mikeg's blog

My brain is restless.  I try to sleep and it refuses -- I try to meditate and it rejects calm serenity for its own chaos -- I force the issue chemically and it rebels, inflicting incoherence on the unsuspecting intertubes (sorry y'all) -- when I let it have its way, this is the result.

I'm fond of saying I have 27 distinct personalities.  That's not my observation.  Someone else actually counted a long time ago and that's what they came up with.  I pointed out the number was the cube of a prime and got called several unkind names and observations were made regarding my mathematical oddities (I can tell you squares, cubes, and esoteric sequences, but I still count on my fingers to add).  We decided that the number must be correct (Proof by Intimidation - Nobody was arguing with Jase), and I've referenced it ever since.

I'm an INTP on the Meyers-Briggs personality scale - usually. Out of my 27 personalities most would fall into that category, though we have a few ISTPs among the number.  They get along well, what with sharing the same brain and similar basic profiles. Relentlessly rational (to the point of infuriating those around me), and carefully considered in thought and action.   The problem is the other ones -- Those damn emotional fools that get in the way.  They're the reason I can't sleep - they like to remember things.  And then they start talking about them, and others join, and there's a big argument.  Someone finally goes crazy and throws a chair, and then the chainsaws come out and it's just a horrible, horrible mess: blood everywhere, and the poor furniture...
And hey, how do they all keep coming back to life after that? Oh right, My Brain, Their Rules.  Hi Bunny, nice to see you again.

Oh him? That's Flying P.I. Bunny. Pink Invisible.  No it's not a contradiction. No. No it isn't, because it's not a descriptor it's an identifier! His NAME is Flying Pink Invisible Bunny, like Harvey, only with fucking flair. God, why do people have to be so fucking literal? (Irony: ME saying THAT.)
I absorbed a lot of chemistry in my misspent youth.  He's what's left (well there's other stuff too).  There WAS an actual bunny (stuffed), and it was pink, and it flew.  And when I couldn't find it he became the Flying Pink Invisible Bunny: My constant companion in the innermost corners of my mind.  There's only one (because seriously, it's the fucking Fibonacci bunnies: 1 & 1 makes 2, then you have 3, 5, 8, and soon you're spending all your time loading alfalfa bales and sweeping up bunny droppings.  FPIB uses the toilet (because a 5 foot 4 Vorpal Bunny leaves substantial pellets, lemmie tell ya).

Anyway - So I try to meditate every day.  I don't, but I try to -- Usually I can get a good lock on my brain two or three days a week, feed the bunny, tidy the shelves, and all that fun shit that most people's brains do automatically (y'all have Roombas or something? Maids? Where can I get one - It's a mess in here! [HEY SHUT UP I'M TRYING TO WRITE!]).  The result of that semi-regular meditation and a not insignificant force of self-discipline is the me everyone sees.  Mister Fucking Nice Guy (Nice Guys Finish Last).
Problem is I'm no guru - I suck at the whole inner calm thing (Dude, you're fucking Sicilian/Neopolitan - there's a goddamn Italian civil war happening in here half the… [SHUT THE HELL UP!] {Crashes - Dishes shattering - Mutley laugh & girlish giggles}) - *ahem* sorry... FPIB is taking care of the troublemakers.  Anyway, I'm no guru, and June is a strange month for me.  Good times & bad.  When I try to meditate my brain hauls out those memories and starts beating me senseless with them, so what we're left with is self-discipline holding that veneer of Mister Fucking Nice Guy on before I start REALLY telling people what I think of them.  
 

I speak my mind pretty freely.  I call a spade a shovel (because really, who says spade? Trowel, sure - but spade? BAH! DIGRESSION, STOPPIT!). But for all my "I don't care what you think" the truth is I care what some of you think -- maybe like 5-10 of you.  Sorry for avoiding you, but I don't want you to hate me and well... don't care what ya say, experience says different so we'll get things sorted out in here and come back when the filters are back on-line.
It's easier to deal with people I don't know, or people who have seen me with the wheels coming off in the past. The former I don't care about -- Love me, Hate me(, Break me, Bleed me, Beat me - Kill me -- Take me now, before I change my mind!... sorry Andrew Lloyd Weber snuck in there. Sneaky bastard.) I don't care so much.
The latter - Well there's one of you I talked to last night.  If you've seen me off the deep end we're probably kindred spirits in more ways than one, and maybe we can keep eachother a little closer to sanity.

*BING* wha... email? from Grammar Nazi? "eachother" is incorrect? Yes, I know they're supposed to be separate words. I'm staging a rebellion against Strunk & White and their buddy Webster because it's STUPID.  It's my own personal "email" battle (Electronic Mail -> E-Mail -> eMail -> email (-> mail, pretty much. When you talk about postal mail you say "letter" don't you?)).  Anyway, for the duration of this blog I'm doing it wrong (thematic reprisal).

