I think the meds are finally kicking in.

I wrote this in about 2004. The most eerily prescient part was when I said this: "At the edge, the very edge of his mind, a stir, almost like footsteps outside a spotlight. Something offstage, in the dark, but not able to move to where it would be visible."

That is how my life has been for the last few weeks. It's there. The mania. Offstage, in the dark, unable to move into the light.

Unable to take the stage, to take control.

Holy fuck, the drugs really do seem to be working.

My mania stopped dead.

Not at first. 25 mg was a hint. 50 mg was a good step up. 100 mg --

If 25 mg was turning a valve, 100 mg was cutting off the flow at the source.

The damn drugs did it, damn it, yeah, drugs actually can work. My skin isn't falling off. I have a little dizziness, but compared to what was happening in my head before that … yeah, I'll take the woozy.

But this isn't about me; it's about a boy I wrote. If you can believe that.

Setting is about 7000 years from now. BPs and schizophrenics are used as couriers for encoded information, because their brains can't be read by Rosetta, the normalizing mind-reading machinery of the year 9100-whatever.

Normals are transparent. They are utterly open to the mind probes. But the crazy people … they can't be read. They're secure. Nothing can crack their individual, utter madness. They carry top secret information from world to world.

The most unreadable, the most mad, aren't called crazy. They are called Blessed.

And the Blessed are terrifying. The Consulate covers up the crimes they commit, when they commit them — everything from robbery to rape to murder. And they get away with it.

Because, you see, they are Blessed.

The Blessed know this, and they know how wrong it is.

They do not care.

A courier boy, fifteen and Blessed, has been given a brain implant that normalizes his thoughts, but doesn't compromise his basic madness. So he's superficially sane, but underneath, he's still unreadable, a human cipher of lunacy. And he's spent most of his life as a courier sunk in a load of forget-enzymes, so he doesn't remember all the times he's been raped in transit.

Something to remember is that Cock is more insane than I am.

I think.

Thus:
==

The sixth day after his surgery he knew the first part was past.

Waking with his usual, he pushed the sheet down, reached and went to work. He was diligent about sex, even before the Delphans had taught him the mind- and dick-blowing shit they had, and slapped off several times a day if he couldn't fire his cum into someone nearby.

Lately his sheets'd been the main recipients of his saucy gifts.

He bucked and applied his exercises when the wave passed over him, his body rippling muscles, back an arch off the mattress, semen erupting in a thick white patter from his pulsing organ along his long axis, reaching to his nipples at the hardest two surges.

Relaxing, he covered up again and let the track of goo cool and congeal, the sheet adhering to his tip and belly and sternum. Not bad, he judged, but he'd been going for his chin. Next time he'd have to work his lower abdominals a little harder at the exhales to increase the compression, maybe look for a higher angle to his dick in those last few tingly moments. At least his aim was good star-to-lar; he'd shot his load right down his centerline.

Coming was easy. Precision coming — that was a skill. These practice sessions were really meant to improve his performance when partners were around to enjoy the show, but he liked them all the same.

The room became silent, the scent of seed and sweat curling.

Something was missing.

He glanced over so reflexively he wasn't even fully aware of it. The pillow was empty, the space in the bed taken up mainly by him, but there was a little, just a little more room to one side, where Trel would have…

Course if Trel had been there, he wouldn't've just fucked his hand.

No, that wasn't what was missing.

And then it struck and it hit with the force of a physical blow, and he had to wipe at his eyes in a moment.

Eve.

Every time he wrung it out by hand, ever since he'd been dripping the spoo, she'd had a shitty comment to make. When he was younger it was about how little it was, both the sauce and the source. When older, it was comments on range or such (fell short that time… or open your mouth next time you cumlicking freak, catch your own spill like the perv you are). And more recently it was about how he'd been doing it alone a lot lately. That dug the most, because she was right. He was alone. He'd driven everyone off.

It was so fuckin hard sometimes to come with her in there, commenting, joking, laughing at his fantasies. But that hadn't happened today. This morning it had been just himself, his thoughts, his hand, his dick.

That fucking bitch hadn't said a word.

Eve?

Nothing.

Eve? Hey Eve, I got goo on me.

Silence, almost hissing.

