I know it’s been a fair while since I last posted, but I assure you this isn’t some trivial fluff piece aimed at filling space or desperately pumping life into a dying website.  My dear friends, as I write this piece tonight I’m confident that I share my concerns with every red-blooded American — you can see signs springing up in cities across this great nation, from New York to Los Angeles, and even right here in Dallas.  Tonight’s issue leaves thousands of Americans awake into the long hours of the night, leaving their homes and their families in search of fulfillment at the hands of corporate machines.  In fact, even as I type there are people massing on Wall Street with only one thought on their minds:

Hamburgers.

Let’s face it, folks.  Hamburgers are a cornerstone of American society.  Virtually everyone loves a good, juicy burger and some crispy fries — well, except vegetarians*.  While the mighty burger has stood as a symbol of our nation for decades, there is no place that holds it more sacred than right here in Texas.  We may not have health care, acceptable standardized test scores, or environmental regulation, but you can bet your bottom dollar we can grind up a cow with the best of them.  Among the myriad retailers of our char-grilled relics stands a culinary giant, head and linebacker-y shoulders above the rest:  Whataburger.  In case you aren’t familiar with them, perhaps because you live in one of those stupid states that has a silhouette like a frying pan, here’s a little backstory to help get you up to speed:

From humble beginnings in the 1950s, Whataburger has grown to over 700 locations in ten states.  In addition to the standard burger-and-fries fare, Whataburger offers salads, pies, shakes, chicken baskets, breakfast items, and a host of limited time additions that range from awesome to mega-awesome.  Home to such classics as the A-1 Thick n’ Hearty, the Chop House Cheddar Burger, and the Honey Barbecue Chicken Strip Sandwich, Whataburger further enhances its permanent menu with the promise to add jalapeños, cheese, and/or bacon to pretty much anything.  Almost all locations are 24 hours, and I would be remiss not to mention that they use exclusively fancy ketchup.

Despite their status as Texas natives and beloved symbols of everything delicious, recent months have produced a challenger on the horizon.  Hailing from the marijuana-clouded hippie communes of the West, so-called “iconic” In-N-Out has set its sights on the wallets of the Texas carnivore.  North Texas has been struck with a blitz-krieg of restaurants, with new locations arriving almost weekly.  So far, the reception has been strong — In-N-Out is certainly generating a lot of buzz in burger country.  Don’t believe me?  Check it, yo.

Yeah, that happened.  After the initial craze died down and the lines became manageable, I thought I would go see for myself what all the fuss was about.  If In-N-Out could convince those people to wait in line for eternity just for lunch, perhaps there’s something to be said for them after all.  Here, for your reading pleasure, I will now recount for you my journey into the maw of the unknown — my In-N-Out adventure log.

5:29pm – Arrival; There is ample parking and the outside of the newly-built location is clean and attractive.  I am pretty hungry, and increasingly excited.

5:31pm – Entering the restaurant, it is apparent that there are people waiting for their food even though no fewer than 16 employees are in the open kitchen area.  The establishment is pretty full, but remarkably clean considering.   I get in line.

5:32pm – I notice the menu.  There are THREE items on it, and they are as follows: a hamburger, a cheeseburger, and two cheeseburgers stacked on top of one another.  That’s it.  No other sides, no desserts, no kid’s meals.  I am visibly underwhelmed.

5:33pm – I order the double cheeseburger, and try to convey with my eyes to the girl at the counter that it’s hardly necessary to even have a menu when you basically just make one thing.  The prices are reasonable, though, and I hold out that perhaps the burgers are good enough to support such a narrow scope.

5:34pm – At the soda fountain, I’m pleasantly surprised to see 7-Up in lieu of Sprite.  I like it better, although that’s really just my preference and probably not indicative of popular opinion.  I get my drink and sit down to wait for my hamburger to be served from their unbelievably overstaffed kitchen.

5:35pm – Waiting.

5:36pm – Waiting.

5:37pm – Waiting; Wondering why it takes more than 15 seconds to make a hamburger when you KNOW already that it’s what every single person is going to be forced to order.

5:38pm – Waiting.

