Angry all the time, and Irish stew.

Say from the end of 1997 until after you returned from visiting family in Vietnam for a few months in the summer of 1999, was spent wallowing in a deep depression.

Remember father had to give you your morning pills before he went to work. A cocktale and ever changing array of pills for depression, anxiety, panic, insomnia, and antipsychotics normally given in high doses for schizophrenics, for you it treated Tourette Syndrome.

Kept forgetting to brush your teeth, but always looked in the mirror. Still here. The loudest voice in your head was suicidal ideation. Persistant, every moment of your waking hours. Whatv little sleep there was, no dreams. They went away, to this day are still gone. The muse that gave you reason to write those nightmares and fairytales.

Sometime in the afternoon, you found your way to the living room couch and watched Sailor Moon, every episode on Toonami.

Mother worked late at her restaurant. Dad would come home from work and took turns with you making dinner. Sandwiches and salads one evening. Meat and potatoes the next. Alternating between a large tabuli salad and S.O.S. served over potatoes and with a fried egg sitting on top.

Dad unwinds in front of the television or a novel, you drive to an all-night diner with a book and journal that stays mostly empty. Iced teas, french fries, salads and reading Heinlein, Nietzsche, Thich Nhat Hanh, maybe an obscure fantasy paperback.

Friends often avoid you, that black rain cloud easily turns into a sucking black hole. You do chat with a friend about Sailor Moon. Another about politics, or the American Civil War. Lucky ones hear you tell a a fragment of one of your own stories.

But that voice in your head is always there. Die, give up hope, surrender. Another fights back, anger, directed back at oneself. Horrible anger and self-loathing. In spite of the misery, the black hole, the list dreams, your smoldering hate of yourself keeps pushing you forward. You'd rather hate yourself, and keep pushing forward with your politics, and nightmares, and fairytales waiting to be put on paper.

Years later, today, the self-loathing is still there. The anger bubbles up. Too many voices and noises demand attention. Books collect dust, the pages of stories sit in a showbox.

Today turns up a free jazz album, trying to drown out the voices. A story dances around inside that head. Again, missed another friend's event.

Mom is visiting Vietnam. Today, 3AM, a pot of Irish stew is on the stove. Dinner for you and dad. Leftovers for your sister when she is feeling better.

Next week, a ratatouille stew like mom once made. Banh mi? S.O.S. over mashed potatoes with a fried egg on top, doused with tabasco sauce.

Don't talk politics, don't listen to your voices. Surrender to the anger, the skewered gonzo idealism that you hold close.

Enjoy the Irish stew.