Last night, after watching a couple of Angel episodes, I went to bed at midnight. Laid a wake for a little while. No sleep came. Took melatonin, followed by lithium. Waited. Again, no sleep came.

After tossing and turning for a half hour, I decided it was time for some serious measures. I went to the closet and took out the little bottle of blue pills. Since I bought it three years ago, I think I've taken them about twice. I'm very hesitant to use them because they're absolutely nasty. But this time, it was necessary, as I had been exhibiting most of the warning signs that precede a manic episode. I needed sleep, badly. I was tired, but my brain wouldn't stop.

I looked at for a moment before putting it in my mouth and swallowing. I hate those things, but when I started to become jittery again 5 minutes after taking it (before it had had a chance to absorb), I knew I had done the right thing. When on the verge of going out of control, sometimes extreme measures are necessary.

Now, to why I don't like them. About about a half hour after ingestion, it starts to feel like a club is hammering at the inside of your head. Then, moments later, you're out. They're non-prescription, but damn are they ever potent!

When you wake up between 9 and 12 hours later, it feels like you've been run over by a steamroller. Much harder to get out of bed than normal. Even hours later, I can still feel the fog of it drifting around in my brain. It's not a nice feeling. But in this case, I'll take it over the alternative of a sleep deprived mind sliding ever closer to the edge.

I woke up at like 11am, and didn't really get out of bed until 12. Mom was getting ready to go to Illinois. I helped her carry stuff out to the car, and wondered if I should really be going too.

No, my place right now is here. Getting these projects wrapped up, most likely helping dad move next week, and keeping myself healthy.

On the subject of moving. When it happens, that will almost certainly mean I'll be offline for a while. Exactly how long, I'm not sure. Though my dad hasn't said anything, I think he's tired of paying for (or maybe can't afford) a net connection, which I probably make 10 times more use of than he does.

I haven't yet decided how I'm going to deal with this. I'd like to offer to pay for it myself, except for the fact that over the past several months, my savings has gradually been depleted, my credit card debt has slowly been creeping upward, and I'm tapped out.

There's talk that the projects I'm working on and others will be paying off soon, but at this moment, my bank balance is lower than it's been in years. It depresses me to realize that the last time I got paid for anything was back in January, and that was for work I had done before Christmas.

I'm not sure what to say to scott, because he's a wonderful friend, but in terms of business... I don't know. I keep holding out hope that it's all going to get better, because it keeps looking like it is. More clients, bigger clients, more projects. So many projects, in fact, that we seem to end up with a lot of half-finished stuff that never quite gets off the ground, because then it's time to follow the next trend.

I don't know. Maybe this is just me having a pessimistic day. I really don't know anymore.

I guess at this point, my goal is to have the two big client projects all wrapped up before the move. If I get paid for those, then that will (1) give me a little breathing room financially for a little while, so I'll be able to pay off my debt, and pay to get a net connection installed at either my dad's new place or my mom's, and (2) act as some solid evidence that this thing is financially capable of generating something, even if it doesn't make me fully self-supporting just yet.

If it doesn't, well... then back to the fast food counter, or something like that. At least there, I know that there will be a paycheck coming in at a regular interval.

Now I just have to figure out how to tell all this to scott. Sometimes, I wish this day would just go away.