...the baseball game is on in the other room. I like baseball, but only live baseball. My dad is a fanatic about it. He once tried out for the Reds years ago, but obviously never made it.

...when he lived up here (now he's a Braves fan...) whenever the game was on (Cards, of course) he had to watch, only to be asleep about a half hour into it. No matter how quiet I was, when I tried to switch the channel, he'd wake up, swearing he was just "resting my eyes." Suffice it to say, when the game was on, I was either walking or reading.

...I kind of miss that sound around the house...and I guess I kind of miss my dad. He's a pretty cool guy when he's taking his medicine. You see, he suffers from bipolar manic depression. He has to take a shit load of pills, and when he takes them steadily, dad is pretty normal. But eventually (and I dread when the phone rings sometimes because it's overdue) he stops taking the meds. He gets to feeling he doesn't need them because he feels ok.

...if you know someone like this you know what happens. A downward spiral and then there is no reasoning and no hope until he gets back on those pills. Usually my father goes on this "quest"...he thinks he's going to get a job at NASA...he can't stop talking about planes and rockets. If he's down in Georgia he takes off for days most times, and I get the added bonus of his wife who is in constant denial and won't let me know until he's too far gone (both physically and mentally). Once he made his way up here to warn us of a war that was coming...

...fortunately, he doesn't get violent, just angry and mouthy and uncontrollable. Not bathing for days, spending money like he has it to spend, and talks to himself...not as in a conversation, but like he's trying to make a decision and talking out loud. Imagine what it's like to go into a Hardees to fetch your father while everyone around him thinks he's crazy. Sometimes I think that keeps the really bad people from hurting him.

...I'm a big supporter of mental health care...unfortunately the local mental hospital was sold to the local community college. Whenever he has a setback and I have to have him "checked out" we end up going to the local hospital, where we wait all day for a bed in some other local hospital's mental health ward. Apparently it's not as important as, say...pretty much everything else.

...so far so good...no word from down south (he forgets things, too...like my birthday..but I don't blame him), and I didn't inherit it. Thank God.

***check out Edge's blog today...he makes some sense of things, I believe.
posted by Wanting at 6:54 PM