He ran his fingers over the little slick. Wanna taste? I know you like it, you two-bill cunt.

At the edge, the very edge of his mind, a stir, almost like footsteps outside a spotlight. Something offstage, in the dark, but not able to move to where it would be visible.

He slipped his cummy fingers over his lips, licked. Mmm. Salty. Second favorite treat. After Adam's, course.

Almost. Almost there was a … and then gone.

Gone.

The most fucked up part of it all, he reflected for years afterward, was how alone he suddenly felt, how terrified and sad he was for a few heartbeats, and then the sense of freedom overrode everything else and he nearly woke up the whole fuckin Barque district with his shouts.

Undertakers estimate that it will take 18 months to cremate his body.

Much more better with subwoofer. Rake the shafters.

Testing one
Go, one, two, three, four

Wilcannia Mob
M.I.A.
Morganics

When it's really hot we go to the river and swim
When we're goin fishin, we catchin the bream
When the river's high, we jump off the bridge
And when we get home, we play some didge

They call me Wally, this is where I'm at
I wear my NRL baseball cap
Parramatta's my team if you know what I mean
To be the captain, that's my dream

My name is Keith from Wilcannia Street
I walk on stilts to read the beat
When it crawls out, I shake a leg
This is my rhyme and that's what I said

First of all I wanna say
I don't really know why you act that way
My name is Maya and people always say
I act kinda strange like a dooba weh
I like fish and mango pickle
When I climb trees, them feet then tickle
I'm broke this month didn't pay rent
I had to jump town and my money's all spent

When it's really hot we go to the river and swim
When we're goin fishin, we catchin the bream
When the river's high, we jump off the bridge
And when we get home, we play some didge

Well Colroy's here, have no fear
All you old pigs better watch out for this bit
And I'm here at the game and I'm almost ten
I wanna be an actor like Jackie Chan

Lendal is my name; I like to do back flips
Listen to the words that come from my lips
Jump off the bridge and I'll play the didge
And when I catch a fish, I put it in the fridge

My name is Buddy, I can't stand still
Wilcannia to Dubbo to Broken Hill
I've been movin' around from town to town
And this is how I get down!

Rode the BMX when we walked through the bush
The boys fight to ride it, but I just let 'em push
Keith stole an egg from a li'l cuckoo
Kept it safe in his mouth, while he danced jookoo jookoo

There's only one ocean that got fish left
One day we'll have to be a really good chef
And I don't mean us in the bush making meth
Boys if you catch meth you catch your death
When I said that Keith sneezed and had a chick
Broke the little egg in his mouth in little bits

When it's really hot we go to the river and swim
When we're goin fishin, we catchin the bream
When the river's high, we jump off the bridge
And when we get home, we play some didge

Em to the Eye to the A.

In lieu of burial, his body will be thrown onto the roof.

It's still working, but it's lost some of its efficacy (obviously, or I'd be asleep now). The manic uptick is a bit harder than it was, say, five days ago.

I hope this is just a bit of tolerance. I'll be up to 50 mg next week, and maybe that'll offer a better regulator. For now, where I am isn't unworkable, just … difficult. Like my regular cyclothymic phases. Not quite manic, not quite BP I, but still not what I consider optimal. Not at all where I was, say, last Sunday. That was a good, balanced mellow.

I'm a weird mix now between jazzed and tired. That's part of the up-cycle. You find reasons, excuses, to be wired, excited, intense. But the base fact is simply that you are wired, excited, intense. There's just no reason for it. It simply is.

Worst part is that the upswings are also disinhibiting. Like being a bit drunk, but without the alcohol. You're just a little too willing to do things that, ordinarily, you would never do. Or at least not usually.

Like be awake at 4 AM on a Saturday, writing about your own personal madness in a public forum. Sigh.

Yup, 25 mg isn't quite enough, I think. But it beats the living shit out of where I was two weeks ago.

Okay, so, well. My machine is jailbroken, and has a multitasker in it. It's about 5% more convenient than it used to be. If I uninistalled the multitasker, frankly, I'd barely notice. I use Orbit almost every time I trigger my phone. Multitasker? Hardly ever.