5:39pm – Waiting.

5:40pm – My meal arrives, served in what could be described fairly as a “food bucket”.  After waiting, again, for the largest man on earth to test the mettle of the ketchup dispensers I am finally ready to get a taste of Cali.

5:41pm – The burger is good.  Not phenomenal, but by no means bad.  I enjoyed eating it.  If you offered me one right now, I would gladly take it.  The fries, however, are probably the blandest, saddest french fries you can find at a chain restaurant.  There is really nothing good to say about them other than that they are abundant and almost certainly made of potatoes.

5: 47pm – After finishing my meal, (of which I ate every bite out of decency and good journalistic standards), I head back to the car without giving any consideration to the shadow box suggesting that I commemorate this occasion with a t-shirt.

I stand before you now as a man enlightened.  I have seen the other side of the mountain, and it is… well, it’s pretty uneventful, actually.  In-N-Out is, if I had to sum it up in two words, “nothing special”.  I will never protest if I am taken there for lunch, but I will also never drive out of my way to get to one.  The claims I had heard that it was “the best burger you will ever eat”, a “Whataburger-killer”, and “seriously, life-changing” all seem to me now like absurd concoctions from the pot-addled brains of ex-surfers and political science majors.  While passable, it simply isn’t magical in any way.

After all this talk, we now come to the crux of this article.  At the core of my writing, a discerning eye can always find the shining gem of a moral or lesson meant to enrich the lives of you, my adoring followers.  Tonight, that pearl of wisdom is this:

Whataburger kicks ass and takes names, and if you don’t agree then move back to Sacramento where you and your robo-governor can smoke out in your apartment and wait to die in a mudslide.

As always, I appreciate and relish the opportunity to explain to you how you don’t know what you’re talking about, so if you think I’m off-base with my analysis then feel free to leave a comment.  As for the rest of you, I’d love to hear your flame-broiled feedback as well.

*  (At the time of publication, it’s still inconclusive whether vegetarians are actually people.)

As some of you are aware, yesterday the USS Kick-Ass Vacation was ambushed by a squadron of stupid decisions.  The result is that I now have an excruciatingly sprained ankle that renders me immobilized — not exactly conducive to tourism.  I suppose there’s some truth to the old adage: Never jump off a bunk bed when you can just use the ladder.  Wise words, indeed.

So far, I’ve spent the entire morning outside on a couch surfing the net.  My fellow hostelians have been very forthcoming with their sympathies, but the truth is that I don’t really mind it so much.  Of all the places in the world to be stuck with a sprained ankle, I can hardly imagine one more delightful than in the shade of this huge banyan tree with the smell of the ocean and the sound of European tourists laughing.  Maybe this was a lesson to be learned; all part of some master plan to get me to “hang loose”.  It’s the will of the islands.

There's no cooler place to be lame.

While we’re on the topic of what the islands do and do not want from us, I feel I would be remiss not to mention a scandal that took place last night at the fabulous “Aloha Festival”. When you walk down the boulevard in Waikiki parallel to the beach, you’ll eventually come to a statue of Duke Kahanamoku — an actor, diplomat, and six-time Olympic medalist who has been dubbed “the Ambassador of Aloha” and “the Father of International Surfing”.  As a respectful gesture to this man who did a great deal to advance the cultural values of Hawaii onto the world stage, many locals will drape flowered leis onto the statue.  Well, last night my traveling companion noticed a lei that had fallen off the statue and decided that rather than putting it back where it belonged she would just take it.  The initial explanation was that “people were going to step on it and nobody was enjoying it anyways.”

Now, for those of you who need me to walk you through this, I want you to stop and consider what I’ve told you.  There is a memorial to a beloved dead man that bears lots of offerings and mementos… and she took one of them from it to keep.  I don’t know about you guys, but that sounds like it’s only a stone’s throw from grave robbery.  Feeling it to be my duty as a human being, I quickly informed her that I did not approve and that she was almost certainly cursed by the island gods for her blasphemy.  I’m not one to put much stock in superstitions, but I can say with a straight face that I’m glad we don’t share a flight back home.  After a short but spirited debate on the ethics of taking memorial flower jewelry from statues of deceased heroes, she finally agreed that perhaps a faux-pas had been committed.  Before we leave, the plan is for me to get a picture of her placing an item of comparable value back on the statue in the hopes that it will placate the furious gods of the tropics before shit gets serious.  It’s hard to run from a volcano with a sprained ankle, I’m told.

