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tower three to flight zero
October 02, 2004
Welcome from Tower Three, exactly an hour to midnight, Saturday night.
I'm here in my office, eight floor, Tower three of the the Hobby complex, at 4th and Guadalupe. No, one else, of course, is here. The hall lights apparently stay on perpetually. My office light is off, and here I am, alone, high above, but in the middle of all the action in the warehouse district.
If I close my door to shut out the hall lights, it's momentarily creepy, but the windows behind me become a wall of stars and light. The parking garage glows slightly amber from its low-wattage lighting like a giant candelaria, and from a distance, you forget how it stinks of exhaust fumes and urine and guano, and it just looks warm and beautiful. Cars move up and down mopac in the distance like light rippling on a stream. The water tower is lit just enough to be a moon, hanging low, waxing gibbous, exerting no tidal forces on anyone, a moon ignored.
More music from the Garden State soundtrack - and it says, everything looks perfect from far away...
Just went to the 7:00 showing of Mr. Sinus at the downtown Alamo Drafthouse. It was great, but regretably, I am not at liberty to share with you all the details of the evening. Suffice it to say that we saw... Mac and Me, as performed by three people I've never seen before. I saw it with three people I have seen before, Amanda, Morgan, and Lori.
My moratorium on further beer drinking expired at about 7:05, shortly after the movie began. Lori poured on the pressure, asking "Beer?" once, shortly, and simply. It was all it took. Many beers later, Morgan, Amanda, and Lori gone, and I'm back in all-too familiar territory. I was headed to Fado's for a lager and lime, then maybe Halcion for the sobering-up prior to the drive home. Thought I'd detour here to check email and tell you all about the view from my office.
Lori and I sat outside the theatre after the show, and talked a lot. She brought up a friend that was bipolar, and I discovered that no, I had not shared with her yet that I am, too. We talked about that struggle, between the science and the doubt. I take Advil for the post-game aches and bruises, glucosamine and chondroiton for the pain in my knees. But those drugs address something real, objective, and definable. The drugs I've been prescribed, have taken in the past, and am on a self-appointed hiatus from address something diagnosed solely from the admittedly remarkable and textbook symptoms I report. On top of that, they, unlike other medications, come with side effects, downsides I find it difficult to live with.
And then we talked about the big issue, the one that has always recurred for me - where is the line between personality and disorder? When I am in manic mode, I am at my best - everything my mind is capable of comes alive. I'm actually funny, and brilliant, and yeah, happy. Giving that up for the hollow promise of stability is not a cool and easy choice.
I'd like to interject at this point that another nugget on the Garden State soundtrack is "The Only Living Boy In New York," which may be my favorite Simon and Garfunkel song now...
Anyway, here I am. Where am I on the swing? Manic? Depressed? It feels like both, thanks to the beer. That's been the magic of the beer - it takes the anxiety and the panic and the freak-out away, leaves me more in touch with the core of what I'm feeling, and with the ability to let go and write, which, in turn makes me feel more alive, more useful, than I do the rest of the time.
Lori is a gift to me. It's been a process getting through my fears and doubts, but when we do, she understands so much of what I feel and say. I wouldn't, couldn't trade that for anything, especially now.
A thought that came out of our conversation: "You can no more force the universe to unfold as it should than you can force an acorn to grow into an oak."
Colin Hay, yes, the lead singer from Men At Work, is singing now... a good note to end on. I'm going to stop peppering his words with the sound of keystrokes, and I'm just going to turn around and look out at the world. If anyone's out there is actually getting this, these transmissions from the event horizon, leave me a comment... I feel like all I hear is the echo...
Posted by Rob at October 2, 2004 10:56 PM