What things, precisely, do you detractors want to multitask on iPhone, or on iPad, that you think you'll be missing? Endgadget was whining about how they want to play videos while IMing. That is not multitasking; that is attention-switching.

What multitasking things do you do now, with a desktop system, that you think you need to have on iPhone, with its little screen (video and IM on the same 320x240? Come on), or that you believe you'll be missing on iPad?

Play your cards. Show your faces. Put up, or shut up.

Anyway, here's my inaugural post.

Greetings, all. This is the first post to a new kdminer.com blog, “Meditations”, the subject of which is likely to be broad, though the content will have one common thread — it’s coming from the point of view of a practicing lay Buddhist.

It’s probably a good idea for me to begin by offering my credentials. I’ve been casually involved with Buddhism for about 20 years, beginning (as many do) with an exploration of Zen — a Japanese style. At the time I didn’t have a lot of direction available to me, so found Zen to be a little beyond my grasp. This hardly makes me unique.

A few years ago (more than half a decade, actually), I became involved with Shambhala Buddhism, which is a Tibetan variant. I found its instructional style much more approachable; Tibetan Buddhism in general tends to be quite enumerative and explicit about meditation stages. Of course, being Tibetan, it also has a lot of deity practice, and that was something I didn’t feel drawn to.

My practice now is ecumenical, and involves elements of Mahayana tradition, with a nod to Theravada as well (the differences are subtle and have more to do with one’s belief about rebirth than anything else). We have a regular practice group called “Sangha” that meets on Sundays at KRMC; for more information, go to http://sangha.nightwares.com/

When I say I’m a “lay Buddhist”, what I mean is that I’ve never been formally ordained as a monk, and I haven’t even taken an official refuge vow. Refuge vows are sort of like baptism, in that you essentially declare yourself as committed to the Buddhist path, “taking refuge” in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. “Dharma” means, essentially, “teachings”, and “Sangha” is the cognitive equivalent of a congregation or community.

To be clear, though, “Buddha” does not mean “god”. The word actually translates more or less as “one who is awake”. Buddhists think that, about 2,500 years ago, a prince named Siddhartha Gautama underwent a process of self-discovery and realization, whereupon he established what we now call the Four Noble Truths. (“Noble” in this sense doesn’t mean “royal”; rather, it means “unchanging”, just as the noble gases on the Periodic Table — helium, neon, etc. — do not mix or combine with other elements. They remain “pure”.) These Noble Truths are:

1. The truth of the reality of suffering;

2. The truth of the cause of suffering;

3. The truth that suffering can cease; and

4. The means by which suffering can cease.

The fourth truth points to what is known as the Eightfold Path. Over time I’ll go into greater depth on each of the Four Noble Truths, and get into details on the Eightfold Path. But I should probably be clear that Buddhists do not believe Gautama was a god; only that he had some very good ideas about dealing with life. He was just as human as anyone else, and when he died, that was it for him. Just like anyone else.

I’m bringing this all up here, now, as a kind of background; I don’t intend to lecture or do any other such thing on these topics.

While there are quite a few different Buddhist traditions, they all share as their foundation the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, and have a few other things in common as well. Of chief importance to me, personally, is that Buddhism is nontheistic — that is, it doesn’t require a belief in a god, and doesn’t require nonbelief in a specific god. Strictly speaking, you can be Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Pastafarian, atheist or anything else, and still be a practicing Buddhist. (For the record, I consider myself an atheist.)

The core practice in Buddhism is meditation, which probably isn’t what you think it is. Meditation doesn’t mean zoning out, shutting down the mind, going into a trance, or anything else of that nature. In the Buddhist context, meditation is actually a heightened state of awareness, an observation of the mind. This can make it surprisingly challenging. It can also make it a bit dull. Working with boredom — or with discursive thinking — is an ongoing process for anyone practicing meditation.

I think that’s more than enough background for now. On to the purpose of this blog: Meditations, or ideas, or perspective.

No one can be unaware of what happened in Haiti, or of the world reaction to it. Some responses were callous (as with Pat Robertson’s assertion that the Haitian people had “sold their souls to the Devil”, and thus deserved the terrible devastation they’ve suffered); some were remarkably powerful (witness the success of the Red Cross campaign to accept $10 donations when you text HAITI to 90999 — the last count I saw had donations at more than $21 million). Some are a little harder to fathom.