Tonight is “Barbecue Night”, so hopefully I won’t have to hobble far in order to get a decent meal.  Perhaps I’ll post again later.  Leave a comment so I know someone back on the mainland still loves me, you bastards.  Mahalo!

Alright, so I wasn’t able to post last night.  I’m going to come right out and tell you that I had a perfectly valid reason for this blatant betrayal:  I was getting drunk and hitting on some Irish boys.  As it turns out, my pockets aren’t deep enough to get them even close to hammered.  Hooray for stereotypes.

The evening that ended with me pouring shots for pretty much everything with a face started innocently enough with a Blue Hawaii near the Hilton Waikiki.  We had stopped for drinks while waiting for the fireworks display that takes place every friday, and while sipping my tropical refreshment I got an inkling of the infamous “Why Would You Ever NOT Be Drunk’s”.  A bottle of Malibu later, I was sourcing the ingredients for blowtorches.  (This hostel had glass cups, so fortunately no kitchen equipment was sacrificed during the flaming drink segment of this adventure.)  Also, I apparently have a knack for getting people together and doing stuff.

You should totally work here.  You’re like our cruise director.

If I wasn’t committed to devoting my life to you adorable buffoons, I might consider taking them up on it.  Hostel life is definitely agreeable — I’m informed by witnesses that I was having the time of my life before I passed out in a rum-soaked heap.

After returning to the land of the living, this morning was spent tracking down the tragically under-funded Hawaii Pride celebration.  The parade was comprised of six drag queens shoe-horned into a convertible.  By the end of an hour, they were melting like Nazis beholding the Ark of the Covenant.  I did get a temporary glitter tattoo — photo pending — and made a new friend from San Francisco (of all places) to hang out with later tonight.  The plan is to attend the less-than-inventively-named “Aloha Festival”, and hopefully finally fulfill my dream of being seduced by a 7-foot tall Samoan fire-eater.  The odds look slim, but it’s always darkest before the dawn.

Hopefully I won’t be incapacitated again, and later tonight I plan to fill you in on all the juicy/tedious details.  Until then, at least there are these fireworks to tide you over:

When asking around for tourism must-see locations in Hawaii, a common suggestion was hiking to the top of Diamond Head Crater.  Promising to offer fantastic vistas and a cheap way to fill the morning, the hike seemed pretty ideal.  First thing after a quick shower and breakfast at a cozy local spot, we boarded a bus for the dormant volcano with high expectations.

At this point, I’d like to say something that will shape the rest of this post:  In the course of suggesting the hike, nobody used any words like “strenuous”, “arduous”, “difficult”, “challenging”, or “potentially fatal”.  It was marketed as a leisurely stroll through the wildflowers.  Long story short, I’m trying desperately to remember specifically who advised it so I know where to mail my letter bombs.

When you arrive at Diamond Head State Park, first you have to walk up a long hill.  After the long hill, you walk through a long tunnel into the crater itself — a tunnel shared with 2-way car traffic that inexplicably doesn’t have sidewalks or pedestrian lanes.  Emerging inside the crater, you then walk to the farthest point on the other side of the rim after paying a dollar admission at a checkpoint.  Once you reach the far side of the crater, you begin the upward climb.  Bearing in mind that you’ve already been walking for a moderate amount of time, the trail now becomes uneven and craggy.  As you ascend, it becomes a very, very long series of switchbacks that zig-zags up the inside of the rim.  Then, right when you think you’ve surely gotten all the exercise you’re going to for the day, it turns into stairs:  over a hundred of them.  There is a giant, steep staircase that scales up even further with omnidirectional traffic and only one shoddy handrail, and at that point my legs were twitching with strain.  At the top of the stairway, you reach a very dark tunnel where you have to walk about 50 meters bumping into people going the other way.  When you finish navigating the tunnel, I’m not kidding, there is a spiral staircase.  No joke, a goddamn spiral staircase.  At the top of the staircase is a small ladder that pushes you up to a 3-foot tall opening that you have to crouch down to squeeze through.  Then, after braving an obstacle course that likely inspired the American Gladiators’ “Eliminator”, you get to witness some of the most breathtaking views I’ve ever seen in my life.  You can see well beyond Waikiki and far past the crater itself, and everything is so picturesque it almost looks fake.  The actual world looks photoshopped, it’s that gorgeous.  If you take two things away from this post, I want them to be these:

