An expensive flight, day before yesterday, to Manchester, New Hampshire. Mandy’s sister Jodie was there at the airport to pick us up. She’s ever so slightly round with the bump of a girl on the way. The sides of the roads are covered in ice here. Amanda wears her fur coat. It’s an actual fur from actual previously living animals with fur; she discovered it at an estate sale, and paid twenty dollars for this fur coat, which was made from beasts killed from before we both were born.

We arrived at Mandy’s parents’ place. Mudd is there, smiling and looking happy to see us. Sister, Mom and Mandy cuddle on the couch a little, smiling, recounting stories, crying a little. I make scrambled eggs for Mandy and me.

Next morning, Jodie brings Xander to visit. Xander is pushing two years old and may well be the most amiable human being I have ever met. He has a handful of one-syllable words at his disposal, and he works them mighty hard. “nooo” is actually snow, which is intended to be carried to the tub in a large pot, and dispensed into cups there. Mandy is consistently referred to as “mehmeh” and she is wildly popular.

Nurn, Mandy’s father, is looking a bit gaunt, but he is very much himself… funny, personable. He hugs Mandy and hugs me, cautioning me from touching his stomach. Nurn has been disconnected from most of the beepy machines by his bedside. His breathing sounds normal. Nurn has had a port installed in his stomach. By turning a valve this way or that, we can vent liquids from his stomach. So he can drink liquids again. Five hours of talking and holding his hands.

The hospital bed will probably be set up in the kitchen, a place where we can deal with spills and such. The hospice nurse is supposed to come every other day with morphine and other supplies. Nurn is going to be able to take some nourishment by mouth but he’s currently planning not to take it intravenously. “Weeks to months” says the oncologist, but oncologists are all just educated guessers anyway.

I have assignments. I must fix the bird feeder and possibly rewire the home Internet network to be more maintainable by Mudd, and also simplify the voice mail system. Man about the house. I can do those things.

Sorry for not writing much about myself these past few months. Introspection and observation has been hard enough; to do so publicly has been a little beyond my reach. It’s 6:17 a.m. and the sun hasn’t seen fit to appear yet.

I took Amanda to the airport this morning. Her father has gotten worse; the situation is not precisely clear but we hear that he’s in a great deal of pain, and her mother is extremely worried that he’s not willing to return to the hospital. Cancer is a whore.

I still am healing from when I hit the center divide in 2008. Chemicals help significantly, but the great love from friends and family has helped me more. I’m still resolving a lot of anger and sadness from that time — I wake up and process it with my morning coffee and Lexapro, and then head to work.

Work is finally picking up again. I had a key contract cancelled around the same time I went crazy, and times were lean. Fortunately, I was able to get it resigned, and I picked up where I had left off. My company’s first product, Silent Hill V, shipped, and the reviews for the sound were extremely positive.

Virago has entered production for The Hermit Bird and they’re trying like hell to wrestle a final draft out of me It’s fun to watch my story being made real by passionate artists.

New Years Eve was at my place this year. Amanda cooked a monster devil of a feast: black-eyed peas with ham and creme fraiche, jumbo shrimp with red pepper, garlic and lime; homemade mozzarella with insalata caprese; chocolate chip brioche with fresh fruit; and a dangerous champagne punch with cognac, Grand Marnier and Triple Sec. All my life, the majority of my close friends have been women, and this New Year’s Eve was no exception. Our house was filled with fairly stunning sweet people.

Friday eve: knitting party at Angela’s. Angela, Karen, Amanda and I squashed onto a big cozy bed, and we all watched Jane Austen and knitted. Well they knitted. I dozed in and out of consciousness, warm as an onion in a stew.

I rather lost faith in humanity for a while. Over the past few months I have made some awesome new friends who have given me a great deal of love and support as I’ve come back to life in progress. The majority of people in the world is good.

Bear with me.

Everything we write on the Internet stays there forever, and so future employers and such can take that information and draw of it whatever they wish. It’s common knowledge that employers and businesspeople “research” potential employees and such. So if I write as I’m doing now, this writing today may be an inconvenience to the me of the future.

Despite that, I realize there are probably others who are or will be suicidal. Maybe even you. And me talking publicly about my experience might help you avoid a fate like mine, or worse. Your possible benefits outweigh my possible inconveniences. So I’ll talk as publicly as I can about it.

About six months ago I went through a unique period of major depression, and I ended up receiving a bunch of hospitalization and drugs. There was nothing romantic about it. It was a long ugly slog. It disrupted my work and personal life, and it was definitely the most painful experience of my life so far.

Suicidal intent is extremely dangerous. Suicide was the eleventh leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2005. Ninety percent of people who commit suicide have a diagnosable psychiatric illness at the time of death. Over 60% of all people who die by suicide suffer from major depression. About 75% of suicidal people will visit a physician within the month before they kill themselves. Over 90% of suicide attempts with guns are fatal.

Suicidal ideation is usually not a manipulation for attention. A person who appears suicidal should not be left alone and needs immediate mental-health treatment.

Unfortunately, psych wards (at least under our HMO-sponsored health care system) are horrible, horrible places that just as easily make you crazier than when you go in. If you’re suicidal, you need a psychiatrist. The modern SSRI drugs can be pretty neato. They don’t pollute your soul or change you into someone that you’re not.

There is at least one gang kid in Long Beach who has “5150” tattooed on his back. This kid is a poseur. It’s not nearly as cool as Eddie Van Halen makes it out to be.

When you feel suicidal you can feel incredibly ashamed of yourself, and you feel that no one could possibly understand the feelings you’re going through. And it’s extremely hard to ask for or find help. In these cases, as embarrassing or as painful as it is, you gotta go through the medical system and get help. And you must, must, must know that other people have been through it, as bad as you’re having it now, and it can get better.

California gun control laws and the permit system therein are both Good Things. It’s hard to buy a gun here, and it should be thus. Really, people who hunt should have access to guns, and that’s about it. Guns should not just be laying about any house.

The vast majority of my friends were extremely, extremely loving and supportive to me when I went onto the rocks. Many of them didn’t understand what was going on inside my head, but they were there for me nonetheless. I cannot begin to describe what a great and significant help my friends and family were, when the abyss was most wide. Their support very likely saved my life. A handful of friends didn’t get it. A handful of business acquaintances didn’t get it. I can’t really blame them and I don’t judge them for that.

I’m still not whole yet. But that’s OK. I’m working again, and I’m writing here and there, and behaving like I used to.

I’m stronger in some ways than I was before. I have a lot more sympathy for people who are crazy — I see fewer differences between themselves and me. I’m more appreciative of my friends than I’ve ever been. And now, at long last, I’m finally starting to perceive all the really awesome earth-bound experiences and people I never would have known.

Alan Bennett, as King George: “I have always been myself, even when I was ill. Only now I seem myself. That’s the important thing. I have remembered how to seem.”

Anyway, I’m sorry to have been absent for a few months. It’s good to see you again.

The first paragraph of the President Elect’s radio address this week:

Good morning. Yesterday, we received another painful reminder of the serious economic challenge our country is facing when we learned that 533,000 jobs were lost in November alone, the single worst month of job loss in over three decades. That puts the total number of jobs lost in this recession at nearly 2 million.

The first paragraph of the President’s radio address this week:

Good morning. This weekend I’m attending the Army-Navy game in Philadelphia, and I’m looking forward to a great day of college football. But more importantly, I’m looking forward to spending time with the brave men and women of the United States military.