I have previously mentioned that I am a rapid cycling Bipolar w/ Intermittent Explosive Disorder and Schizo-affective tendacies.
I am currently taking Tegretol twice daily, and Seroquel 1 hour before bedtime.
Tegretol is prescribed mainly as an anti seizure medication, but is also prescribed as a mood stabilizer, which is why I take it.
Seroquel is an anti psychotic drug. It is widely presribed to the mentally ill (as I understand it) as a sedative. It flat knocks me out, that's no shit.
I take Seroquel for 2 reasons;
1) I have a great deal of trouble sleeping. What sleep I did get was thin and restless. I've been plagued by nightmares for many years that disrupted my sleep, I also sleepwalk, and due to having worked nights for most of my adult life I 've had trouble going to bed before 4am.
Taking this medication between 11pm and Midnight, has minimized, but not eliminated these problems. I still occasionally sleepwalk and they nightmares have become less frequent (but not by much), they don't wake me as often as they did.
2) The medication adresses a problem I didn't know I had, audio and visual hallucinations!
For as long as I can remeber, I have seen and heard things that I couldn't explain. Nothing serious you understand, I was seeing shapes and shadows, the occasional flashing geometric patterms, mostly in my peripheral vision.
The things I heard were equally harmless, laughter, muffled conversation, voices calling my name or saying HEY! as I was falling asleep, music that sounded like it was coming from another room, T.V. static, shit like that.
I associated the things I saw to my eye problems, I've had 15 eye surgeries, mostly related to retina damage, so I see "floaters" which I understand to be minute bits of debris moving around in my eyes, what I've seen was for the most part, easy to mistake for "floaters". For me at least.
The stuff I heard I never even questioned, I just thought that was part of my thought process.
As a kid I would have times when my mind raced, seemingly out of control (something that, years later, I discovered were Manic phases of my yet undiagnosed Bipolar Disorder).
I thought the stuff I heard were by products of stuff like that, I thought it happened to everyone.
I'd always thought that hallucinations were just stuff like Jesus feeding parking meters and leprichauns on your shoulder telling you to burn the world!
You can imagine my surprise!
Anyway, the medications above work to stabalize my mood and suppress the SERIOUS anger issues I have.
The last 6 or 8 weeks I've been feeling not myself, like a faded washed out version of myself, like a copy of a copy of a copy.
I don't want to do anything, don't really enjoy anything, not sleeping well despite the sedative.
Until yesterday I didn't know what to make of it. I'm depressed!
I didn't recognize it for what it was because I've never experienced depression without the other shit!
Again, imagine my surprise!
So I ask WHY?!
Why wouldn't the psychaitrist give me an anti depressant BEFORE giving me a mood stabilizer?
Why not put me in a good mood and stabilize that?!
Dr. Martinez, you have some 'splaining to do!
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Welcome to my Nightmare (Don't think you're gonna Like It)
The dream is always the same.
I never see the risk of picking him up, he seems okay.
I notice that he's wearing gloves though the night is fair, but it fails to raise the red flag that it should.
I'm making conversation like I always do, get someone talking, it increases tips.
Then the turn, his change in demeanor, the gun to my head! I've got it now, but it's way too late!
Fear closes his ice cold hand around my balls.
I'm weighing options as I follow his directions. There are no fucking options!
My gun is in my briefcase, I should be wearing it, goddamn company policy!
Doesn't matter, inside a cab's a bad place for a standoff, worse place for a gunfight.
'Stay calm, let's see how it plays out before we panic' says the inner voice, the one who'd been sleeping on the job 3 minutes ago, easy for you to say fucker!
I know it'll go bad, because he's isolating us, he's scouted the location, and because I've only got $16 in the cab and nothing else to offer him but the cab itself.
He tells me to stop and kill the motor, the meter's running, the opposite of the clock in my head that's ticking to zero.
He's talking, I'm trying to listen, but my head is full of noise, like a tv tuned to a channel with no signal, my mind is racing, my wheels are spinning, no traction!
I hand over the money, you can't get a pizza for what I've got, he's furious!
He smashes my head with the gun, 2, 3, 4 times.
He puts the muzzle at the base of my skull and demands the rest, the noise in my head disappears the clock reaches zero and stops.
"That's all there is" I say calmly.
"Give me the rest!" I hear him cock the pistol.
"There is no more"
The Shot!
I'm screaming in the darkness!
Mrs. Gus is battling her own panic to calm me!
I cry as she holds me.
Sleep is chased out of the room for awhile, she'll work on her puzzle while I smoke and watch Time Life infomercials, Peter Fonda must be in rough shape to be hustling cd's on late night tv.
I had the dream every night for almost 2 years, and 2 to 5 times a week since then.
The medication helps, but it doesn't stop it, I din't scream much anymore, but jerk awake in a panic, soon the sedative over powers my fear and confusion and pulls me back down.
Welcome to my nightmare.
-The Greeter
I never see the risk of picking him up, he seems okay.
