Winter & Me

This is really not a good time of year for me, which I've noticed for at least the last 5 years. It's kind of sad, because I used to love winter when I was a kid.

Now it just makes me nocturnal -- which is weird, given that the lack of sunlight seems to aggravate my depression. These are also the months when I start obsessing about every bad decision I've ever made, & life in general starts looking darker.

Also, I'm on jury duty, which isn't really helping. I'm not at all the anti-jury-duty type. I'd love to sit on a jury, even if there's not a snowball's chance in hell I ever will (lawyers work hard to keep other lawyers off their juries). But sitting on a jury is one thing; waiting for confirmation that you never will is another.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll have more to say soon (probably too much more), but right now I need more sleep.

Is Blagojevich Nuts?

The latest national media rumor following Rod Blagojevich's arrest is that he's mentally ill in one way or another. He's a "sociopath," he's "insane," he has "delusions of grandeur," according to various sources who know him.

Many, many people hate the idea of anyone diagnosing a public or historical figure from afar. Me, I love it (makes me feel all warm & self-important). And I think it's likely the man is mentally ill, though I'm not quite stupid enough to try to pin a specific illness on him.

Still, mental illness in no way precludes stupidity.

Rod Blagojevich & Me

Most people understand that crime doesn’t exactly breed the upper end of humanity, intellect-wise. But Rod Blagojevich is apparently so stupid he gives Chicago's most venerable tradition a bad name.

And it’s not because he’s a crook. No, it’s because the jackass got caught. Chicago political sleaze has worked long & hard to build its reputation over the decades, & now Blagojevich might tear it all down in the time it took the G-men to cuff him.

Plenty of places swim in the cesspool of political skullduggery, of course: New Orleans, the outer boroughs of New York, L.A., Las Vegas, the entire state of New Jersey (which even manages to smell corrupt). But none of them quite compare to Chicago in their mastery of the game. This is the city that gave the world Big Bill Thompson, “Bathhouse” John Coughlin, Michael “Hinky Dink” Kenna, & "Fast Eddie" Vrdolyak.

And then there's Blago. What a shame. And what an idiot: The man knows he’s under federal investigation – by way of the Bush administration & its warrantless wiretapping, no less – & he yaps about selling a U.S. Senate seat on the fucking telephone?

The whole point behind political crookery in Chicago – the whole point behind Chicago, period – is not getting caught. This is the city where getting away with it has been elevated to high art. The hammer falls on someone every once in a while (prosecutors need work, too), but the likelihood a pol will face jail time correlates almost perfectly with his intelligence.

By which measure Blago should have been born in solitary confinement.

He won the governorship in 2002, at a time when that task was easier for a Democrat than it had been in living memory. As someone I know once put it, but for Chicago, Illinois would be as backward as Alabama, & almost as Republican.

When Blago ran, his predecessor, GOP Gov. George Ryan, was under federal investigation for vacuuming up illegal money (some of it in the form of bribes from unqualified truck drivers who later killed several people on the freeways). Ryan got sent away in 2006, by which time the Illinois Republican Party had eaten itself alive & handed the office to Blago with a bow on top.

But at least Ryan knew when to quit. The feds never recorded him talking shop on the damn phone.

Now, I don’t care how corrupt an Illinois politician you are. When you follow an exposed criminal as governor, something in your mind should scream, “Hey! This is probably a bad time to go around taking kickbacks for open Senate seats & telling anyone who will listen that I'm doing it.”

Political crime in Chicago is measured against political crime in other parts of the United States not based on the amount of money it brings its practitioners, or how high they rise in national politics, or even how badly they harm government where they live. No, Chicago’s prowess in the field comes from the quality, the ingenuity, the dedication of its crooks.

And rule No. 1 among these artists: Do. Not. Get. Caught.

Blago got caught. And now he’s tarnished the crown jewel of Chicago’s reputation. Shame on you, you half-wit.

Away Too Long

I've been a little overwhelmed lately, sort of a low-grade depression with too much sleeping. But I promise all my readers (yes, both of you) I will post again soon, probably tomorrow.

Under Pressure

My apologies for talking about myself so much, but it was probably inevitable (& if that kind of groveling annoys you, please keep in mind that I'm a Minnesotan, & we apologize like we drink: far too much, far too often).

That said, the saddest thing about bipolar disorder, from my experience, is the loss of a consistent ability to cope with stress.

It hasn’t been a total loss for me, but I used to be much better at it. That was a big part of the reason I started out as a newspaper reporter: the thrill of a deadline, the pressure of talking a reluctant source into telling you what he knows, the daily anxiety over what your readers & sources & editors will think of what you wrote.

But the stress eventually got to be too much, & I left journalism for law school. I knew that carried its own stresses (ridiculously competitive first-year classes, for one; ludicrously competitive second-year summer-job hunts, for another), but I also knew I could study at 4 a.m. & pull all-nighters before exams. I found that harder to manage with a day job.

