Not Me

There is a job in a place that would be lovely to live. It has been posted for two months. I asked about it today and learned that there were interviews last week and I was not part of them. I an only a little disappointed, but not utterly destroyed. At least I have something to say to the brain doctor.

Fighting Fires From Space

I am very bored.




Most of the work I have piled on my desk depends on other people doing things so that I can do things to complete the work that's on my desk. And it is a pain.



So, I sit here and do nothing. That's not quite true. I did download Emma to my computer and read the first twenty pages. The text is such a slog when I'm not in the right mood. The way characters speak is so unpleasant. Everyone uses five words when one would do. I'm also bugged by the way Austen bounces between calling her protagonist Emma and Miss Woodhouse. It took me way too long to figure out who Miss Woodhouse is.



The thing is... If I was in the right mood I would enjoy the pompous way in which the book is written. I've read this book before. I greatly enjoyed Jane Eyre when I read that. I hated the characters more that the writing style of Wuthering Heights. And Great Expectations is just sad. When I'm in the right mood the way the thing is written isn't as much the focus as the characters and plot.



I'm really tired, though. I got to work and started to yawn soon after my butt hit the seat and I've been yawning ever since then.



I go to see the brain doctor tomorrow. I think he's going to take me off this medication and put me on another one. I think that because I'm approaching week six on meds and not much has changed since week three. I do feel better than I did when I started this stuff, there are moments when the weight on my shoulders are lessened and I think to myself that I feel okay, like there could be a better way to feel, but okay is pretty damned nice. But this happens maybe once a day for a minute, if I'm lucky, but it hasn't gotten anywhere beyond that. I still spend a lot of time thinking about how nice it would be to not be.



Part of me doesn't want to switch because then it's a new waiting game for six more weeks. Yuck. But if I don't switch I'll stay this way or go back to how I was forever and the whole point is to not feel like that/this anymore. I'm supposed to feel more "normal," whatever that is.



Ultimately, though, it'll be up to the brain doctor. For all I know he'll want to wait another six weeks to see if this'll work out for me.



To go back to those moments when I've felt okay, I mean really okay, recently I have to wonder if that is how most people feel most of the time. If it is then I truly envy most people.



The brain doctor keeps telling me that I'm a bright guy, but I just haven't had any breaks. Now while I know I'm fairly smart, I'm not sure about the breaks. When I finally told my parents about the brain doctor this weekend and I mentioned the breaks thing my mother said that maybe he means like how hard it is for me to get a job somewhere but when I get there they love the work that I do but then it's just as hard to move on to somewhere else when it comes time to move. I'm not sure that's what he means though.



Not that breaks would necessarily matter. Part of feeling this way for so long is that I really don't know what I want to be other than fairly comfortable. The last thing I remember really wanting to be was a fire fighter/astronaut/president all at the same time. (Yes, I would lead the USA from my orbiting fire fighting super satellite. Where else would I do it?) For a time I wanted to make movies, but that was briefly during a horrible year and went away. Telling stories has always interested me, but how often does that keep a person comfortable. Still, I need something that's not this. This is not good. It’s soul sucking and often mind numbing.



Maybe my outlook will be different if my brain starts acting "normal" and I'm "normal." Maybe I'll want a somebody so much that I'll try. Maybe I'll know what I want to do with my life and make a change. Maybe I'll stop being a coward and just pick-up and go. Maybe I'll start to like being around groups of people and living within a short distance of thousands won't make my heart flutter. Maybe I just won't care.



Maybe.

Don't Have a Title

TV sucks.

It shows us all these perfectly beautiful moments played out by these perfectly beautiful people that rarely happen in real life. Especially someone like me who doesn't bother to try. And even though the moments on TV are impossible, they feel true and because they feel true people like me, who want the magic in the touch of hand as fingers entangle, we believe that those impossible moments are possible.

Yeah, I just watched the episode of How I Met Your Mother where Ted meets Victoria and my heart broke and ached at the same time.

Damned TV.

Embarrassing Truth

I have just watched an episode of Big Brother, a show I despise, because I think one of the women on the show is beautiful, despite the stupid way her name is spelled.

I feel dirty.

Sometimes This Scares Me

And this is maybe two thirds of everything I own.

Back, Forward, and Back Farther

Once upon a time a friend's nephew was born. When this friend saw her nephew, she knew that she loved the little poop machine (her words) fiercely.

At a later once upon a time, my niece was born. When I first saw her I felt nothing. I've seen her a few times since than and I think she's funny and smart, but I haven't felt, felt anything for her.

To be fair, I honestly don't really feel anything for any one. I like them, but I don't know if I love.

Once upon a time, farther back, I thought I loved, but there was no way I could share it with her. I knew her truths, her faults, her uglies, and her beautifuls and I thought I loved her because of all of it. I never shared it because I knew her. I knew what she thought about me and we were good together even though we weren't together. No one knew. The ones who saw us together were not my friends, and my friends did not see us together.

Here It Is

The brain doctor said that there are lots of studies that show that exercise helps to speed up the absorption of the anti-depressions meds. Plus, I'm very, very fat.

The brain doctor wants me to walk, which I would do if I lived on a street where people drove slower than 55 MPH. I don't, though, so he wanted to me to get a treadmill. I looked at the used ones and the new ones and wondered if I was too, too fat to actually use a cheap treadmill. And the treadmills that weren't cheap were very not cheap.

Then I saw a stationary bike like the one my parents have had for 15+ years, but much quieter.

