Sertraline: day two

Gawd a'mighty.

On the evidence of yesterday's mania, concluding that an afternoon dose can only increase my chances of stomping bug-eyed through the fog at two in the morning as dopamine swells my brain to the size of a small moon, I took it promptly upon waking, with interesting results.

No discernible effect until late in the day, after some sedate exercise, when suddenly I got very tired. I did not appreciate this development, what with the fear-and-loathing redux from last night causing me to anticipate by the minute one of those hulking transformations into The Animal. Literally. I watched the clock all day, counting the number of minutes that passed since the last time I checked, which was a few minutes earlier, and adding that sum to the difference between now and my morning dose. Yesterday I went green four or five hours after dosing. I'm back from the gym, alert but not manic, and it's been seven hours. Then, like a Tartuffe's retort, I'm depleted. For two hours. Maybe I won't get wired today? Then I eat a bowl of rice and black beans and I'm wired. Just like that. Eleven hours after dosing.

So, tomorrow, who knows what to expect? But another night of insomnia looks certain. (Not that unnatural sleep habits don't come with their own privileges. About an hour ago, I caught a furtive opossum stealing whatever from the stray cat's water bowl on our patio, and that sort of witnessing, which is elsewhere impossible, has to count for something, an insomniac fringe benefit, I guess.

Also, last night, and I'm pretty sure I did not hallucinate this, a whole herd of deer not two houses down from me, seven or eight does and fawns at least. It was like an invasion. Then a hasty retreat. Then me standing there, staring at spaces where deer formerly grazed, wondering, can a person ride a deer like a horse? and why are there never any bucks? Probably better that I don't see the male deer. I've never been charged by an antlered animal, but I don't think I've got the rodeo clown's instincts to extract myself from that crisis without gaining some "speed holes," as Homer Simpson calls them.