Seasonal affective disorder really sucks.

About half of the time.

The other half is flippin’ fan-fucking-tastic.

From about mid-May to—optimistically—early October, you feel like you’re continually freebasing crystal meth.

Not that you’ve ever done that, but next time January rolls around maybe give it a whirl.

Even while getting eaten alive and infected with West Nile Virus, a night in the park drinking beers beneath random fireworks and light rain while periodically riding a stationary bicycle to help power a screening of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is time damn well spent. And who doesn’t love watching lithe, body-painted young women get slathered in a blackish substance by an awkward kid in a business suit as part of a guerilla and artistic environmental protest staged amidst an open dance party throbbing in the heart of the metropolis?

Despite the fact that moving away from winter would be functionally identical to doubling the remainder of your life expectancy, the true north, strong and free, knows a little something about taking advantage of good weather while it can.

This consistently magical time of year is tainted only by the nagging feeling that it is impossible to experience all of the best of everything.

Yet, we can try.

I find myself once again on the cusp of Astral Harvest, an electronic music festival that—for better or worse—has influenced my life in some fairly significant ways. I still don’t have a ticket for this year’s gathering, and I must sheepishly admit that I’m a bit apprehensive about getting one.

I am not so naive as to venture a criticism of the festival itself, but rather the way I fear I will interact with it. I am worried that, like so many things in my life, I will simply end up going through similar motions in anticipation of similar results. I am worried I will follow a recipe for the status quo.

Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and expecting different results. So, I guess I’m preoccupied with how I might go about doing a few things a differently this year, despite the fact that previous results have generally been good.

Maybe I need a different result, even if it’s a bad one.

Even if I don’t have a specific plan for achieving that in mind—which I rarely do—I’ll almost definitely fail unless I heed HST’s advice.

Buy the ticket.

Take the ride.

January’s just around the corner.

Monday morning, and I’m sitting in my psychiatrist’s office—talking about Jurassic Park. He draws my attention to the window.

“There’s a mugging going on outside.”

Sometimes I think my problems are pretty trivial.

We spend a minute or two watching a baby robin, fallen from its nest and unable to fly, get pecked to death by a crow.

“Look how it eats,” says another doctor, Alan Grant, in that scene where the T-Rex savages that Gallimimus. “Bet you never look at birds the same way again.”

My doctor was more hung up about the incident than I was. Still, I couldn’t help thinking it was an omen. Or a metaphor. Or some other bullshit.

The thing is, that robin, with its ancestry and instinct, would have grown up to be a ruthless predator in its own right.

And the crow’s gotta eat.

Look how much blood.

It seemed like a story, but it lacked…

And I’m foreshadowing…

substance

Plus, like I said, I’m not really dwelling on it.

Instead, I spent the week kicking around potential blog topics, each safer than the last. Hoping to come up with something poetic. Gnawing at everything argumentatively.

Maybe walking into a demilitarized minefield.

Bath Salts

Also sometimes known as plant food, designer drugs, or more commonly and broadly, research chemicals. Their variety is vast and, in fact, undiscovered.

It is, in essence, a quasi-legal classification. Although this could certainly be debated, it simply refers to any druggish substance that can be sold in accordance with the law. As long as it’s labelled as something not generally intended for human consumption.

Sometimes I ignore labels.

In my psychiatrist’s waiting room, while that tiny heart was still beating impossibly fast inside that robin’s chest, I happened across an article about some aphrodisiac poachers in Nepal who were viciously beaten to death by a posse of sixty-five, otherwise-normal dudes.

Drug murders, it seems, are a fact of life.

Even devoid of cannibalism, they are compelling.

Prepare to be bored to death.

Last September, I was entering the endgame of getting impossibly close to a universally-unique woman.

To be honest, I’m not entirely certain which one of us had the desire to experiment with neurochemical experience. Maybe we were both just willing to go along for a ride that neither one of us particularly cared to take.

It saw us hanging around outside the amphitheatre in the park. Listening to the symphony’s final movements as the moon chilled the atmosphere. We sat apart, on separate rocks.

Experiencing disconnection and 5-Methoxy-diisopropyltryptamine.

AKA Foxy Methoxy

It’s neither completely legal nor specifically illegal. And it’s got a cult following.

Although it could potentially be twisted to compromise the central consideration of this piece, my inimitable bro, Bat Country, once confided in me, “On MDMA I just love everybody. On Foxy, I feel like I could fight.”

If I needed to.

From the park, my companion and I made our way through the city. Stopping for ice cream. Then Indian food.

Eventually making our way to the bridge.

A lonesome thread of weathered concrete and black steel, tenuously strung across the top of the river valley.

I had walked across it two days previous, dwelling on our strained relationship. And everything else in my life that wasn’t working. Trying not to look out at the calming, idyllic landscape below. Wondering if this was how it was going to happen.

But that night, I just wanted to get us past it all.

We ventured out across the true height of the expanse, the sky below us the colour of a crow. A hooded figured flew past us on a bike.

Stopped abruptly.

Leaned on the railing.

Perched on the bike frame.

Rocked back and forth.

Teetered.

I maintained my pace. Thinking mostly just about us.

Until we entered the space that demanded I consider the extended definition of that concept. So I talked with him.

I needed to.

“How’s it goin’?”

Shane.

He immediately stepped down. Left his bike.

He had kids. They probably couldn’t fly any better than he could.

He wasn’t going to jump.

“I didn’t think you were.” I lied.

There was an awkward silence. We all smiled and nodded.

He backed away. She and I took a few steps as he returned to his bike.

Foxy falls into a loosely-defined class of substances sometimes referred to as entactogens. Although I don’t discount the other members of its posse that night—environment, experience, character, straight-up adrenaline, and probably most importantly, company—I have no doubt in my mind that it played a crucial role in allowing me to reach within so I could reach out.

I turned back.

“You know, if you need to talk about something—”

Again, Shane closed the gap between us. Fast.

Convinced me he didn’t want to jump. Even if he hadn’t completely convinced himself.

But we had to let him sort it out.

Walked away.

Both of us wanted to take the other’s hand.

But didn’t.

And wouldn’t again.

We carried on, silently and separately. Shane whipped past us on his bike once more, almost angrily, then vanished as he turned up the corner of the other side.

Even if we didn’t make it across, I’m glad we were on that bridge.

Let’s call him Paul.

“Have you ever had your face smashed with a claw hammer?” He queries in earnest.

It’s maybe a pretty standard experience for him, so there’s no reason for me to get all judgemental. After all, I don’t see a claw hammer anywhere close at hand. And even if these incidents had been immediately recent, I’m not a doctor.

For whatever reason, Paul feels he can tell my friend, Bat Country, and I his story. There aren’t enough safe spaces for honesty, so I like to do what little I can to foster them wherever and whenever they arise.

Even if it’s while I’m drinking high-quality malt liquor on a park bench. Watching the sun caress the skyline.

Rinsing down the day.

Bleaching out the past.

Paul’s debts are all settled. Notorized. He shows us the ink.

Figuring it was done with a fork, a random electric motor and some copy toner, it’s disappointingly good.

But it should be, since it’s the costliest tattoo I’ve ever seen.

I wonder if the ghost of that price lives inside the empty eyes of the stoic face scarred on Paul’s shoulder. Wonder if any of his story’s true. Wonder if it matters either way.

Take another swig. Give it another glance. Probably shrug.

Hope Paul managed to get something off his chest.