Royal Caribbean charters cruises that include a port-of-call at Haiti (I don’t recall the name of the destination, but it’s actually trademarked, if their press releases are to be believed). For now, they’re still putting in there and letting their travelers frolic on the beach.

On the face of it, that seems cold-hearted, at best. It might be better to postpone landing in Haiti, telling the passengers that, in light of the tragedy (~200,000 dead, and counting), the ship isn’t going to be using the island as a vacation or holiday destination for a while. It would seem decent.

Contrarily, consider that the people on those Royal Caribbean ships booked their reservations well in advance, long before they knew a quake would hit; and some of them, at least, are having events (wedding, 50th anniversary, whatever) which are more or less literally once in a lifetime.

This is a hard decision, and what Royal Caribbean did was probably the best of all possible choices: They still put in at the port-of-call, and left it up to the passengers to decide for themselves if they would be reveling on the beach or not. Some have chosen to remain aboard. Others have not. Their reasons are their own, and probably not up to us to judge in either case.

Here’s the extra element, though. Royal Caribbean has promised that all revenues gained from visitors at the Haitian port will be directed into relief efforts.

Also, Royal Caribbean ships putting in to the port will be delivering nonperishable food items, such as dried beans, flour and canned goods. The first ship to put in there delivered “40 pallets” of these essentials, which represents a fairly substantial amount of food. I don’t know how much a pallet can hold, but I’m guessing it’s somewhere between 500 and 1000 lbs., assuming it’s fully loaded — i.e., the freight on it is roughly cubic in volume. It’s safe to presume that future Royal Caribbean ships will deliver more goods. (The first apparently diverted to Puerto Rico briefly to collect the supplies.)

All told, Royal Caribbean has donated at least $1 million to Haitian relief efforts, and it’s reasonable to presume they will continue to do so for a while longer.

Of course, Royal Caribbean has been using Haiti for years as a vacation stop for the fairly wealthy (the extremely wealthy, of course, do not book passage on cruise ships; they have their own yachts for that); it could be argued that Haiti has been abused in the past by cruise passengers. It’s feasible. Haiti is a very poor nation, with essentially no natural resources, industry, or intellectual base. It seems to be easily taken advantage of by wealthy or powerful nations, and it’s easy to make an argument that Royal Caribbean is exploiting a tragedy for the sake of better PR. (I personally doubt that; there is no small number of people who are deeply offended to learn that ships are still stopping by Haiti so their passengers can make use of the beaches. If this is “good” PR, one wonders what bad PR would look like.)

I think it’s worth noting, however, that the Haitian government welcomed the relief efforts, and have encouraged Royal Caribbean to continue bringing ships to their shores. Not for the relief aid, but because of the vital stimulus to local economy that the passengers represent.

To my mind this is an example of a large and relatively wealthy corporation behaving as a good citizen; that is, acting with compassion — while at the same time continuing to do what corporations do, namely, remain in business. Changing course to avoid Haiti would have disrupted at least some passengers’ plans or itineraries, while simply conducting business-as-usual would clearly have been a heartless, thoughtless gesture.

There is no really comfortable middle ground for Royal Caribbean to have taken here; they chose instead to walk a very delicate edge. Of all the options open to them, the course they chose was probably the best possible option for the largest number of people. That means it was a compromise, which means some people aren’t happy.

Had they simply changed their cruise route, though, odds are pretty good that a lot more people would be unhappy.

If Royal Caribbean were your company, what might you have done differently, if anything?

Cyclothymia is still one of those things that's being studied and understood further; the translation, practically, is, we don't know what else to call it just yet, but we've got a new edition of DSM to take to press, so, well…

When I went in to talk to the psychiatrist last Wednesday, I was in the middle of a full-on bipolar fugue. I was bouncing between the oh what the hell who cares depths, and the I can do it all king-of-the-world on the bow of the Titanic upswings, and even as the doctor was asking me if I had suicidal or homicidal ideation and I was saying no, no way, well, yes, I was.

