I have a meeting today. 1 pm. I had a meeting on the same topic last week. It did not go well.

I do not do well at meetings. Besides having a hard time sitting still, I apparently vibrate. I throw out an energy when I get excited about an idea, try to convince others to accept my ideas or defend my ideas. I can think very quickly on my feet. Throw a question at me and I will drop it into my blender-brain, spin it around at a few thousand rpm and within seconds, a smooth response pours from my mouth. 

Apparently, the intensity with which I do this intimidates others – especially those in positions above me who realize that they should have come up with my idea. My therapist pointed this out to me. I could have the best idea in the world but the words I use, the tone of my voice and my intensity turn people off – especially men. 

I feel really bad about this. I did not realize I was doing it. I do not want or intend to insult anyone. It’s just that sometimes a switch goes off in my brain and I suddenly feel like a racehorse at the gate, one hoof pawing at the dirt. Open the gate and I’m gone. I might win the race but no one wants to play with me. I heard a psychiatrist say last week that throughout history, many great rulers were bipolar. 

I am going to work on my inner vibe today. I am going to listen to the tone of my voice, watch my body language and feel the vibe of my mania during this meeting. I have an idea – a really good idea – I want to throw out there. I want others to accept it. Most of all, I do not want to scare or intimidate others with my vibrating brain. We will see how it goes.

Most of us know the thoughts and behaviors of depression. No brainer: sleep or sleeplessness; eat a lot or none at all; racing thoughts; anxiety; desperation; fear; lethargy; disinterest; loneliness and on and on. What takes more effort is to figure out the thoughts and behaviors of the opposite state of mind.

I have given this some thought over the last few years and have come up with a 12-step anti-depression program. The great thing about 12-step programs is that they are programs of suggestions, not requirements. You may not be able to do these “suggestions” while you are in your black hole, but vow to do at least one when you are back on terra firma. Take what you want and leave the rest. Here we go:

1. Never, ever walk past a slab of wet cement without leaving your mark.

2. Ride a bike.

3. Swing (as in “swing-set” but only if there are no kids waiting for the swing.)

4. Renew your faith in the youth of America. Watch Rob and Big on MTV.

5. Go to a high school homecoming football game, even if you do not like football, know nothing about the school, and don’t know anyone in the stands.

6. Always keep fudgesicles and popcicles in your freezer. Eat one every night. (They make all this stuff sugar and fat-free now so you have no excuse.)

7. Ride a bike, again.

8. Jump rope. If you are not in good enough shape, twirl.

9. Go to a grocery store in a poor part of town and stick a $20 bill between packages of diapers or formula. Walk away. Tell no one.

10. Scratch a dog  on its sweet spot so its back leg goes spastic.

11. Tell a kid that you think you lost a $1 bill under “there” – then point to couch, chair, table, desk, bed, whatever. Tell the kid that he can have it if he can find it. When the kid asks “Under wear?” say “HA! MADE YOU SAY UNDERWEAR!” Then reach in your pocket and give the kid a buck.

12. Did I mention ride a bike – preferably to an ice cream store. If you …

May is Mental Health Month. So let’s start the month by looking at the company we keep:

Art Buchwald, Sigmund Freud, Marilyn Monroe, Ted Turner, Greg Louganis, Alanis Morissette, Lionel Aldridge (three-time Super Bowl winner and sports broadcaster), Abraham Lincoln, Leo Tolstoy, Mike Wallace, Georgia O’Keeffe, Roseanne, Sir Isaac Newton, Franz Kafka, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Carrie Fisher, Tipper Gore, Jackson Pollock, Barbara Bush, Kitty Dukakis, Congresswoman Lynn Rivers, D-Mich., Phil Graham (owner of The Washington Post), Abbie Hoffman, Robert McFarland (former National Security Advisor), Winston Churchill, Ilie Nastase (tennis player), Jimmy Piersall (baseball player and broadcaster), Buzz Adrin, Stephen Hawking, Salvador Luria (Nobel prize winner/bacterial genetics), Francis Ford Coppola, Patty Duke, Alvin Ailey, Dick Clark, Drew Barrymore, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Conrad, Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, Virginia Woolf, Irving Berlin, Axl Rose, Cole Porter, Sarah McLachlan, Eric Clapton, Kurt Cobain, Hector Berlioz, Sting, Robert Schumann, Sheryl Crow, Ray Charles, Brian Wilson, Tom Waits, T.S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, Vincent van Gogh, Mark Rothko, Michelangelo, Edvard Munch, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Downey Jr., Dick Cavett, Spalding Gray, Vivien Leigh, Margot Kidder, Mariette Hartley, Ben Stiller, Jonathan Winters, Larry Flynt, Congressman Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), William Styron, Danny Bonaduce, Bobby Brown, Rosemary Clooney, Connie Francis, Graham Greene, Phil Ochs, Tony Orlando, Darryl Strawberry, Phil Spector, Noah Wylie, Naomi Judd, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Chopin, Truman Capote, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, Jim Carrey, Jane Pauley, Lorraine Bracco, Brooke Shields, Amy Tan, Anne Rice, Billy Joel, Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins), Adam Ant, Robin Williams, Drew Carey, Mandy Moore, Rosie O’Donnell, Uma Thurman, Harrison Ford, Terry Bradshaw, Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), Boris Yeltsin, John Denver, Marie Osmond, Princess Diana, Rodney Dangerfield, Joan Rivers, John Kenneth Galbraith, Napoleon Bonaparte, Agatha Christie, Cary Grant, Victor Hugo, Mark Twain, Mozart, Cara Kahn (MTV’sReal World), Aristotle, Francesco Scavullo (photographer), Elizabeth Taylor, Anne Hathaway, Charlie Pride, Evan Dando (Lemonheads), Robin Williams, Thelonious Monk.

Oh, and you and me.