I notice that he's wearing gloves though the night is fair, but it fails to raise the red flag that it should.
I'm making conversation like I always do, get someone talking, it increases tips.
Then the turn, his change in demeanor, the gun to my head! I've got it now, but it's way too late!
Fear closes his ice cold hand around my balls.
I'm weighing options as I follow his directions. There are no fucking options!
My gun is in my briefcase, I should be wearing it, goddamn company policy!
Doesn't matter, inside a cab's a bad place for a standoff, worse place for a gunfight.
'Stay calm, let's see how it plays out before we panic' says the inner voice, the one who'd been sleeping on the job 3 minutes ago, easy for you to say fucker!
I know it'll go bad, because he's isolating us, he's scouted the location, and because I've only got $16 in the cab and nothing else to offer him but the cab itself.
He tells me to stop and kill the motor, the meter's running, the opposite of the clock in my head that's ticking to zero.
He's talking, I'm trying to listen, but my head is full of noise, like a tv tuned to a channel with no signal, my mind is racing, my wheels are spinning, no traction!
I hand over the money, you can't get a pizza for what I've got, he's furious!
He smashes my head with the gun, 2, 3, 4 times.
He puts the muzzle at the base of my skull and demands the rest, the noise in my head disappears the clock reaches zero and stops.
"That's all there is" I say calmly.
"Give me the rest!" I hear him cock the pistol.
"There is no more"
The Shot!
I'm screaming in the darkness!
Mrs. Gus is battling her own panic to calm me!
I cry as she holds me.
Sleep is chased out of the room for awhile, she'll work on her puzzle while I smoke and watch Time Life infomercials, Peter Fonda must be in rough shape to be hustling cd's on late night tv.
I had the dream every night for almost 2 years, and 2 to 5 times a week since then.
The medication helps, but it doesn't stop it, I din't scream much anymore, but jerk awake in a panic, soon the sedative over powers my fear and confusion and pulls me back down.
Welcome to my nightmare.
-The Greeter
Saturday, March 1, 2008
The Good Old Days
For me the old days was the end of the 97 to spring '01.
In 97 I was clearing $1200 a week easy in a rented cab, by January of 99 I was running my own 8 or 9 car fleet under the umbrella of the company I ran with. Me & my guys were driving the best cars because I did research at the police auctions and avoided police cars when I could.
I rotated them more often than the company did, hell the company bought some of my cars.
The rest got cheap paint jobs in flashy colors to cover the battle scars and whatever cheap matched mag rims the used tire shop I used had laying around. Painted purple, and electric blue, and jalepeno green metallic, with custom rims and low price tags, they sold quicklybecause they were clean and cheap, to people who couldn't afford better.
I made money off these cars all the way around.
Pay $2500, run the car for 12 to 18 months, they paid for themselves in 9 weeks, you do the math.
Then $300 in paint, $300 in cheap wheels and used tires, park it on the corner with an $1800 price tag then let 'em dicker down to $1500! Everybody's happy.
But when I think about 'back in the day', what I think about is the hunt, pulling that $600 Vegas trip out of the Circle K, or the $1100 trip to Long Beach, or the couple that paid me $35 an hour to sit in an OTB bar with them and watch them bet the horses.
There's some genuinely silly mother fuckers out there, and I met A BUNCH of 'em!
More than anything I remeber taking over the Country Boys restauraunt at 2am, the joint looked like a taxi impound lot from 2 to 4 am, sometimes there were 40 cabs in the lot.
Inside it was like a party, yelling, laughing, all of us trading war stories and jokes, every english speaking company in town was represented. We were brothers and sisters, comdrades in arms, cigarette smoke hung heavy in the air (this was before the smoking ban), it was fun!
I'd walk in wearing blue jeans, a white dress shirt, my cowboy hat, & my 2" .357 Magnum clipped backwards on my left side.
People would see me, cabbies I didn't know would yell out, it didn't matter if every table was full (they often were), guy and gals, whose names I never knew, would make room for me! Flo (really her name) would bring my breakfast without asking my order because she already knew! I reckon Flo probably earned $200-250 in tips for those 2 hours!
In my entire life, to this day, I've never felt more accepted, more welcome!
It didn't end in that diner, we all watched out for each other, didn't matter whose name was on the tophat, if a cabbie got jammed up some kinda way he could make a call, in 15 minutes he'd be up to his ass in cabbie backup.
One night a driver got stiifed on a fare, 20 minutes later, there were cabs up and down this asshole's block 4 or 5 of them in his yard, 8 or 9 of us on his porch beating on his door with Maglites! MotherFucker paid his fare!!!
The dispatchers called each other too, when a cab went missing the alarm would sound, every company had all thier drivers looking.
I'll never forget the night Big Jim went down, we found his cab crashed into a lightpole, he was slumped over the wheel, shot in the head and back. They never got his killer. Likely they didn't try real hard.
You couldn't count the taxis in his funeral procession, better than a hundred I know.
We were family.