1.  Getting to the top is a beast.  Seriously, I had to stop 6 times and contemplated quitting because of my heart.  My hiking partner bailed in the switchbacks, if that’s an indication.  The hike is 0.7 miles long, but you ascend over 750 feet in that span — it’s really quite a climb.

2.  IT’S TOTALLY WORTH IT.  I’ve never personally looked at something so beautiful as the ocean and Hawaii stretching out in every direction.  Honestly, it was almost an emotional moment.  You forget how stunning nature can be, sometimes.

The edge of the crater looking west to the ocean.

View of Waikiki, and the beach we walk to from our hostel.

On the return trip, it became quickly evidenced that I was suffering from the early stages of dehydration and exhaustion.  I spent the rest of the morning in bed with a huge Jamba Juice nursing a mild headache and the sorest legs I’ve ever known.  After the recovery period, we decided to try our hand at boogie boarding — and were disappointed that there were no waves.  Nothing is more embarrassing than clumsily swimming out into the ocean and trying to boogie board without waves as the palest human on the island.  To offset the disappointment from failed watersport, we thought we’d check out the local farmer’s market.  Apparently, two old ladies in a pineapple hut constitutes a “market” some places.  Nestled in the heart of the largest sprawl of souvenir shops I’ve ever seen, the “farmer’s market” seemed a cruel joke and a half-hearted afterthought.  As it turns out, a large percentage of the pineapples on Hawaii are imported.  That just baffles me.  Tomorrow I may be going to the Dole Plantation, and the bananas I bought in the grocery store today were clearly labeled as a “product of Ecuador”.  It may be the tropics, but it’s still America:  we’re even outsourcing bananas and pineapples in HAWAII.

Oh, and if any of you want a beaded bracelet or a shell necklace or any kind of garbage jewelry with tiki idols or sharks teeth or turtes carved out of coconuts then let me know.  You can’t walk 3 feet on this island without stumbling into someone selling generic islander bracelets.  I was delighted, though, to find a retailer of the fabled coconut bra.  Day 2, and it’s already mission accomplished; I’m going to keep up the search in case I can find one of better quality or a fantastic deal.  Go big or go home, I say.

As for life at the hostel, it’s coming around nicely.  My efforts to win hearts and minds seem to be the only thing on this rock bearing any fruit.  Continuing to expand my infamy as the generous chef, I made fruit salad today to the delight of everyone.  My greatest triumph was earning the compliments of “the two Australian chicks” who so far had done nothing but appraise me dismissively and watch mini-marathons of Keeping Up with the Kardashians because “we don’t get it in Perth.”

To be fair, I don’t get it either.

More tomorrow, I have to pass out now.  It’s midnight local time, so at least I’m acclimating.  Hang loose, bitches.

I’m sure you’re all dying to know how my 9-hour flight to the islands of Aloha went down.  Well, I had the best $7 hamburger I’ve ever eaten and I learned that the girl from the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movies is now a character on House.  Aside from that, it was hours upon hours of gazing listlessly at the ocean and running calculations in my head to determine the exact distance from Hawaii I will be when my laptop dies and I have to hang myself with my belt in the lavatory.  Next time, I’m taking pills.  I don’t care what they are, but I’m going to take them and when I wake up I’ll be somewhere new.  It works for my mother, and she doesn’t even fly.

