceived the Earth as flat, it actually was so. I also learned a lot about the importance of water. That might sound stupid, but make sure you are drinking lots!

...I don't believe this anymore, or most of the things I say in here, about coming off meds, about pot, except for the water part. That's definitely true.

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Well, that's it. If you have ever wondered what it was like to be in that place, now you may have a better idea and now it is time for me to go make something out of this day.

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UPDATE

I just showered and groomed myself up real nice. The whole time I was thinking about that message I sent Kim. I can understand why she wouldn't want to talk to me to some extent after that. It must have been hard to see me not really present. At the same time, Jace explained it like, "We all knew what was going on, and that Chris didn't really believe the things you were saying." or something to that extent, so maybe I should get a break. I don't know. I can see it both ways I guess.