Zero day...

I woke up a little bit before 5:30 this morning. I can sleep through just about anything. I fell asleep among 50,000 people at a Grateful Dead show once as well as at a much smaller Y&T show in the late 80s. Though, I view this more as how boring I find those particular bands than any statement on my ability to sleep. There is a sound I absolutely cannot sleep through though. That sound is a cat scratching at the bedroom door informing me that it's been almost 12 hours since they were last fed. I'm sure in their little kitty brains, they're actually informing me that they would like to be fed at least once, since they've never been fed ever in their lifetimes. They would like to try this thing called food. It's a ballet every morning. Precisely choreographed. If one thing is out of place, it's chaos. Take Tony out to do his shitty business. Pete gets his food first. Then Shawn. Then prep Tony's food. Feed Gus. Then Tony. Hopefully I ground my coffee beans for the morning the night before and filled the kettle, so the water can boil while I take Tony out and disburse nibbles to the zoo. It's a bad morning if I don't have a cup of coffee ready to go within 15 minutes of being awake. Then, while the animals eat, I start my coffee as I watch the morning news. Get angry. Tweet mean things at the President and his sycophants. Finish my coffee, pour another cup and move to the office. Turn on more news as I wallow in news of the world for about a half hour. Settle down. Take my various medications and nasal spray. Today that portion of the routine changed. A new medication was in the mix. One I'd never taken before. Zoloft. 25mg of it. I got the prescription yesterday after a long chat with my GP. I was finally tired of being tired. Frustrated at being constantly frustrated. Meh about being meh most of the time. I also got my arthritis medication refilled after being off it for a while because I was too lazy to go get the required blood work to renew the prescription. I save the Zoloft for last. I was finally taking a medical step toward addressing my depression and anxiety. The doctor and I went over the side effects yesterday. Surprisingly, it was a relatively short list, and most were minor inconveniences at worst. Excessive sleepiness or potential, light insomnia were two. Since the need to sleep in the middle of the day and generally poor sleep overall is a symptom I want to address, I need to take this in the morning. I don't need this new chemical in my brain making my already shaky sleeping habits worse. I pop my pills. Empty my coffee mug in the process. Head into the kitchen. Free Pete from the guest room. Gus from the bathroom. That's where they eat so Tony and Shawn don't eat all their food. I pour another cup of the life giving bean juice, and sit down to write yesterday's post. It's about 6:30 now. I turn off the news. Put on something familiar as white noise. I think it was season 2 episodes of Bob's Burgers. Words come out. Feeling good about the writing today. My writing track record has been spotty since the summer 48HFP, but I've been writing something more days than not. A lot of it not terribly productive, but I've been training myself to live with that. Just acknowledge that I did some writing. Got some words on the page even if they weren't fit for public consumption. I'm pleased with what I've written today so far. With what could be a total downer of a piece, there is some comedy scattered throughout. Less Saturday afternoon NPR, more Douglas Adams. It's about 7:30 now. Kasia is up and getting ready for work. I take Tony out to pee again. No. He wants to play ball. It's rainy, and muddy, and really gross, so no. I notice something though. I'm super wide awake. Not wired, like I had too much coffee or a small dose of speed. Just awake and alert. "Glad I didn't take this last night before bed," I think to myself. I bring Tony back inside. Wipe off his filthy feet. Kasia's getting to work in the living room. "Glad I didn't take this last night before bed," I say aloud this time. Kasia gives me the encouragement that is her trademark. Always so encouraging and supportive. I let her know how I'm feeling after the first dose of Zoloft. Wide awake. Slight dry mouth. Very much awake. I can't help thinking that some of this is a placebo effect from this being my first day on the medication. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. I'm also in a relatively good mood. This I know has to be placebo effect. This drug isn't supposed to really show any tangible effects until 4-6 weeks. I get back to writing. But first I need a sandwich with some homemade bread. I finish up my writing for my first post on this journey. I reread it. Correct some screwy sentences and spelling mistakes. Fix up some missing Oxford commas. I'm pleased with it. I post it along with a video of Comfortably Numb from The Wall. I'm not a pill popping rock star like the character in the song, but hearing it 4 times the previous day and starting a prescription to chemically alter my brain to point it toward happiness and joy, it only seemed fitting to include with the post. Plus