I went to the shrink last week. I wanted to discuss the problems I was having with getting and staying asleep. It seems the VA hospital in Seattle came up an instruction booklet for older adults to acquire proper sleep habits. Starting off with going to be at the same time every night then getting up at the same time the following morning.

Since my son turns the TV off at 1:30 a.m., that is my scheduled bedtime; 9:30 is the time I’m supposed to get up. The TV is distracting so it delays the time I’m able to get to sleep, but that really isn’t the problem. My mind doesn’t turn off.

Then there’s the problem with sugar. My intake of the wonderful substance is too much, which probably contributes to the problem. The bowl of ice cream with sugary strawberries or chocolate topping an hour before bedtime doesn’t help either. So, now I stop eating chocolate before 8:00 p.m. Have my ice cream before nine o’clock and coast to midnight when I take my night pills, eating a little something without sugar, and do my dental work. Then I can try to relax before it’s time to go to bed.

Then there’s the problem with my defective mental state. Being Type I Bipolar doesn’t help with a lot of things around the house, but I think it has a lot to do with not getting a good night’s sleep. Like Saturday and Sunday when in the morning I was totally in a funk in the morning; then bounced back up passing the middle mood the Depakote is supposed to maintain; and landing at total mania. Yesterday, I was working on my new book, the new age schema on Hercules III, and reading the news at The Atlantic online site. Today, the mania started this morning as soon as I awoke at 10:45, resulting in this blog entry. Plus, editing what I typed on the book yesterday. I have a whole new section or two to work on today; plus, working some more on the data for the age schema.

Age iterations were introduced in my first Hercules III novella, but now they’re more complex. Basically a person’s physical age at any given point is related to what iteration they’re on. Iterations are the number of years it takes a person to go from one age to the next. From birth to age 1 takes 2 years, resulting in a physical age on Hercules III of 1, but the Earth equivalent age is 2. But, things get more complicated as a person slowly ages. There are 23 iterations between age 9 and 10. At the age of 10 on Hercules III a child looks like a normal everyday ten-year-old on Earth, but the Earth equivalent age is now 116. Then there are the periodic accelerations that occur between the ages of 21 to 31, 53 to 75, 85 to some as yet undetermined age; resulting in an Earth equivalent age of 746,081 at the Hercules III age of 100, but that is now barely middle-age. The bots have manipulated human physiology to the point that people age very slowly. They do die from accidents, disease, and other natural causes, but there are some who will possibly live to where life becomes so boring that they may take their own lives. Can you imagine what it would feel like to live a million years? What would you do to keep busy?

Mania is fun and productive if you can channel it correctly. When I finish the book, I think I’ll get the shrink to up my dosage of the Depakote so I can remain moodless for a while. It’s not as much fun, but it is dangerous as hell bouncing off the walls and not paying attention to what’s going on around you, like driving to the grocery store. Was that a stop sign?