Racing ahead

Among the many, many helpful suggestions people have offered me about conquering this STU! PID! FUC! KING! headache—I’m actually quite humbled by your mass outpouring of concern and the sheer volume of suggestions and I’m sorry that I haven’t personally thanked you all—is trying a mega-dose of caffeine. I’m currently five and a half months pop-free and I’m not about to break my sobriety streak now and I’ve never been able to choke down coffee so I just chugged a 5 Hour Energy even though I don’t feel tired so I’m totally about to live that episode of Desperate Housewives where Felicity Huffman mainlines her kids’ Adderall and stays up all night organizing the toothpicks and doing her kids’ science projects for them—WHICH IN RETROSPECT WAS A SIGN WE ALL MISSED WAKE UP, PEOPLE!—and I still have to work a half day from home to make up for the negative-PTO deficit my NYC canceled flights caused and I really want to pull the weeds and fix the flappy visqueen and displaced pea gravel in our side hosta bed and find more things to clean with my awesome new happy-Mother’s-Day-to-me vacuum and paint my room and finish the build-out behind the house and fix the deficit before the sun goes down and hoo boy I’m off and running where did I put my running shoes oh there they are I’ll see you when we all get to Narnia look out toothpicks here I come!

I'm back from my three-month checkup with my psychiatrist

And she still wants to keep seeing me every three months instead of the every-4-6-week schedule I was on a year ago. This might sound good to you, but it's HUGE to me and my family. The bipolar med cocktail that she's methodically calibrated for me over the last three years seems to be keeping me stable (though the 12+ miles I've been running every week since March might also have something to do with it), and of course the tireless, diligent support of my family and friends has been an enormous part of that success.

I'm so thankful for all of this--and all of you--that I splurged on a massive bucket of Diet Coke and two super-sticky apple fritters on the way to work. Even though caffeine and sugar probably undermine the efficacy of my meds and exacerbate their weight-gain side effects. But I'm pretty sure I can manage these setbacks. :-)