Sptember 11th changed everything, drove a lot of us into straight jobs, me included.
When I came back it was different, we didn't trust each other, didn't talk to each other.
There were more cabs than ever on the street, competition was fierce.
When I got shot up, 3 cabbies came to see me, back in the day they'd be rotating in, 5-6 at a time, all day long, until the nurses chased everyone out when visiting hours ended.
I got to reminiscing tonight after I got the word that my mentor in the cab business died Friday night. He died at the cab stand around the corner from the Hyatt, heart attack, looks like.
He was truly old school, he said he was the last cabbie in Phoenix to work a Checker Marathon.
Shit he was probably the first to.
He dove a cab in Phoenix for more than 40 years, last I heard he'd been shot 4 times, stabbed 5, fucker was tough as nails.
He trained me, taught me everythung I did right in a rented cab, in 40+ years he never owned a cab, he was proud of me though. He told me so.
Back in the day, he'd get up early and came into the Country Boys, to hang out with us, he was revered.
He was our Yoda!
We'll talk soon.
-The Greeter
In 97 I was clearing $1200 a week easy in a rented cab, by January of 99 I was running my own 8 or 9 car fleet under the umbrella of the company I ran with. Me & my guys were driving the best cars because I did research at the police auctions and avoided police cars when I could.
I rotated them more often than the company did, hell the company bought some of my cars.
The rest got cheap paint jobs in flashy colors to cover the battle scars and whatever cheap matched mag rims the used tire shop I used had laying around. Painted purple, and electric blue, and jalepeno green metallic, with custom rims and low price tags, they sold quicklybecause they were clean and cheap, to people who couldn't afford better.
I made money off these cars all the way around.
Pay $2500, run the car for 12 to 18 months, they paid for themselves in 9 weeks, you do the math.
Then $300 in paint, $300 in cheap wheels and used tires, park it on the corner with an $1800 price tag then let 'em dicker down to $1500! Everybody's happy.
But when I think about 'back in the day', what I think about is the hunt, pulling that $600 Vegas trip out of the Circle K, or the $1100 trip to Long Beach, or the couple that paid me $35 an hour to sit in an OTB bar with them and watch them bet the horses.
There's some genuinely silly mother fuckers out there, and I met A BUNCH of 'em!
More than anything I remeber taking over the Country Boys restauraunt at 2am, the joint looked like a taxi impound lot from 2 to 4 am, sometimes there were 40 cabs in the lot.
Inside it was like a party, yelling, laughing, all of us trading war stories and jokes, every english speaking company in town was represented. We were brothers and sisters, comdrades in arms, cigarette smoke hung heavy in the air (this was before the smoking ban), it was fun!
I'd walk in wearing blue jeans, a white dress shirt, my cowboy hat, & my 2" .357 Magnum clipped backwards on my left side.
People would see me, cabbies I didn't know would yell out, it didn't matter if every table was full (they often were), guy and gals, whose names I never knew, would make room for me! Flo (really her name) would bring my breakfast without asking my order because she already knew! I reckon Flo probably earned $200-250 in tips for those 2 hours!
In my entire life, to this day, I've never felt more accepted, more welcome!
It didn't end in that diner, we all watched out for each other, didn't matter whose name was on the tophat, if a cabbie got jammed up some kinda way he could make a call, in 15 minutes he'd be up to his ass in cabbie backup.
One night a driver got stiifed on a fare, 20 minutes later, there were cabs up and down this asshole's block 4 or 5 of them in his yard, 8 or 9 of us on his porch beating on his door with Maglites! MotherFucker paid his fare!!!
The dispatchers called each other too, when a cab went missing the alarm would sound, every company had all thier drivers looking.
I'll never forget the night Big Jim went down, we found his cab crashed into a lightpole, he was slumped over the wheel, shot in the head and back. They never got his killer. Likely they didn't try real hard.
You couldn't count the taxis in his funeral procession, better than a hundred I know.
We were family.
Sptember 11th changed everything, drove a lot of us into straight jobs, me included.
When I came back it was different, we didn't trust each other, didn't talk to each other.
There were more cabs than ever on the street, competition was fierce.
When I got shot up, 3 cabbies came to see me, back in the day they'd be rotating in, 5-6 at a time, all day long, until the nurses chased everyone out when visiting hours ended.
I got to reminiscing tonight after I got the word that my mentor in the cab business died Friday night. He died at the cab stand around the corner from the Hyatt, heart attack, looks like.
He was truly old school, he said he was the last cabbie in Phoenix to work a Checker Marathon.
Shit he was probably the first to.
He dove a cab in Phoenix for more than 40 years, last I heard he'd been shot 4 times, stabbed 5, fucker was tough as nails.
He trained me, taught me everythung I did right in a rented cab, in 40+ years he never owned a cab, he was proud of me though. He told me so.
Back in the day, he'd get up early and came into the Country Boys, to hang out with us, he was revered.
He was our Yoda!
We'll talk soon.
-The Greeter
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
