The day is cool and bright. Every season has days like this -- and every city. Each is unique.

In this city, in this summer, a day like this means every lawn is being mowed. The gentle inbound waft through my open window brings the tart scent of timothy, clover, bluegrass, hay and dandelion, severed before their time, mingled with the faint acridity of gasoline, belching smoke of burning oil and scorched grassblood, and the honest worksweat of a thousand brows, backs, crotches, two thousand armpits. I can hear the soporific drone of a thousand thousand hornets searching, searching, ever for something better.

I am counting days and dollars, and I am short on both. I have a mental scale. Right now, if it all fails, I have enough to fly you home again. By next paycheck I should be able to maybe pay for gas, or else another month on my storage unit and get all my utilities up to date. The next paycheck will likely add rent, and little more. One more and maybe I can do it all, and just in time.

If I get another, maybe I can arrive unbroke. And to what? The uncertainty grows, rather than wane, as each day passes. By the time the voyage begins I will only know the chaos of the truly unknowable. On a good day I can take pleasure in such a thing. A cool, bright day, perhaps.

My community here is failing, fracturing. Blank-check offers are bouncing, "any time" means "any time but now". "Anything" means "anything but that." As much as it galls me to return to this place, I know that I can only rely on myself. And to accomplish what I am committed to, I need others. 

Clouds are rolling in and the hornets are going to sleep, one by one by dozen. The scent is now rain, thirsty soil and newly-shorn green seeking refreshment after a whole day of unaccustomed sunshine.

Tony's family finally found me. It sucks that they found out via google, but they did find out, and they read my blogging on the subject. I have talked with his sister and his brother(!)'s girlfriend.

Not estranged at all, it seems. Just tough to find.

It was a tough call. I'm going to ship the ashes to them. Because, quite frankly, I don't know what else to do. They're being cool, too, no "he's our family, you had no right" BS.

It's a relief, really. Almost seems like he's watching out, helping me tie up loose ends before I move.

So...

Mainecare has decided that I don't get Wellbutrin. I get the generic of Wellbutrin (Bupropion). Bully for them.

Rite Aid doesn't carry all dosages, though. And there is no other pharmacy in Bethel. So what I have now is a small handful of 300mg Bupropion to tide me over until I can get the full dosage from Hannaford in Oxford. Fortunately I have an appointment with Tri-County on Tuesday anyway, so that'll work.

But who knows how well the generic will work? They always say it's exactly the same, but anecdotally, I know this is not always true.

And today? Low-dosing with the generic? Today was a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. At work I was having panic attacks (true story: I have always had panic attacks, but didn't realize that's what they were because they never got all THAT dramatic, and I can usually breath and manage long enough to escape). Bad. wincing, crying, and very, very thankful for sunglasses.

I had to call in crazy, and I feel terrible because it's a big day and I had a big job that was summarily unloaded onto a friend, but I know he can handle it. Still, once I got home I had this crazy urge to write "sorry" on every sheet of a Post-It pack and stick them all over the apartment. Which, on reflection, would probably be a little scary.

I left, fast as I could, and now I sit in a dim room. In a bit I'll probably watch a movie, curled up in a blanket that was Tony's. I think he bought it his first day here.

Oh, geez. Just hanging in there, folks. Not a danger to self or others, just having a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

A loved one is dead.

A close friend, room mate, former lover has taken his own life in the woods near Bryant Pond, Maine.

He was 28. He had only been in the state less than two months. He had a new job, a new apartment, a new car. He was starting his life over, after having a tough time in San Diego, where he grew up.

Anthony Michael Port was clinically depressed. He had gone through his whole life with depression, had given up more than once. He told me that he hadn't known that others didn't also feel like this, all the time. He covered well, but always seemed to try to keep his distance from people.

A couple of months ago his depression lost him a job, a home, a girlfriend, and he gave up. He took pills, and had to be resuscitated on the way to the hospital. He died, they brought him back.

For the first time, he began to receive treatment. A medication was found to work reasonably well. He was classified as handicapped and certain things were in place in California to see that he at least could continue getting his meds. But he never once saw a therapist. California's mental health system is severely overworked and understaffed.

Word reached me of his situation, and when I reached him he was miserable. The meds were working, but he still had no job, no home, and most if not all of his friends no longer wanted to speak to him. He had managed to burn some bridges while pushing everyone away. He was living in a homeless shelter, and it was a very bad time.

I had always said I would do whatever I could for him. He had failed to burn my bridge, though he had tried.

Together we decided he would come to Maine, where I would help him find a job and a home and get the mental health care he needed.

I myself was recently diagnosed as bipolar, I had some idea of what it was like.

So he came across, with 30 days of pills and careful optimism. We had an apartment together, along with some other friends of mine. It wasn't an ideal place, but it beat a homeless shelter by miles. I helped him find a job as a cook, something he had never done professionally, but work he enjoyed. I took him to the Department of Health and Human Services, made sure he had all the right documents with him, gave him the number to Tri-County Mental Health.

It was pretty good. He made friends. He bought a car. He kept trying to jump the red-tape hoops, but his meds ran out. He slid back into depression. He called Tri-County and left messages, but never seemed to be able to catch anyone there. I know his depression made it hard to be optimistic, hard to keep pursuing in the face of what may have looked like indifference.

He missed work. He kept to himself. He took to binging on candy, I suppose using the temporary sugar rush to pull him briefly out of the depths, only to crash moments later.

He was born to abusive parents, who are now deceased. He mourned them, though I somewhat coldly thought it was much better that way. He had an older sister who never wanted to see him again, and a niece whose worn photo, years out of date, was tucked into his wallet.

