Ate dinner at 7:00 last night—and we’re going to follow that routine for now.  I can make it that long without eating, and, as I mentioned, soda pop doesn’t do much, if anything, for me, with food in my stomach, and, also, a little food in my stomach seems to help with sleep.  So I could hardly watch TV at all after dinner—made it until 9:00, read about six pages, turned the lights out at around 9:25, slept fine until about 3:00, then woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep, lay around until 4:30, got my clock, tried to pray, which amounted to some complaining about waking up at 3:00 and not being able to go to sleep, and got up at 5:00.  Then I was a little peeved and relieved to realize that I’d forgotten to take my melatonin and my 100 mg of trazadone, so, hopefully, waking up at 3:00 and not being able to go back to sleep, and being miserable from about 4:00 to 5:00, and being forced to get out of bed at 5:00 as opposed to 6:00, which is what my alarm is now set for, had something to do with that.

   Restless again last night—again, made it to about 9:15; read about six or eight pages—this book is not what I hoped it would be, and turned out the lights at about 9:35.  Slept ok from about then to about 11:30—then from about then to about 3:00, then woke up around 4:00, lay around until 5:45, and got up.  Had my alarm set for 6:30—so I planned to get up earlier, just not this early.  Anxious as all get out last night, forced to have sex, twice, when I didn’t really want to; I just wanted to relax.  So, anyhow, I relied on my imagination—didn’t want to turn myself on anymore than I already was unless, for whatever reasons, I tried to get off and couldn’t, but, thankfully, I could, so that was one good thing.  But, again, I don’t want to be having sex every day—I want to relax into it more, and let my subconscious do its thing.  It’s 7:12 a.m. now, so, will I have four cups of coffee?  I’ve had one—but maybe I don’t want to feel strung out, and should switch to tea—and get off all caffeine by 11:30 or 12:00 instead of 1:00.  Maybe I’d be less restless that way.  But, anyhow, I’m considering quitting at 3:00 today, since I’m about two hours ahead of schedule, and watching more than one show after dinner is beginning to look a little  more difficult than I had hoped—given the success, about half the time, that I did have.  Naturally, of course, half the time isn’t going to cut it—I need a routine I can follow every night.

   Got restless again, stretched a little on the floor, went to bed around 9:20—read for about twenty minutes—hoped and prayed this morning that I wouldn’t be restless again, tonight—considered going to bed around 9:30 anyhow, and setting my alarm for 6:30 instead of 7:30.  Felt a little unsettled in my stomach and my guts, a tiny bit nauseous after taking my medication—hoping with all my heart that this  medication won’t continue to make me nauseous, to any degree, as risperidone, the sexual dysfunction, the teeth grinding, the need to skip lunch, the constipation—was out of the question, and I was under the impression that Abilify could make you even more restless.  Maybe it would have been nice to live a little further in the future, when there were better drugs for schizophrenia, but this is my lot—for now, and I must accept it.  I considered, too, that schizophrenia was, in part, about being an old soul forced to live in a time period that was so entirely different from previous generations, that the conditions of this fast paced world, all of a sudden, over the past four generations, made me ill—so maybe things, in the present, balanced out a little—although I didn’t think our lives, from here on out, were really going to change that much—at least when it came to technology—we’d have our phones and our computers and the internet, and so on, and so forth.

   I woke up many, many times again, but I didn’t look at my clock as much, and I got back to sleep a little sooner for the first two thirds of the night—then I started looking at my clock, and not being able to get back to sleep; must have been totally awake since about 5:00, and got out of bed around 7:00.  So waking up a lot was beginning to look like something I wasn’t going to be able to change in the immediate future, which was a real drag—and I hoped and prayed otherwise—but there weren’t any other changes I could make to my life—there was no solution I could think of that would solve the problem, unless I tried zero caffeine, but that was never going to happen, and, besides, even if I was drinking zero caffeine, I think I’d still be waking up repeatedly.  I could only have faith that, as I continued to settle into my new medication routine, and my new routine, things would stabilize.  Now, today was Sunday, so that was Curt’s day, my singer songwriter poet Uncle of Idaho, so, this morning, I counted in his voice for about twenty or thirty minutes.  My schedule, that I set when I was taking baths again, was as follows:  Monday and Tuesday, Craig, my Nashville Uncle;  Wednesday and Thursday, Stan, my scotch uncle;  Friday and Saturday, Bill, my great grandfather—who, for me, represented the future; and then Curt on Sunday, so Curt only got one day.  Now, Bill also represented Picasso, but, I imagined, when speaking to Bill, I would know, based on a general gut feeling or intuition, whether I was talking to someone from the future, a Shakespeare of the future, for example, or Picasso, or, possibly, some other painter, etc. 

   So I did very well with TV last night, watching three episodes of my show, and it was ten by the time I finished getting ready for bed.  Then I read for thirty minutes.  So that was a great success.  Nevertheless, I didn’t fall into a deeper sleep until late in the morning, waking up many, many times.  Then, once I fell into a deeper sleep, I must’ve slept about two and a half or three hours, and woke up around 7:50—which put me well beyond the goal I set for myself yesterday.  I was thinking that sleeping in might make it more difficult to fall asleep at night, but sleeping nine hours was preferable to sleeping eight, if I could, so I thought I’d set my alarm for 7:30, tonight, and count time until about eight, tomorrow, if I slept until 7:30, which seemed a little unlikely, given the past few days.  I was actually kind of anticipating waking up around 6:30, and meditating until about 7:00 or 7:30.  So tonight, again, was a crapshoot—but I felt that I had successfully let Jesus a little more into my body, and, that, in sticking with one show, somehow, it was easier to get into it, and be content, so, hopefully, Jesus would remain, and all would go well.

