022: This Is Hardcore

Now that my new meds cause me to wake up at 5:30 am most days, I have become rundown and my immune system is shot to shit. I asked Mother to drop me off at the nearest Walk-In Clinic on her way to the casino this morning and she threw a hissy because I would be delaying her gambling and told me to take the bus instead.

This is payback. Here is a series of photos of my mother in the early 1970s, in which she is trapped in a pretty horrific manic episode. She didn't sleep for six months (no exaggeration) and actually received house calls from her general practitioner that included injections of certain sleep aids, in the same vein as the late Michael Jackson. I have never in my life seen her smile like this before. Brace yourself.

St. Monica, The Woman, The Legend. Never without a cigarette in her hand. Predictably, died of lung cancer.

I feel like I don't even know this woman.

Manic family vacations: don't do it.