BAHHHHHH! MORE DIGRESSION! (Isn't SoC with me just HI-LARIOUS? It's more fun than a frog in a blender! I bet you wish this shit made some sense, don't you? Awww, you're so cute when you're confused.. Who's a little confused reader? You are...Coochie coochie...OW! JESUS HENRIETTA CHRIST! OK, remember FPIB has fangs and DOES NOT like to be taunted, or called "cute"....)

I haven't quoted anything yet.  I don't think.  I will, don't worry.  Or maybe I did already? It's all recycled anyway - I think every combination of utterances has pretty much been used in English (and probably all the other languages too).

It is happening now, it has happened before, it will surely happen again" -- Time Prophet; Lexx.
There's your quote -- Given my belief in the curvature of time it's equally apt as any other along the same lines, and this one comes in the form of a Sci-Fi musical, complete with a dead guy!

I'm not high.  Just thought I'd put that out there because when I mention the bunny that's where EVERYONE'S mind goes, but my synapses are so fried I don't NEED additional chemistry to trigger misfires anymore.
I have however had.... about 30% of a Gin & Tonic in the half hour I've been writing this (but it's a big glass, and the ingredients are listed in quantity order).  I'm really not drunk either, and I haven't popped any knockout pills (locked them away. Too tempting.)  I'm writing this (rather than watching Futurama) to force my brain to unwind its surplus neurotransmitters.

And my brain wants to talk about the past.  June.  Every June we do this stupid dance, trying to knock the past aside. I'm a big proponent of keeping the past in the past, but everyone is ultimately formed by the events that they've experienced. I lost a friend in June once.  Great party. Said goodbye. He went right. I went left. Some drunk asshole wiped him out.
I hate drunk drivers.  The penalties aren't strong enough.
I hate myself for deciding it was a good night to stay out until almost dawn being stupid.  Rationally I can't be responsible for events beyond my control. Emotionally I'm the one who dragged him to the party. My bright idea, which makes it at least somewhat my fault.

Hurting people you care about sucks, and it's easier if you just don't care.  For a long time I didn't care and I was happy. Then I made the mistake of caring and... well, I kinda went round the bend, flew over the cuckoo's nest, tumbled down the rabbit hole (HI BUNNY!) and bought the funny farm.
Thanks for calling that ambulance - It was probably a good idea (ah back when the intertubes weren't clogged with trolls and shitheads).
The nice little indian gal in the white coat didn't know what to make of me - trouble with doing a psych evaluation on someone who knows what you want to hear is... well I knew what she wanted to hear (I convinced her (and her two supervisors) that I wasn't nuts - only took about half a day, and I even heard NEW psych eval questions.  Sometimes I wonder if there's a book of them somewhere (wait, there is - nevermind)).
While we were waiting for our psych evaluations we had fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there in the psych lockdown corridor (OK no pencils. But they also didn't take my shoelaces or my belt, and I did whistle Alice's Restaurant when they sat me on the bench for some reason. One of the nurses smiled).
I'm pretty sure I was nuts at the time, but being pretty sure I was nuts I probably wasn't in a position to judge my own sanity.  The guy next to me all trussed up was fried on PCP as far as I could tell, but fun to talk to -- apparently I was a calming influence on him & I managed to get them to cuff him like a human instead of a rodeo calf.  Call it my good deed?
Oh and as a bonus the cops from my ambulance were FUCKING HOT (Too bad they were pretty sure I was crazy. How many nutcases give the driver directions from the back of the bus? I mean there WAS construction on the Wantagh. If they just took Newbridge like I told them to the trip would have taken half as long! I was just being helpful!). I resisted the urge to ask them for their phone numbers - Prudence trumped hormones for once.

Anyway a year of head-shrinking after that didn't get me any closer to sane as far as I could tell.  Doc said something about it being like a verbal fencing match, and I said that was the nicest thing anyone had ever said about me (really, it was! I was flattered!).  Sorry, but if you want to psychoanalyze this you're gonna have to work for it.  I found our verbal sparring quite enjoyable personally. (EN GARDE!)
We did determine that I met the DSM criteria for bipolar/manic-depressive disorder though, so that's gotta be worth something (I would like my prize paid in lolrus bukkits).
 

Sometimes I still can't tell if I'm crazy or not - and times like this always make me wonder.  But for tonight? Well, I'm not killing myself, and I'm not killing anyone else.  I'm definitely manic, which means I'm in for some un-fun times when this ride is over, but we'll set the charges and blow that bridge when the enemy's tanks are on it (Gahh, sorry. Channeling Patton now apparently.  C'mere, let me slap you around a bit!)
 

Hmm... I think that's what my brain wanted.  Umm... thanks for "listening", you've been a great "audience"? I'mma bang around on Twitter and finish my Gin.