   Made it, last night, all the way to ten, watching TV, without a hot shower, then read more than I read last night, and felt a little better.  I don’t know what exactly made this possible, or what, exactly, the previous nights, made it so difficult, but I thought it had something to do with this writing, integrating my experience, and letting Jesus occupy my body.  It’s 7:57, now, and I’ve downed one cup of coffee, and the plan, today, is to drink three cups of coffee, two tea bags of caffeinated black tea, and one Dr. Pepper.  But I might have two Dr. Peppers depending on what time it is.  Then, the plan, if possible, is to do what I did last night: three episodes of Blue Bloods, a show about a New York City police commissioner and his family, then read for a half an hour.  Maybe that’s wishful thinking—so many things could go wrong, but that’s the end game—that’s the routine I’m trying to establish, a routine that should work for the rest of  my life—with or without a partner.

   So I made it until about 9:15 last night, doing reasonably well, but, at that point, I started to get restless—I’d already had two ginger ales, so a third wasn’t going to do much.  So I decided I needed to take a hot shower—and reconsider whether I was going to try and watch more TV or not.  So I washed up with soap and water and a rag at the sink, to get a better idea of what that was like, and then I took a hot shower, and I felt a little better—it was past 9:30, then, and, I didn’t think I had any more TV or soda pop in me, so I thought I would use my showered state to help me read—to see if I could read a little.  I would have like to read longer—and I was restless while reading, but I made it for about 20  minutes, or about ten pages, and then it was about 10:00, so I made it, and I turned out the lights, and did not sleep great, but slept better than I did the night before.  Got my clock around 6:30 or 7:00, listened to it and gathered my thoughts until about 7:30, and got up, so, all in all, last night went much better than the night before—and I just figured—maybe I just can’t stand to watch more than about two episodes of a show after dinner, up until around 9:15, and then I need to shower and practice getting used to reading again—maybe I can train myself to read for a longer period of time, and really enjoy it.  So my plan was to try that, tonight.  About two shows, shower, and read until about ten, and hopefully longer, if I can relax enough. 

   Well, I hit a wall last night.  I was incredibly restless, and soda pop wasn’t working, and I ended up on the floor doing a yoga exercise for my back where I put my feet behind my head and rested them on a chair.  The tension I was feeling, some sexual tension, but, I think, mostly just tension in general, was unbearable, and, around 9:20, I couldn’t stand to watch TV any longer, and I was forced to go to bed, and hope that I would be able to relax, and sleep.  So what happened?  Some things changed, but I don’t know how much of that had something to do with it, as the changes I made were intended to help.  Anyhow, I thought, maybe a hot shower is waking me up, and, besides, I don’t know that I feel like going through the ordeal, so I just washed up with a rag.  And I hadn’t taken any risperidone from the night before.  But that was about it.  So what was I going to do?  Did I need to go back to taking a hot shower to get through the night?  It seemed like I shouldn’t have to deal with it if it felt like work, which, last night, it did, so I felt that, in a way, I was still running from something, so, in a sense, you might say I was allowing other things to bubble to the surface.  But come on!  How long is this bubbling to the surface shit going to last?  When am I going to finally be myself?

  I had three cups of coffee yesterday and three Dr. Peppers, which put me at 360 mg of caffein.  I was still a little wired at dinner time.  Too restless to read—barely made it to ten watching TV.  Must have got to sleep around 11:00, slept until 3:00 and then I was pretty much left to my breathing and my thoughts, until 6:00, which is when I got up.  I did not take my magnesium glycinate the night before, and I only took 50 mg of trazadone, instead of 100 mg, to see what would happen.  There are so many variables at play, so I cannot draw any definitive conclusions, but, since I need the caffeine to work easily and happily, and the magnesium glycinate and the extra 50 mg of trazadone didn’t seem to be doing anything, I figured I’d still drink 360 mg of caffeine today—no more than that—and I figured I’d start taking the magnesium glycinate in the morning, since, when I started taking it, around the time I quit taking risperidone, I started having trouble sleeping.  The fact that the rice flour makes me feel like I’m ingesting cocaine may have some kind of placebo effect on me—that could be a real mental hurdle, I figured, since I think of cocaine when I look at it.  Somehow, in my mind, if only because of the timing, it seems to keep  me awake, even if the effect is purely mental, a consequence of observing that, when I started taking it, I started having trouble sleeping, and then, after a while, associating the big pill of white powder with staying awake.

    So there’s a bit of a conundrum: I couldn’t watch TV past 10:00—I got too restless, and just wanted to go to bed, even though I didn’t feel especially tired, which meant I was lights out before 10:30, so eight hours would mean that I’m getting up at 6:30, which is earlier than 7:00, etc.  Was awake for a little while, woke up around 2:00, then around 4:00, then around 6:00, couldn’t go back to sleep, laid around, got my clock a little before 7:30, I guess, probably can’t go back to sleep with all that ticking—it’s like a beating drum that keeps me from drifting off, counted, prayed a little, counted, prayed for another moment, counted, etc., until about 8:00.  So another restless night, even if I made it, in bed, anyhow, to almost 8:00.  Because of this, I’m thinking of getting off my .5 mg of risperidone—getting off the risperidone completely, for good—sooner, rather than later, and I’m even thinking of dropping back down to 50 mg of trazadone, as it doesn’t seem to be doing that much, at least it doesn’t seem like it, and it could, possibly, impede an orgasm, so, well, I figured, what do I have to lose?  Another restless night?  If things turn out worse, I can always get back on both the .5 mg of risperidone and the extra 50 mg of trazadone.