Hi, everybody. In case you forgot, I'm nuts.

I like telling stories. I'm pretty good at it, and I like the feeling of going to a party, meeting some saucy lady, and then entertaining her with my charm and wit in such a way that I know damn well I'm the most exciting thing that's ever going to happen to her. In my mind, she goes home and weeps afterward, wishing that I hadn't departed so quickly. She makes a little altar dedicated to "That funny, hot little man I met at the party, and who was the most exciting thing that's ever happened to me."

I don't get confirmation that this happens. I don't need confirmation. Check your local paper. If I've been in your area, marriage rates will decline for a period as so many women wait for me to return. They want to save themselves for marriage to this.

Entertaining and productive as it is, telling the same story over and over again can get old. Like, this-story-hails-from-the-Lower-Cambrian-and-was-found-fossilized-next-to-a family-of-trilobites old. It's cool that it was next to a family of trilobites, but that doesn't cancel out the old.

I bring all this up because I've been getting enough requests for information regarding my brain diseases that I'm going to use this space to get the message out to all interested parties simultaneously.

I'll begin by axing you this question, although I don't expect an answer: Know that feeling you get when you've been in Vegas for a week and you've been drinking and you've been having fun but maybe too much fun and you're starting to get sick of seeing all the mildly alcoholic slushies in huge plastic Eiffel Towers and the people carrying them and the guys on the sidewalk who want to sell you a harem as a souvenir of your time in Vegas and you've just walked about eighteen miles to get to the really good gelato place in the Aladdin and suddenly you have a freaking seizure from all the lights that are blinking on and off while advertising women and shows and Cirque du Soleil and nobody can pronounce Cirque du Soleil and then you see a really bright sign inviting you to a run down casino to nourish yourself with a porterhouse steak that costs less than one pull at the cheap slots?

That's how I feel. Hyperstimulated, disoriented, a little nauseous, and full of a suspiciously cheap porterhouse steak that I washed down with a mildly alcoholic slushy. A week in Vegas.

With the exception of constant tooth pain from the four bits of minor dental surgery I've performed on myself this past week, everything's changed.

There's the social change that results from people treating you like you're going to blow away in the wind, get caught in a spider web, and then have all the blood sucked out of you by a hideous eight-legged evil.

There's the inexperience with handling madness in a social context. I've learned that most people will no longer laugh at your jokes if, when they ask you how you're doing, you say, "Oh, it's been a long month. Tried to kill myself, went to a mental hospital, and you should also read that paragraph back there about Vegas." For reals. One minute, it's all giggles. The next, you're getting the unwavering stare of extreme social discomfort. What you take for granted just happens to give other people the willies.

There's the cognitive stuff. When I was young, I had a couple chemistry sets. The first thing I did was throw away the book of recipes. I spent all my time trying to make something that would burn all my skin off, or explode, or at least catch fire in a scary way. I only every succeeded in creating something that looked like a spongy red stone. It wasn't very scary, unless you find the color red scary. Or rocks. If you do, though, then you're madder than I am, and I'd like it if you would inform me should this be the case, as there aren't a lot of people I can look down on right now. That's bad since ridicule of others and abject cruelty make up most of my social-interaction toolbox. But the real point here is that there are many similarities between my early experiments in chemistry and the way my new shrink has been managing the chemicals in my noggin. Don't get me wrong - I'm glad he's doing it - but it isn't easy, and I fear one of these medications might turn my brain into a spongy red rock.

There are also many other things popping up that are much more subtle. Things that I don't notice until they've been experienced a few times. For example, I'm developing social inhibitions. I didn't used to have these things. Of course, I was also totally unaware of the people around me. I treated some people like they were disposable, and I'm sorry for that. My concern over things in social situations where they never would have bothered me is, I hope, coming from my realization that there are other people on the planet and that they're fragile little bastards.

Along similar lines, I've been experiencing social anxieties lately that are so new to me that I might as well be looking at a new primary color or hearing an aural texture that people can't hear. It makes me wonder what it would be like to give a talk right now. It used to be that I was at my most comfortable when I was speaking, and my comfort was proportional to the number of people in the audience. I felt odd around one or two people, but talking to ninety-bajillion put me right at home. I wonder if it would be the opposite now, as I've felt much more comfortable lately when around only one person at a time.

I'm telling you. It's weird. This whole effing thing is weird.

There are days when I feel better, but then one of my bad days comes along. It's like I've been searching all over for my mind - I've looked in the kitchen drawers, in the mailbox, or anyplace else I could have left it. I search beneath the couch cushions, but it isn't there, and it isn't there because I don't actually have a couch, so the couch cushions couldn't very well exist, and the fact that I'm searching for my mind in an imaginary couch is a strong argument that, although I think I'm on the right track, I still haven't found the thing yet.

And none of this even begins to touch on what to do about Microsoft.

That's how I am, people. Although it probably isn't clear, I'm not actually what I'd call bad, though I am most definitely still overwhelmed and confused.

Send me money. That'll fix everything.