Another update... yesterday was the first day I really felt my mood stabilize... Nothing mystical happened, I wasn't three hours late for everything, I didn't get lost in neighborhoods I know well...→[More:]

I'm making harsh compromises with the psych drugs because, as I get more rational, I realize that being bipolar is actually a life threatening illness. Fun... some of the time, not all of the time, as my main man Bob Dylan says, but...

Picture me in Thailand. I'm about to overstay my visa, and I've been adventuring, if you get the nuance, for over a month without my passport in a country on edge from political violence. I'm trying to get to Bangkok to make a flight to Hanoi. I'm sitting in the train station in Surat Thani, with creative identifying information on my train ticket, if you get my meaning. Suddenly, the station is swarming with soldiers, armed with guns and flashlights...

That's awesome material for the memoir I'm writing, but that could've gone sideways really fast, as could many other situations I got into. Someone recently was teasing me about my "thug life street smarts" but I've learned to navigate some interesting subcultures, for sure.

I'm really lucky nothing terrible happened to me, and that a few damn fine people have stood by me this whole time, keeping me anchored to the planet until I managed to climb back down.