So I guess I had a pretty massive freakout over the past couple of days. It's chronicled on Twitter, more or less. To me it seemed to start with a horrible dream I had Monday morning. In this nightmare I was making a real effort to reconnect with my characters, but I'd gotten the wrong ones, which were more or less the Cure. (Anybody with half an eye can see the Cure's influence on Lost Souls, or so I assume.) They had all gone down to Shell Beach and commandeered barges, a tugboat, and some kind of tanker, with which they were planning a terrorist attack. Samuel L. Jackson was tearing down the Reggio highway in a furious attempt to stop them, but everybody knew it was my fault and hated me, including Chris, who promptly dumped my ass.

Some of my worst dreams are those in which I'm back with one of my exes. I remember Chris and feel the lack of him, but know I have to be with this once-beloved foe instead. It is the hollowest, loneliest feeling I've known in dream. Usually I wake up, become aware of him sleeping beside me, and feel tremendous relief. This time I woke up within the dream and knew I'd really done it, I'd finally fucked up bad enough to lose him (by putting the Cure on terrorist barges in Shell Beach, yes, I see the absurdity of this, but it didn't help at the time). I saw life without him, an endless featureless plain the color of a bruise. I cried and woke myself and him up saying "Chris. Chris. Chris" and babbling about wrong characters on barges, trying to explain this utter incoherence.

The ensuing day did not pass well. Even tranked to the gills, I couldn't seem to stop sobbing and panicking and doomsaying. I could not bathe. I could not even consider leaving the house (this has been a problem lately). I finally called my intermittent shrink and sobbed and babbled some more until she agreed to give me a few, VERY few, barbiturates to help me function over these next few days. I don't stress much about the holidays (we stopped doing gifts years ago, stocked up on stuff and unable to afford it), but my mom and a dear friend are coming to visit, and I would like to be able to act like something resembling a human being around them. Those who were reading back in the dark days of 2005 will remember my adventures with Dr. Jesus and the Great BUTALBITAL. Butalbital has come into my life again, with its idolatrous-sounding name and its extremely short-term help. Short-term because it's addictive as shit and not even slightly appropriate for treating long-term depression, but thank God she heard enough of the fraying in my voice to throw me a quick merciful lifeline (a scant 10 pills to be parceled out carefully over at least 4 days, worryworts) until I can go see her and figure out why my usual shit's not working anymore. Pharmaceuticals, you've nearly killed me and you've saved my life, both many times. Just like a goddamn lover, ain'tcha? ("Almost had your hooks in me, din'tcha, dear?")

So today my Butalbital and I did laundry, cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed the house, and baked a lovely chocolate chip-pecan pie. Tomorrow we'll greet our guests and try to absorb their love through the merciful haze that says so kindly, "No, that bruise color isn't filling your vision, you don't reek of rotting meat, these people love you, they're not counting the hours until they can get away or silently analyzing the stupidity of everything you say."

So that's the story of my big freakout. As ever, I tell it because of my determination to chronicle the life of one writer's journey through loss, depression, addiction, sorrow, joy, and sometimes redemption in the wake of the post-Katrina federal levee failure. I've written no fiction in three years now, so this is really all I have to offer, and I give it to you without shame. There's no reason for shame. I wasn't like this before August 29, 2005. I'd dealt with depression off and on since I was 17, but at the time of the levee failure I was on no psychiatric drugs, writing prolifically, and (I thought) fairly happy. Now I struggle most days just not to be a mess, and there are a hell of a lot of people who are a hell of a lot worse off than I am ... and a hell of a lot more people who survived the levee failure and its aftermath, but not the lives they tried to piece back together afterward. They gave themselves to the Great Subaudible. I tell you these things in part to keep myself from doing the same.

PZB: I sure am tired of hearing about the Beaujolais. I hope it goes away soon.

CdB: You should not be allowed to live.

This anniversary of the federal levee failure is hitting me harder than either of the previous two. Last year I was hunkering down for Gustav, and I guess kind of in shock that it was coming. In '07 I was lying sick in bed from the pills I was addicted to. And of course the first anniversary, '06, was beautiful, then horrible: we went out to the dedication of the St. Bernard Parish memorial in Shell Beach that morning, and that afternoon one of our most beloved cats, Nathan, suddenly collapsed from undiagnosed/asymptomatic diabetes and died early the next morning.

The truth is that I will never like this time of year. There was never much to like about it, especially for someone who has always lived in the hot, humid south and hated school since the seventh grade. A confession: Chris and I had to change our anniversary, because neither of us was sure, but we thought it might be August 29. (Like many queer couples I've known, lacking a formal marriage date, we date our anniversary to the first time we had sex.) On the one hand, it was the best thing that ever happened to me; on the other, I was being unfaithful to another man, confused about what to do, and on the brink of the scary decision to move out on my own and fully support myself for the first time. (I say "fully," but during some of those lean times, it sure helped having a boyfriend who was a chef and would feed me.) So it wasn't an entirely happy time then, either. We moved our anniversary to November 5 because it would be a good time to travel and I've always been fond of Guy Fawkes' Day.

Anyway, I have no idea what I'm doing to observe today. I thought we might go to the N.O. Museum of Art events -- there will be a reading of the names of New Orleans' flood dead, and a showing of When The Levees Broke -- or some memorial Mass, but Chris doesn't want to get up early and I can't blame him, as he had to deal with restaurant drama (a cook/waiter quitting) until 4am last night. Maybe I will find some fucking sack and read my signed copy of Josh Neufield's A.D.

PZB: ...blah blah blah blah blah Stephanie Meyer.

CdB: Uh-huh.

PZB: You don't know who that is, do you?

CdB: Who?

PZB: Twilight?

CdB: What?

PZB: Edward?

CdB: Who?

PZB: Sparkly?

CdB: Huh?

PZB: You don't have any idea at all what I'm talking about?

CdB: No.

PZB: Oh, I love you. I love you so much. You are the most wonderful man in the world.

I had a lovely, relaxed day with Chris. Over coffee he gave me a mushy card and a crazy Indonesian mask, whose picture I will have to post soon. Then we had lunch at Piccadilly Cafeteria (From "Crown of Thorns": [Dr. Brite] wouldn't take himself anywhere nice; he'd drive out to the Piccadilly Cafeteria on Jefferson Highway and have a Spartan four-vegetable plate, poking sadly at his corn niblets while some poor fucker played the hits of the forties, fifties, sixties, and seventies on a Hammond organ. There would be a smattering of other lonely souls in booths around the room's bleak perimeter, and inevitably some old bat would be celebrating her ninetieth. The organist would segue from "It's A Wonderful World" to "Happy Birthday," trolling for a tip. Altogether, it was about the most depressing thing Hank could think of. I happen to like it better than self-righteous young Hank, including the corn niblets) and Chris treated me to a shopping spree at Lowe's, where I got my romantic hose reel, exactly what I wanted. I watered the whole garden with it today and I love it; it will be my poor old back's friend.

We didn't feel like going back out later, so Chris fixed us steaks and twice-baked potatoes and birthday cake. That's what a man likes to eat! Now I don't feel so bad about forgetting Steak & A Blowjob Day this year.

Still later in the evening, I lamented that I was now 42 and still didn't have the answer. Chris looked up and said offhandedly, "Maybe it's just love." Exactly like him to cut through the Gordian knot of life, the universe, and everything in four words!