I woke up in Tampa this morning with the dog...

...on the bed and the girl on the floor, the way God intended it. There were no sheets on the bed but the dog didn't seem to mind anymore than I did. There were no sheets on the floor either but the girl has been off her lithium and comfort for her won't come from mere linens. A terrible state of affairs is the status quo and can be quite a bit of fun or irritating if football is on and you have the balance of your account on the Seahawks. I'm drunk and she's crazy and it's amazing the things we can overlook. How long since I've showered, I can't tell. Where has everyone disappeared to, I guess we'll all catch up someday. At one point it became obvious to me that Bingo was a lesbian. I'm sure it was obvious when I met her and certainly when I ran into her again years later after she'd been released from the institution with her head shorn clean. But recently since we have been what you'd call a couple, I made mention of it.

"You do know you're a lesbian, don't you?" "I never said I wasn't." says she. And on we go. We have bigger fish to gut out here on Earth without fingerfucking about the details. The getaway driver has no time to wonder why the "Check Engine" light is on.

Bingo has been extraordinarily normal for the past month, having been seen by a special specialist that specializes in treating mental illness thru nutrition. This begins with a barrage of hideous testing of every bodily fluid and ends with a diet plan that is so strict that you'd prefer to be out of your mind.

Bingo ate her lithium but traded most of her other meds in for a diet of organic turkey, canned pumpkin, free range eggs and random vegetables. No condiments but for salt. That's cruel. Most food is just a conduit for the condiment that suits it and is worthless by itself. The potato would be as popular as a rice cake if you had to eat it unmolested. A month plus she ate what she was told to eat and she felt somewhat normal, like a normal person who can eat almost nothing and certainly nothing fun. As normal as I would feel without drinking. As normal as you feel working a 40 hour work week. Normal isn't always good. Bingo got tired of living without the insane highs of mania and on Sunday decided to eat things that are fun and leave her lithium in the bag. Sunday became exciting and Bingo ate everything while the Seahawks won back my money that the Eagles pissed away the week before. Chaille worked the grill and Jodi got us beers during football the way God intended and even the dog was happy with scraps and an unmade bed.

Lithium salts such as lithium carbonate (Li2CO3), lithium citrate, and lithium orotate are mood stabilizers used in the treatment of bipolar disorder, since unlike most other mood altering drugs, they counteract both mania and depression. Lithium can also be used to augment other antidepressant drugs. Useful amounts of Lithium for this use are only slightly lower than toxic amounts, so the blood levels of Lithium have to be carefully monitored during such a treatment. More on Lithium here.

Bingo crashed on Monday the way she tends to do but she took her lithium and she's back to good before the Eagles can take the field against the Cowboys. You try to find the formula in it. Try it one way, find the flaw, try to adjust. I'll be quitting everything for a month come Thanksgiving and then I will probably grow tired of being normal and I will probably jump, crash and adjust. It's what we do. Either way, I took the Eagles again in spite of what they did to me last week. I'm hoping they've adjusted as well.