Better Living Through Chemistry

I gave up and gave in.  I went and asked for, and got, anti-depressants.  I got them from my nice internist, and have an appointment in A MONTH to see a prescribing psychiatrist.

Now, I hate and despise anti-depressants.  I probably shouldn't, but I do anyway.  They are fabulous drugs, they help me climb out of the Pit Of Despair and feel vaguely normal.  Whatever that is.  However, I have had a couple of prescribers push me into taking them "forever", as a prophylactic measure.  This does not work out well for me.  After taking one for awhile, I get this strange sort of *click* in my head, where I know I'm done.  If I continue taking them for too long after that place, I get to another place, one where I have very few emotions at all.  I call it FLAT.  It's not numb, I know numb.  It's some other place, where I Just Don't Care About Anything.  It would be scary, if I was capable of feeling scared.  I guess it's intellectually scary.  To quote Leonard Nemoy, I Am Not Spock, because it's not like I'm any more logical than usual for me, I'm just emotionless.  Whatever it is, it is Not Good.

So, I will do this druggy thing, for maybe 6 months, until the click happens.  I have explained this to the internist, and I will explain it to the prescribing psychiatrist.  When I am done, I will take advice on how to taper off safely, but I will indeed stop.  That place of feeling so flat?  I'm not going there again.  Too dangerous.

Gwan Ta Kawlidge, Wair Thair Iz Nawt Privacy

This week I managed to convince the local community college that I actually do live here and qualify for the in state tuition prices.  I also completed a FAFSA and have an appointment scheduled with the nice people down at the counseling center to talk about what I want to do when I grow up.  (like *that* is likely!)  The FAFSA is about financial aide, which I presume I won't get any of, but it's part of the dang process, can't skip any steps, it only upsets the bureaucrats!  So now the IRS is involved.  Argh.  It's probably all fine, but all these things want my Social Security Number.  And the borderline rude person behind the counter at the college the other day gave me eyebrow when I wanted a student ID number that WASN'T my SSN, even though the paperwork all says that they are HAPPY to do that very thing.  I guess I'm some kind of unnatural Luddite, gingerly angling for privacy in an increasingly "transparent" world.

In theory, they also have my transcripts from the other place, and I may need to take placement tests.  The chances of my needing Bonehead English are remote, but I apparently need to demonstrate that to somebody.

In the meantime, I might take a class during the short summer session.  I would claim it was to jump start my brain, but look at what I'm considering:

There is a class titled, simply enough, "Chocolate" and is further described in the catalog in the following manner; "Studies the history and manufacturing of chocolate as well as the practical uses and techniques in working with dark, white, and milk chocolate."

Yes, this is a For Credit class.  Admittedly, it's only ONE credit.  However, it probably doesn't have much at all to do with my *brain*.  

Thank You Strunk & White

My counselor wanted to know if I kept a journal.  She said something to the effect that because I read so much, I should be able to write.  (she actually said that I'm "well read", which I had to edit out here, I just couldn't face it.)

While when I am inspired, I think I probably write reasonably well, I usually don't have much of any substance to say.  I know a couple of "real" writers, people who *work* at it and get published and *paid* and things.  I'm not a writer, not in that fashion.  I certainly don't have any stories beating on the walls of the inside of my head, hammering to get out. 

Back in the day, in various schools, I got good at padding.  Five pages on <insert some boring topic name here> when I only have three facts?  No problem, I am your huckleberry.  Instead of stories, I have marketing.  And I'll be the first to admit that I like words and phrases with curlicues and filigree and lace trimmings.  I'll come all over Old British Novel stylistically, which is just wrong.  Sigh.  So, out in the real world, when self-editing, I have to cut and cut and simplify like mad.  Strunk and White would be pleased.  At least, I hope so.

I am a reader who is capable of occasionally making it go the other way.  Crafting something out of words feels immensely complicated to me.  It's a variation on the smorgasbord problem.  There are so many fabulous words and you can put them in almost any order.  It's intimidating. 




Note - I do this blog just to put things somewhere, to try and bleed off the steam as it were. 

Duty Is Another Four Letter Word

Well, I fell into another hole.  Or the same one.  Or something.  My analogy is not working well for me today.  Of course, very little is.

I'm a mess.

The Law of Attraction business that says that somehow one has chosen the life one has?  That's really aggravating.  I don't know how to un-choose, or choose differently, not without stepping all over other people.  And, of course, I'll always choose to damage myself before I will damage other people.  Well, maybe not always, but when it's folks I care about?  In a bloody heartbeat.

I suppose if this is a blog it should have a topic, and be erudite and reach conclusions.  They are mini essays after all.  But I'm circling around inside my own head.  I have these obligations, these duties.  I don't know how to make them palatable, and I don't know how to get out of them honorably.

Duty.  There's a concept.  Maybe a whole essay, right there.

Wagons

And The Falling Off Thereof:

So, I got close to firing my counselor.  Because things were going okay, not because she did anything wrong.  But I've decided to not do that.  I want instead to do some real work, to maybe deal with and/or fix some of the damn laziness or whatever it is that keeps me sitting on my hands.  While reaching "no longer miserable" is excellent and a relief and all that, I should not settle for it.

If I waste my life not doing what I want to be doing, doing what I think I *should* be doing, waiting for Calgon to come and take me away, and not only give me my hearts desire, but divine it for me in the first place,  I really and truly deserve what I get, which will be whatever random chance brings.  (delayed run on sentence alert)

I don't know what, specifically, it is that I want out of life.  I never have.  I could always point at things and holler, "NOT THIS!", but that's about all.  I have always presumed I'd know it when it happened.  I wonder if I'm wrong about that.  So, I have consumerist desires common to many.  (mine are more on the travel end of the spectrum than the big house/new car end, but you know what I mean)  I don't know what they mask.  I suppose that I don't know who I am, if I don't know what I want.

Grumble.

PantheaCon

Was amazing.  I came home very thoroughly Poached.  Almost recovered, I suppose.  Among other things much harder to describe, I have not been so thoroughly intellectually challenged in quite a while.

Exercise

I got my shit together and went to a water aerobics class this morning.   I really and for trulio cannot remember the last time I was in the water.  I'm sore in some weird places, too.  While I'm not saying I won't go back, I will look for other things, somewhere else.  The facilities were somewhat lacking for the price.  Or maybe that's just the California inflation at work again?  The bathing suit issue is still an issue, too.  Those cute tankinis float all around and get in the damn way.  I need a simple swimsuit that's large enough *and* long enough.  Apparently, that's not a simple requirement.


One of the ladies in the pool was talking about all the snow much of the rest of the country is getting, while we're having days in the 50's and 60's.  She was saying that her mortgage was offset by the lack of the price of fuel for heating.  I'm not sure I'd buy into that completely, but then, I'm biased.

Also, I keep thinking about chickens.  As in, maybe I am interested in keeping them, for the eggs.  (I'm far too cowardly to keep them for meat.)