I just really like the song. I write some more in my Kultur Shock book. Telling the thrillingly mundane tale of leaving SeaTac, transferring in SLC, and then again in Detroit before crossing the Atlantic to land in Rome. It's still rough. A little boring. Lacking in the funny haha I'm looking to infuse in my stories. I close Google Docs, pleased with my writing progress for the day. It's about 9 at this point. Oh shit! It's Tuesday! I have therapy at 10! I rush to my appointment. I'm early as usual despite being anxious that I'll be late. Thanks for this particular character trait, dad! My therapist and I have a lot to talk about today. It's a good discussion. One of the things I appreciate mostly about these weekly meetings is that he just lets me talk. I'm no good at getting into the middle of discussions, and frequently allow myself to be spoken over or interrupted, rarely finding a way to get back into the discussion before the point I wanted to make or story I wanted to tell has become a total non-sequitur. We talk about the medication and how we'll address its progress or lack thereof. Then we talk about The Melvins a bit. I also greatly appreciate that we have a common music vein that we can chat about. One thing we'd talked about a couple weeks earlier was changing up the music I listen to while driving or working. Not that there was anything wrong with my ongoing obsession with Slayer, The Melvins, Faith No More, Mastodon, Rush, and Metallica. He summed it up nicely. "That stuff is comfort food to you. It satisfies certain, crucial emotional needs, but it's not emotionally sustaining. You have far more varied tastes that will provide you a little more range in emotional response. Try rotating in some of the less listened to albums and artists in your library a little more frequently." Over the last couple of weeks, I've been listening to a lot more Police, Peter Gabriel, Fishbone (they're general rotation, but I started switching up the albums a little more), Pearl Jam, King Crimson, and Tori Amos. It works. I'm less agitated while driving. I'm singing along a little more loudly and confidently. Today, on my drive home, it's Fishbone's self titled debut. Party at Ground Zero. This is a perfect song. It puts me in a good mood. I get home. Take the dog out. Chat with Kasia a little bit. Prepare a serving of my weird bastardization of Chunky Sirloin Burger soup. Toast some homemade rolls. Eat my lunch. It's noon. I'm full. I catch up on the day's news. Watch The Mandalorian with much joy. Play a little World of Warcraft. Answer some emails. I decided not to work today. Give myself some emotional room to just observe what this first day of medication is like. It's 1:30 now. I'm feeling sleepy. So far, the alertness provided by Zoloft seems to last about 6 hours. Nap time. I realize that today of all days, I shouldn't beat myself up over desiring or needing a nap. I nap for about 2 hours before being awakened by the fact that the dog shit in the guest room... again! I love Tony. He's such a fun dog. Unfortunately, his tell for "I'm bored and need to go outside and chase a ball for 3 hours" is the same tell for "Oh fuck. I really need to poop right now!" It's supremely frustrating. He's such a smart dog, but not having a discrete tell for each of these necessities causes a shitty problem every now and then. Kasia escorts Tony to his crate. We tear apart the bedding and I get it into the laundry while Kasia liberally applies Nature's Miracle to the the newly shat upon bed. The rest of the day is largely uneventful. I write a little more. Watch some Bob's Burgers. Probably play some WoW since Kasia is likely to work late. I catch that there's a filmmaking event in SODO tonight. I debate whether or not to attend. I decide against it because I want to save my emotional energy for the Seattle Film Summit this weekend. I haven't attended in a few years and am really looking forward to it this time around. Kasia is having an allergy test tomorrow, and needs some things for it. I offer to run the errands to get her what she needs. I manage to get everything but the passion fruit. I'm also able to pick up some creme de cacao because I have a hankering for some froofy chocolately, Irish Creamy beverage sometime in the near future. I also pick up some unsweetened black iced tea, some High Ball for Kasia, and some sugar free tonic water for me. We spend the remainder of the evening watching the season premiere of Rick & Morty, an episode that pokes a huge hole in the notion that "you can't be funny in these woke times" with the single funniest joke about gaslighting I've ever heard. Then we watch episode 2 of His Dark Materials. So much better than the freaking movie! I'll miss Ian McKellen as the bear, but everything else is so much better than that garbage movie. It's a comfortable night in. Snuggling with the zoo. Relaxing. Don't think too much about the first day of medication. 10pm, it's time to sleep, knowing that at around 5am that awful cat scratching sound will probably wake me ahead of my alarm once again. All in all. A decent day. Neither bad nor great. Decent. I'll take it.