I bought the thing yesterday and dragged it into the house. Today I put it together. Tomorrow I have no good excuse to not exercise.

*sigh*

Nice Dream

I dreamed that Amanda Palmer came to Thanksgiving with my family. One of my cousins tried to hit on her and failed ant it was hilarious. She thought I was laughing at her, but when I explained she was merely indifferent, but she liked that I could talk about the difference in her music since The Dresden Dolls ended-ish. She was excited about all my Dad's boxed sets of music. And she let me sing along with her and smiled at how we sounded.

It's been a long time since I had a dream that had me smiling when I woke up.

Troy, the Movie

I really want to like Troy. I really do. I remember watching it in the theater oh so many years ago and just feeling a sense of disappointment.

The idea of doing the Illiad as it may have actually happened, not the gods infested, joyous insanity that Homer wrote, is a cool idea. But the movie doesn't work.

It implies that the Trojan war lasted merely weeks rather than ten years. The dialogue is so clunky that even some really good actors can't speak it well. (Although the guy who plays Odysseus handles it perfectly.) Achilles is the person we follow, but he's an arrogant, whiny asshole, not a hero. I hate how inconsistent the accents are; example: the king of Sparta has a Scottish accent, his brother has an English accent, and his wife has a French accent. Now I could get behind the idea that Spartans are the Scottish of the Greeks, but Helen ain't French.

Still, for the most part, the movie looks good and I find myself watching it every few years because maybe one day it'll be a great movie rather than a disappointment.

How They Should Have Made Oz The Great and Powerful

Act 1: The Wizard (he should never have a name) crashes into Oz. He begins to use his knowledge to help and dazzle people. He glues china people. He pulls coins from people's ears. He touches fire to a powder and unblocks a river. His legend grows and Oz has been without a leader for a long time. It's been years since Ozma was on the throne. And through a growing consensus, the Wizard gets put in charge.
Act 2: The witches of the North, South, East, and West come to meet this Wizard. They can see that his power is nothing like theirs, but some of the things he does is just a powerful. The Witch of the North leaves, not wanting anything to do with him. The Witch of the East chooses to consolidate her power in Munchkin land. The Witch of the West tries to steal the source of his power, but ends up hurt and she joins with her sister in the East to recover. Glinda, Witch of the South, chooses to join with the Wizard because she believes that Oz needs a leader.
Act 3: The armies of the East and West march on the Emerald City. The Wizard uses science and illusion, and a little bit of Glinda's magic, to defeat the armies. With the battle won and the witches retreating to their homes. The Wizard is declared The Wizard of Oz and the movie ends.
Hell, that could make one good movie or a pretty decent trilogy. Oh the lost opportunity.

Locked Away

Today, the brain doctor said that back in the day, a person with my level of depression would have been placed in a hospital against his wishes until he got better. Somehow that knowledge makes me feel better and worse.

Horror Movie #3

The last time I did a horror movie day I made the mistake of watching the bes of the four early on. I decided to not make that mistake today.

The Exorcist is a slow movie, but everything that happens builds and builds until it comes to the confrontation that the title promises.

It's been a long time since I've watched this movie and it still creeps me the hell out. I especially like how, in this extended director's cut, the movie really builds on the possibility that the girl is simply insane. There are so many doctors and so many tests done to her and there is no logical conclusion found, so they have to move toward faith.

Horror Movie #2

The problem with The Lady in Black is that it's boring. Not just slow, because a slow horror movie should really build suspense as it ramps up to the ed, but very dull.

It's the story of a sad man who lost his wife when she gave birth to their son four years ago. The sad man is sent to a small town to settle an estate. There he is sad and kids die and he sees a female figure wearing black and that's about it.

Oh, and the movie ends "happily" with the sad man and his son dying but they get to rejoin their wife/mother in the afterlife.

Horror Movie #1

I remember hearing that the original Evil Dead is the worst of the trilogy.

I don't know, I thought it was pretty good. Sure it doesn't have the slapstick of the second movie or the shear joyous insanity of the third, but it's supposed to be a straight forward horror flick, and it succeeds completely. The blood flows, the makeup is great, the special effects are fun, and there were a couple of times when I jumped even though I knew what was coming.

Sure, most of the acting is over the top and bad in the only way that newish actor can act, but that's part of the charm. Most horror movies now feel too slick and polished. I like how Evil Dead is gritty and grimy. The way it's shot feels more real, more intimate.

The only thing that kind of bothered me is that it's the women who get possessed first. Why is that?

Horror Movie Day

I really like the $5 DVD bins at stores because I almost always buy something when I'm there.

Today I'm going to watch the three horror movies that I bought recently:
The Evil Dead (the Sam Raimi one, not the new one)
The Woman in Black (starring Harry Potter)
and The Exorcist Extended Director's Cut

I'll be sharing brief thoughts after each movie.

The Whole Truth

The hardest thing, for me, about going to the brain doctor is telling the whole truth about how I feel to him.

When most regular people ask how you're feeling, they don't really care or want a real answer. They just us it as a greeting because it has more words than "hello" and makes it seem like they care.  There's no reason to tell the truth to them. A noncommittal "okay" is all they need and they'll interpret that one word however they want to.

The brain doctor may not personally care, but it's his job to help and he can't help unless I give him a real answer. And since I want to get better I have to say more than "okay" when he asks how I'm doing. My instinct is to say "okay" and it's hard to break a decades long habit.

I'm trying, though.