As for Hawaii itself, I had heard many eloquent and mysterious rumors that it was, to quote Maya Angelou, “actually really pretty”.  Not one to put much stock in hearsay, I decided to postpone judgement until I could behold the landscape for myself.  The plane didn’t even have to land before it was made crystal clear that Hawaii is GORGEOUS.  Seriously.  I know everyone says it’s really beautiful, but they are not doing it justice.  The weather is perfect — the exact temperature of someone blowing lightly on your face in a shady meadow.  The ocean is the color of Moutain Berry Powerade, and it tastes twice as good.  Everywhere you look there’s some kind of plant with flowers all over it just growing out of control.  It truly is a paradise.  The McDonald’s gives you FREE pineapple with a combo meal.  Initially I was concerned when the woman at the airport who found us a taxi warned me of areas that were lousy with homeless people.  Honestly, now I don’t blame them.  Homeless in Hawaii is equal to a mansion in Arkansas or being the governor of Nebraska.

When we finally arrived at the hostel, I was struck by the friendly interactions between all the residents.  Everyone seemed to know everyone else, and I was the new kid in town who didn’t know the inside jokes.  Thinking quickly, my mind raced back to my last hostel experience in DC.  I made LOADS of friends, and in a fairly short span of time… but how?  Then it hit me: FREE STUFF.  I remember making fajitas and mixed drinks for everyone at Hilltop Hostel, thus ensuring I would no longer be “that guy”, but rather “that guy who made us drinks”.  Seeing an opportunity for political maneuvering, I set off to find a grocery store.  $22 later, I returned with all the ingredients to make Martha’s famous snickerdoodles — a cinnamon and sugar cookie that has the added bonus of sounding hilarious when international travelers try to pronounce it.  With a bit of creative substitution and some legitimate hustle, I cranked out 4 dozen of those bad boys and began dispensing them to everyone I encountered.  JACKPOT.  Everyone was impressed that I had actually made these cookies.  The real victory came when I heard someone refer to me as “that guy in there who’s making those awesome cookies”.  Really, that’s the best I could ask for.  EVERYONE is going to ask me to the Spring Fling, and I’ll be the belle of the ball.

The secret ingredient is TREACHERY. Mwahahaha.

Tomorrow, I think the plan is to hike up the side of a volcano.  I’m trying not to go to sleep so early, (it’s 8:30pm here), but my body thinks it’s after midnight.  The only things keeping me awake are a liter of Coke Classic that is sweating in this humidity like a whore in church, the possibility that the “Naked Australian Guy” who apparently appeared in our room will return somehow naked-er, and the promise I made to my adoring fans to keep them in the hula hoop.  Don’t say I never did nothin’ for ya’.   More to come, so check back soon!

Alright, before you say anything I want you to know that I’m super-duper sorry.  I know I haven’t posted in a while, but I’m really hoping to turn it all around with a Hawaiian Blogstravaganza.  As you may know, my budget is somewhat less than glamorous, so I expect that I’ll have plenty of time to chronicle my adventures as I leave my mark on the Aloha State.  I think our hostel has free WiFi, so ideally I’ll be putting a new one up every night — that’s SEVEN nights of magical postings.  It’s like a tropical Hanukkah of opinion articles!  If you want to keep track of where I’ll be going next, I’ve created a new tab on the home page or you can just link to it here.

In other updates, someone successfully broke into our neighbors apartment.  WHAT THE FUCK?  It was not too long ago that someone tried to burgle/murder us, so this shit is getting intense.  Clearly, all evidence suggets that I need to devote my free time as a vigilante detective.  I’m seriously considering trying to arrange a neighborhood watch kind of a thing, or possibly petition the apartment management to hire some kind of a security guard.  If criminals are free to terrorize our fair complex, let it be known now that I simply will not stand for it.*

*Disclaimer:  As time will tell, I may very well end up standing for it.

That’s all for now, guys, but I’ll be giving you plenty to read in the days ahead.  Stay tuned!