Now I find it hard even to remember being as ambitious as I was when I graduated from college, or when I started studying law. I usually do what I can to avoid stress now, & I rarely look forward to it. I feel guilty about that once in a while – like I should contribute something to the world but never quite get around to it.

I suspect I’ll be that ambitious again, during one upswing or the next. I also know it won’t last.

'Tis Not the Season for Me

The most pathetic, miserable time of year starts tomorrow. Goddamn the holidays, & goddamn all the puke for which they stand.

Really, is there anything more painful than ignoring every dysfunction in our lives -- & doing it for a month and a half out of every flippin' year?

I do love my family & friends, I swear. But I love them because they're flawed, like me (though usually they're more subtle about their shortcomings). The last thing I want to do is sit around & pretend we were all invented by Norman Rockwell, complete with the fat uncle who smells like rum punch & Chesterfields yet retains his jolly sentiment when he plays Santa Claus every year.

Such families -- such people -- do not exist. Never have, never will. I've done enough genealogy over the last five years to know this.

'Tis the season, for those of us with seasonal mood patterns anyway, to get depressed, sleep until noon every day (claiming we "worked from home" in the morning), & gorge on pure starch constantly. I always make sure to keep a bag of flour, a soup ladle & a spare bucket of insulin handy this time of year.

Besides which, turkey sucks ass. Yes, I said it. Did these flightless freaks of nature never learn to drink water? No matter who cooks them, no matter how lovingly & carefully they do it, no matter how freely the damn things range before someone whacks their heads off, turkeys always taste like tree bark, only drier and stringier. Trytophan helps with depression, apparently, but only if you're willing to eat a U-Haul full of Butterballs. Goose I can stand, but who the hell actually cooks geese anymore?

One thing exists to make the holidays survivable: rich, yolky eggnog, by the half gallon. Also, lefse.

My Medical History & Me, Part 1

On average, manic depressives wait eight years, & four doctors, from the time symptoms show up to the time the psychiatric world makes an accurate diagnosis. I got there in nine & six, but count me lucky anyway: I spent only 24 hours under hospital lock-&-key, received some relatively effective treatment for the depressive end of things, & got a chance to see the sausage factory that is American mental-health-care up close.

At the risk of becoming permanently self-referential, here's a bit of my experience with the insanity industry.

As I've noted before, my crazies struck early, but they waited until I was 23 before they started breaking to the surface (in the form of drunken antics unusual even for a drunk). They waited another four years to make their formal appearance.

When they did, they showed up first as insomnia: I went at least one night a week, sometimes two, sometimes two in a row, without a wink of sleep. Some nights I got in my car & drove around for hours; other nights I watched TV in bed (I firmly believe Homicide: Life on the Street reruns staved off insanity), gave up around 3 a.m. & brewed a pot of coffee; others I drove to my office at 4 a.m. & worked all night through the next day.

Next came the anxiety attacks. These weren't full-blown panic attacks, with all the physical symptoms, but they weren't far off. I typically ended up hyperventilating & dysfunctional, or pounding the holy living Christ out of my dashboard at every red light; driving during these things usually ended with my throat raw from screaming through the windshield at anything that moved.

My first stop: the endocrinologist who treated my diabetes at the time. He had nothing to offer for the sleeplessness, not even a psych referral.

A couple years later, during my first year of law school, I met with the student-health-service "shrink." She was a real psychiatrist (as far as I know), but student health-care in this country is an oxymoron. Campus clinics tend to attract bottom-of-the-barrel medical talent, & student-patients are treated as whiny spoiled annoyances. The urban legend at my undergrad college (& most others, I assume) held that male students routinely had to undergo pregnancy tests before they could get any medical help. The school where I met the shrink has a top-notch teaching hospital, but ironclad rules prevent university students from using it without a referral from the student clinic (which almost no one could get) -- whether or not their insurance would pay for hospital treatment.

So not surprisingly, this psychiatrist was a touch out of her depth. She agreed I probably suffered some degree of depression, but didn't think it was worth doing anything about it. She even suggested my insomnia (which by this point was chronic & repetitive) was a good thing because sleep deprivation is sometimes used to treat depression. It is, but typically only in severe cases, & even then only by psychiatrists who know what they're talking about.

My next try for help was in Manhattan, where I was a summer intern between my first & second years of law school. I happened to be there for the rainiest June in the city's history, & by the end of it I was loopy. I drank for the first time in three and a half years, and strong suicidal ideation crept in.

This time I decided to go with the nearest emergency room. Big mistake. The place turned out to be an assembly line for the sick poor who live around Columbia University. The triage nurse sent me for an interview in the psych ward, which could obviously handle only severe cases of mental illness -- the kind of cases that require cops, restraints & massive amounts of drugs. I could still walk & basically function, so they told me I'd have to wait at least a month or two for an outpatient appointment with a shrink. I didn't really expect to live that long.

And best of all: The "social worker" who interviewed me in place of the on-duty shrink actually asked how often I masturbate, in a way that suggested I should do it as often as possible because that would make me feel better. I don't know about you, pal, but a good wank isn't quite enough to get me down from the window ledge.

There's more to come in a later post . . .