He had been an Army medic, a cartoonist, a programmer, a cook, and studied veterinary medicine. He was a loyal friend. He was strong. So strong to have survived as long as he did.

I am sad he is gone. I am beating myself up for failing to take care of him when I knew he was in a vulnerable position. For pulling him into my home and failing.

And I am angry.

Angry that one answered phonecall might have saved him. Maybe today, Monday, three days after he shot himself, would have been the day he got through.

I didn't know how bad he was. When he missed work Friday, I was planning to drag him bodily to Tri-County so we could talk to someone in person.

Too late.

I am angry that the system failed.

I know some of the people in the system, I have family in the field. What I hear again and again is that they are understaffed, overworked, and more cuts and more cuts.

And to save a few pennies on a can of soda, the Maine voters just opted by voting for prop 1 to remove a tax that went toward health care. I heard one person coldly say that people who got stuff for free shouldn't get something she couldn't get. Like welfare cheats were getting Botox or something.

No, the system is in place because of need. The bottle of pills would have cost far less than the manhunt of troopers, canines and rangers it took to find his body, lying out there in the cold and rain for two days.

But if all you saw was the ads, it made it seem like the government was greedily taxing our livelihood, and no mention was made of what the tax was for, or even that it was already in place and the vote was to remove it.

And I think, you selfish bastards.

Now the system will get worse. It'll have to. How many more will die needlessly?

Because you may think depression is just being sad, and suicide is just a lazy or a selfish way out, but it's just as much a disease as cancer, and can be just as deadly if untreated.

He left rent money on the dresser. He couldn't go on, but cared enough to do what he could to not be a burden. He was an organ donor. He had a rare blood type and had donated in San Diego.

I still don't know what's going to happen to his body, his effects. Will they try to find his estranged sister? Will the state just take it all? Or as the guy on the "in case of emergency call" slot on the forms he had filled out, is it up to me? No one seems to know yet, someone's legal team will tell us.

I am angry.

But even more I am determined. This must not be repeated. I will spend some time brainstorming, perhaps contacting some of the folks I know whose backs are broken working mental healthcare jobs. But whether it's fundraising, volunteering, lobbying or reinventing the wheel, I and other similarly angry will, must, do something before this broken system kills again.

Scott Maddix
formerly of San Diego, California
now of South Paris and Bethel, Maine

FUCK YOU< SPACEBOOK

For some reason they deleted the video I uploaded. Of course, they can't/won't say why. They have suspended my upload privileges until I to some sort of Copyright Education thingie.  It's fucking bullshit.


The Video is on YouTube

These are my family as well.

Oh, the times, oh, the mores!

Flights went well; never again will I buy beer at JFK: $7+ for warm Corona!

At the Bellagio water show, I liked "Hey Big Spender" best.

Vegas and Burning Man are a lot alike, except for relationship to commerce.

I met a wonderful man, an author, cute, funny, and he's from SALT LAKE CITY. Damn that city, dammit all to heck. Ah, well. More on him later, I expect, in a separate post.

Still looking for a home.

I have a new pair of JetBlue headphones.

Tony still coming across, hopefully I can have a place by then.

Flame Thrower target shoot! Giant robot waldo-driven hand crushing cars! More and more Bunnies! Sex in the Play Dome! BACON!!!

Got mail from Writer's Digest, thought it was notification about Self-Published book contest, but it was an app for a short story contest coming up. Not supposed to get notice until next month, anyway.

google-stalking Aaron (the cute author) I find a picture:

And his website:  http://aaronareed.net/

Smitten, you bet I am. Taking nothing from the OTHER brilliant and beautiful man from SLC I love dearly-dearly-dearly. Damn SLC.

There were zombies, but I didn't see them. Much I heard about but didn't see: Dear friend Richard's sound project, Golden Cafe, man storing beer in his artificial leg

I have many promising to send me pictures.

Beautiful moment: Aaron and I are stumbling through a white-out at night (gray-out?), pelted by what feels like sleet, cold, shivering, trying to find our way home. Out of the fog comes an unlit man in Victorian garb -- complete with curled mustaches -- leading a beagle on a leash. "Can you boys spare a blinkie for my dog?"

I have a lovely green-sequined gown I am told I look lovely in.

I was often told I was hot/cute. Must be I am smiling more.

Small-town hearsay suggests [...removed, as some folks read this that might take exception to some of the theorizing here...]

Zimzat is a really cool host/tour guide, and seems to collect pretty couchsurfers (the morning I left a blond New Yorker was half-covered on the couch, arm covering eyes, clearly pitching a tent. Did I feel guilty for noticing and appreciating? Only for a moment). I hope to visit and hang with him again, even if he doesn't find me cuddly (Just ribbing, you, Zimz). Also he has neat ... well, cool and interesting .. friends.

I better get those pics!

Temple burn was, as always, really moving.

Drank more than usual this year; really enjoyed myself; left a good dose of "control" behind, which was lovely.

um... that's it for now, at least until I remember more stories / find pictures.

I love you all.

So, this week: finish packing to move; transport stuff to a) storage unit in South Paris, or b) new not-yet-existing place in Bethel; get packed to travel; work a few days; and....

...receive a traveler from San Diego, who will be joining me here in Maine. Pleaseohplease let this not be a bad idea.

My gut, my instinct is that this is good, and I trust my judgment on this. But a leap of faith for just me is one thing. A leap of faith with another ...

...and I need to find a place for him to stay while I am at Burning Man. Unless b) above exists, but even then I don't want to abandon him in a strange city for 10 days.

This has been a very stressful week, yo.