A video addressed to my brother was sent to my apartment by mistake earlier today.  My brother lives a few buildings over, and I guess since we share a last name this isn’t really that weird.  Anyways, I didn’t notice the mistake until I actually was watching it.  You can imagine my surprise:

So yeah, I think it’s pretty clear what’s going on here.  Crystal clear, indeed.  Obviously there are no loose ends of any kind and all of your questions should be answered to reasonable satisfaction.  Also, the integrity of this video should be beyond reproach — I don’t have to tell you, but this bears all the hallmarks of an entirely truthful turn of events which are in no way fabricated to malign any party or parties.  Just an amusing happenstance that I felt like documenting online for no reason other than posterity.  Call me sentimental.

I’ve become something of a connoisseur of Netflix series since my little medical mishap, and the most recent gem I’ve discovered is the 6-episode PBS series Circus.  I think the best testimonial I can offer is that I didn’t really like even the idea of circuses prior to watching this series… and now I’m increasingly obsessed.  To give you some perspective on what I mean by “obsessed”, I’m presently drafting an e-mail to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus insisting that they come to DFW.  Somehow, they don’t go to Texas in any of their 3 present tours.  What kind of a national tour of ANYTHING doesn’t go to Texas AT ALL?  At least I can live out my fantasy through television in the meantime.

Now a lot of you might be still be a little dubious that this show is worth your while, so let me sweeten the deal with a surefire incentive:  sex appeal.  There are some HOT people who work for the circus, believe it or not.  I was expecting a technicolor parade of mutant weirdos, but some of them are just beautiful people.  If you’re one of the few that have already watched the series, you know who I’m talking about.  I have DREAMS about twin, sexy jugglers.  I mean, how can you not?  There’s even one clown that I think I have a thing for and I’m positive that there will be some kind of hilarious erotic nightmare that stems from my clownlust.  So yeah, the bottom line is that you aren’t going to be staring at hatchet-faced carnies for 45 minutes at a time, which was a strong concern of mine originally.

More important than anything, and all joking aside, I think Circus reminds us of the awesome things we’re all fundamentally capable of doing if we spend time developing a skill.  People who can do a triple somersault off a trapeze weren’t born able to do it — they’re just normal people who wanted something badly enough to devote their lives to getting it.  Even the most basic job in the circus requires more devotion than anything I’ve ever done in my life, and I’m kind of in awe of that.  Teamwork, dedication, and practice are all that stand between any of us and what is only describable as magic.

As a final thought, I was very surprised to learn that people actually run away to join the circus —  that’s a real phenomenon.  People pack a suitcase and leave in the night in the hopes that they can travel the country as a clown or an acrobat.  Seriously, just one day they say, “Fuck it, I want to ride an elephant” and then they make it happen.  I find that concept deeply comforting.  Perhaps a little too comforting…

If I don’t post anything ever again, I think it’s safe to assume I was learning to unicycle on a tightrope and things took a turn for the predictably horrifying.  I can think of no better way to leave this world than a unicycle/falling trauma.

Alright, so it’s been a while since I’ve posted and I can honestly say I’ve been busy.  I’ve been adapting to my work schedule again, and it hasn’t been very conducive to blog-posting so far.  As a peace offering, I hope you’ll all accept this fantastic video provided courtesy of my brother:

So yeah, that happened.  At 00:18sec he makes me pee my pants.  Say what you will about this bastard, but he gets his videos delivered pronto.  I kind of like entertaining the idea of a video war back and forth, just using the same guy over and over.  He’s being paid to do it, but I wonder where he’ll draw the line.  I know that I’m devastated to not have come up with the idea of including a picture first.  Looking back, it seems so obvious — really amateur stuff.  Still, I wouldn’t expect we’ve seen the last of our vulgar friend from across the pond.

In other news, it’s the end of the first month of the B&P.  It’s been really very awesome making this so far, and I’m pleased to announce that my first charitable contribution will be in the amount of $17.50.  I know what you’re thinking, and I’m right there with you:  that number is weaksauce.  In September, I’m expecting us all to do better.  I’ll make more posts, you make more comments, and together we can wipe out [insert undesirable global condition].