In fairness, not actually planning anything. To me there is a significant difference between thinking I'd like to just die versus actually planning ways to make it happen. To my mind the latter is suicidal ideation. But, for the sake of perspective, I've been prone to such thoughts since I was fifteen. So I guess a better question would have been if I was relatively more prone to suicidal ideation of late. And still the answer would have been, well, sort of, maybe, I don't know.

Rapid cycling means you don't shift moods over months; it happens over weeks instead. Mm-hmm. There's even ultra-rapid cycling, which is minutes or even seconds in duration. Mm-hmm.

Anyway, the good doctor suggested I try lamotrigine, which was originally designed to handle epileptics, but in 2008 was approved as a treatment for BP I. I had enough presence of mind to ask if he had any samples. He did — actually a starter pack. A month's supply.

Don't expect much, he warned me, not at first. It's only a 25 mg dose, once a day. It might not take effect right away with such low levels. Well, all right.

So much for that.

It kicked in fast enough — 30 minutes after the first dose — that I actually doubted it. I figured it had to be a placebo effect. Had to be. But by 8 PM that same night, I knew there was something different. Somatically, I felt circulation return to my hands and feet. (Cold digits seem to be a physical symptom of my particular presentation.) I also felt a clench of anxiety in my gut release. Finally, I realized that my mind, which had been in overdrive earlier that day, had relaxed, and that the thrusting urge to think and produce and be and express was in idle, or at least disengaged.

That night I had the first decent night's sleep I'd enjoyed in at least three months.

It's not perfect. It's not even totally regulating. I can still feel the mania pushing a little, trying to get back into full power, but it doesn't seem to have any traction. It's not like the lamotrigine flipped a switch; it's more like turning a valve. It's the difference between a flood and a trickle. A trickle I can handle. And I still haven't worked up to the full therapeutic dose (by most guidelines).

Other behaviors seem to have fallen off as well; more on those when it's germane. But for now, this is really quite amazing to me. I don't feel compromised in terms of creativity — something that I was worried about — nor do I feel doped, sedated or otherwise numbed. When the energy rides high, I'm actually able to channel it into something useful. I know for a certain fact that my productivity has about doubled in the last week. I don't expect that to last (for a number of reasons), but at least I'm not stuck holding on for dear life while the goddamned windhorse mind just gallops away beneath me.

Lamotrigine is dangerous, by the way. The worst side-effects from taking too much too soon involve a syndrome that kills off your skin's connective tissue, leaving your epidermis to slough away in great, bloody swaths. (This is why you start with a very low dose to judge reaction and allow the body to acclimate.) The worst side-effect from dropping it at therapeutic levels (from, say, 100 mg to 0) is seizures, even in non-epileptics. So, you know, ahem.

But the odds of adverse reaction, for me, are far less significant than what I know would happen if I kept on untreated. Not suicide, but certainly not the kind of life I would prefer to live. I've been riding this damn cycle for at least 20 years, probably more, and I am tired, tired to fucking hell of it. This is the first time I've ever felt decently stable for more than a couple of days — and it happened right in the middle of a major manic episode. At this point I'd say I'm about four-fifths believing that things may actually — finally — find an equilibrium.*

I'll follow up later, with more details as warranted. For now, for those of you who might have been concerned about me … well, things are far better than they have been in a very long time.

====

* How's that for guarded optimism?

EDIT: Based solely on my own experiences, I think some people who suicide when in BP I do it as a spur of the moment thing. They don't plan it. They just have motive, means, and opportunity (as the formula holds for crime and Murder One), and in that moment, they do it. Hey, I'll order a pizza. Hey, I'll shoot myself. As simple, and as immediate, and as sad as that.

It's just that quick. Bryce, I guess I can understand your concern for me. Thank you for caring. It means a lot to me that you kept up your replies. You saw it more clearly than I did.

EDIT 2: 25 mg is not enough. Up too late. Cycles I know. Not quite enough.

This means that if (for instance) you're using one of those Cisco flat panel-Web enabled displays, the image transitions can really start to chug, because the CPU can't handle the transitions.

I managed to mod the JavaScript on it, so now it won't do that any more.

The developer indicated he would put that on his to-do list for the next revision — but he said so back in November of 2008. So I'm not holding my breath.

Here's the modded version. It's probably an inelegant hack, but WTF. It works.

mod_briaskISS