In case you’re curious, my Countdown to Hawaii is at the two week mark.  I’m toying with the idea of bringing the laptop along so I can post “on location” for you ravenous jackasses.  You’ll get to feel like you’re right there with me as I fail majestically at all the physical activities I’ve arranged to suck at.  Seriously, my calendar is crammed to bursting with everything from surfing to off-roading — none of which do I have any experience or aptitude towards.  I’m about 60% sure that I will suffer moderate/major injury at some point.  If you don’t see any posts by the end of the month, assume that I fell in a volcano or something.  I hear that’s a legit thing.

You may have read my post entitled “The Great Depression” from not too far back, wherein I admitted that I was about to start a regimen of anti-depressants.  It was more intimate and less hilarious than my usual self, but I suppose that’s appropriate given the subject matter.  At any rate, I’ve been taking them for about a week now and I’m here to tell you that there are some significant updates to that saga, along with a very mixed review of Prozac itself.

For starters, I’m now 90% sure I don’t have depression.  Don’t break out the party hats just yet, because instead I’m about 130% certain that I have “generalized anxiety disorder”.  If you’re unfamiliar, (as I was until last saturday), the disorder generally results in chronic panic attacks that can even induce chest pain and “heart-attack like symptoms”.  Naturally, this all stems from self-diagnosis on the web with a friend, but I’m making an appointment to see a specialist and discuss options.  As much as I hate psychiatry in general, I know when I’m outgunned.  Apparently the Prozac I’ve been on can still be used to treat GAD, which I really hope is how they abbreviate it, so I’ve been continuing to take the pills despite some of my more basic instincts.

Ah, Prozac.  Where do I begin?  I can certainly say it’s done something, although I’d be hard pressed to say if it’s helping or hurting.  My “attacks”, or as I’m going to start calling them to inject some old-timey charm, “spells”, are much more frequent since I’ve been taking it — almost daily now.  I’m told it takes time for you to build up enough drug in your system for it to be therapeutic, and that the interim is usually the worst.  It’s always darkest before the dawn.  At any rate, I’ve felt very… detached.  I’m anxious, but not motivated.  It’s a bizarre combination — it’s like I absolutely cannot wait to do nothing.  I’m spending hours and hours in bed not doing anything, and I’m antsy about it.  On top of that, I’m eating less than half of what I usually do.  I’m to the point that I can hear my stomach gurgling because I haven’t eaten in 12 hours and I’m still not hungry.  Part of me feels like appetite suppression is possibly a blessing, but it mostly just makes me feel like a robot.  Same goes for sleep — I’m sleeping about 4 hours per night, which is also less than half my usual.  If you’re keeping score, that means I now have more time than ever before to do less than I ever have in my life.

It’s miserable.

I’ve been missing work again, mostly because I feel guilty about going.  At any time, I feel like I could have a “spell” and put people in an awkward position to have to accomodate me.  I feel like all I do anymore is rely on other people to fix my problems, and I don’t need it from any more sources.  I just can’t show up and do a mediocre job and then demand that they pay me in good conscience.  I wish I didn’t have such a developed sense of personal ethics, because otherwise, my life would really be easy street.  I know I need to go back, especially with Hawaii looming on the horizon, but I’m starting to wonder if I can even handle a trip given my condition.  I’ve never felt so much day-to-day uncertainty before.

All hope is not lost:  I’m told that one of the real stand-out drugs for GAD is Xanax, although I’m even more wary of it than I was of Prozac.  I worry that at best I’ll turn into a 22-year-old girl passed out at a rave, and at worst I’ll be my mother.  Still, if it can put me back into a place where I can turn my thoughts into productive actions I’m willing to give it a shot.  That, or there’s always good old-fashioned alcoholism.  We did have an unprecedented windfall in light of recent birthday gifts, and if there’s anything that has helped out struggling writers historically, it’s booze.

At least I’ve had THIS to pour myself into.  This blog may be my salvation in all this unsavory business.  Beginning at the end of what has become undoubtedly the worst summer of my life, the B&P is really a light in the darkness.  If you’ve been reading, or even just lying about reading, I thank you.  I truly hope you’re enjoying this weird mixture of comedy and not-quite-so-comedy that I’ve been serving up.

More to come, so stay tuned.