5/4 Decision

I've been trying to sleep for the last 45 minutes but this stuff keeps rattling in my head and I have to get it out. I can't post it to Facebook because I'm sick of both the blind devotion and the blind hate. So, for the few who read this, please pardon the disjointed randomness along with all the grammar and spelling error I'm sure to ignore.

This morning, when I heard that the Supreme Court of the United States of America decided that all the states had to allow same sex couples to marry and recognize those marriage I was thrilled. I had expected the Supreme Court to rule that states must recognize all marriages that take place in other states, but I didn't expect them to force all the states to allow same sex couples to marry. My second thought was to wonder how long before some asshole with a gun shoots up a church because two men or two women had a marriage ceremony there? I hope it never happens, but I bet it will. This is a very cynical thought for a day when so many are celebrating good news. But what will happen when that asshole comes along? Who will celebrate that? How will that be rectified? It's been 51 years since Brown V. Board of Education said that segregation in schools was wrong (which, incidentally is when South Carolina decided to put the Confederate flag on its capital building) and we don't have any racial problems in the US anymore.

And then there's the Facebook crap. Most of the people I'm "friends" with are very happy about the ruling. Like me, they lean to the left on social issues. The problem is that most of them look at this and seem to say that the problem is over and things will be great from her on out. To me, that's blind optimism. Things are rarely that simple, even if we want them to be. And I don't want to burst their happiness bubbles. I did that years ago when Obama first ran for president. I told them that no matter what the man said, things would pretty much stay the same even with all the hope and belief in the world. I was pretty much called a heartless cynic for saying that. Of course a couple years later they were saying it on their own.

The thing that really bothers me is this sort of conversation that went on between my Sister-In-Law (SIL) and Grandma:

SIL: I can just sit there And keep liking all the post all day long. Soo happy. To know, to get close to, have seen so many gay friends with their love, passion, sacrifice for each other, no one, with a tiniest heart left in them can stand depriving that right from them. No. Because love is love. You can feel it cross culture, language, ethnicity. Yes Yes yes. :')

Grandma: I have never had a problem with anyone, who wanted too, getting married but I do have a problem with the groups that go to small businesses who choose, for whatever reason, not to serve them. The group then sues these businesses and the expense runs them out of business. This is so wrong. If some one didn't want to sell to me I would say it was their right. Today the rights only go one way and I am sick of it!!!!!

SIL: Well, I wouldn't be ok with people not selling me stuff or hire me because I am Asian.

Grandma: It has always been, if someone won't do business with me, I'll take my business elsewhere. These people are targeting these businesses and are making a big deal of serve me or else. In one case the group came from another state. Anybody should marry anybody but they have no right to then ruin other peoples lives. This morning they made a big deal about not interfering with the belief of others. That is an out and out lie. For eons people have been exchanging their vows on mountain tops under the full moon and in many other inventive ways but they have never tried to change the beliefs of others. When I was a child two ladies exchanged vows and no one said one word. That was in the USA . . . in the 1940s. ♥

The idea that every single gay couple getting married really bothers me. I've heard it before and I don't believe it. Yes, businesses have been sued for not being willing to serve homosexuals who want to buy a wedding cake, but that's the extreme minority. Most homosexual couples, like most heterosexual couples, will simply move on to another store if they are refused service because why would they want to give money to a store where their money isn't wanted? Most don't. A vocal few will make a fuss, but how is that different from the vocal few of dark skin who demanded to be served at lunch counters who didn't want to serve "colored" people? How would the world react if SIL went to buy a cake and was refused service because she's Asian?

Have to say, though, that I agree that bakeries shouldn't be sued because they don't want to make a wedding cake for the wedding of a same sex couple. Owners of business should have the right to refuse to accept money. That said, I do think that boycotting those establishments is a great idea. Why isn't there an online list of all the bakeries and flower shops and other whatnots that won't serve gay couples so that I know who I don't want to give my money to? (Probably because this suing thing has really only happened two or three times and isn't going to destroy thousands of businesses.) Choices like this can be made. I choose to never set foot into a Hobby Lobby because they won't provide insurance that covers birth control for women but will cover penis pumps for men. I wish more people would make that choice and hit Hobby Lobby in the pocket. I hope that it's what'll happen if suddenly most of the wedding industry decides it won't serve same sex couples who want to get married.

The thing that really gets me is when Grandma call the gay couples "these people." She may be doing it unconsciously, but by calling a group "these people" she's separating them and implying that the gay couples who sue are different and wrong and other. "These people" are not other, their neighbors and parents and friends and coworkers. "These people" are us and we are "these people," too.\

Grandma's story at the end misses the whole point. Yes, I do believe that in the small town in which she grew up two women who vowed to love and honor each other until death happened. I believe that these women were probably left alone because where Grandma grew up it was very live-and-let-live and if the two women weren't hurting other people then the community would leave them alone to be who they were. I don't believe that no one said a word, though, because juicy gossip is always talked about. People still whisper about these things today.

Besides, the real point isn't that gay people get to marry, it's that they get the protections and benefits that are governed by law that they couldn't get as domestic partners. Most importantly, they are allowed to legally be parents to their children. Did you know that only one parent in a same sex couple could be their child's legal guardian? That only one parent could make medical decisions? That one parent wasn't allowed to yes to life saving procedures? That if the couple split the non-guardian could be denied visitation because he or she wasn't a legal parent? For me, the most important part of this decision is now there is equal protection for the children of gay parents and hopefully that will improve the world a little bit.

Working Report

I just learned that on July 1 I get promoted. This will likely be the last promotion I ever receive. Everything after this level involves supervising/managing. I don't want to do either of those things

Halfway through September, I will have worked for The State for 10 years. 3652 days.

The best I can say about it is that the pay has been more that I've ever been paid, but lower than I'd like and the pay has been steady.

Four or so weeks ago I went to this mini conference thing for the local community college. It was a lunch with the business teachers and local schools and businesses. I was there as a representative for the prison I work at and spent most of the time shouting that people, not just the youth, need to be taught how to fill out an application properly (a waitress who writes "I waited on tables" does not actually tell me what she did) and have fuckin' manners on the phone (no, I am not here to take your abuse and I'm not going to fill out the application for you nor will I take the exam for you).

This year also included instructors from the computer science-ish type classes. This way we could also talk technology and the programs that student's will be using once they enter the industry of, hopefully, their choice. One of the instructors was a teacher I had nearly 15 years ago. I took three classes from her all based around graphic design. I did two classes on Adobe Illustrator and one for InDesign. (The second semester of InDesign was with a different teacher.)

I spoke with her before the lunch and the talk began. Mostly, we talked about her classes. She's still doing the Illustrator and InDesign, but she's also teaching Photoshop (which she taught way back when, but I wasn't interested in taking), an computer aided animation, not Flash, and 3D modeling in Maya. All of it excited me. We did get around to talking about me. She seemed... well... disappointed with where I was in my life.

I was, too.

Ever since that day, going to work and staying at work has been very hard for me to do.

I have spent much time looking at the classes she offers, but most are during the day now. Way back when she was only a part time teacher and her classes all took place in the evening. But how do I justify to my boss and then her boss, the Warden, missing six hours of work each week? Especially for classes that would do nothing for promotional purposes? How do I make those hours up without wanting to poke my eyes out? Should I use 90 hours (more than two work weeks worth of time) of vacation time over a semester to take a class? I don't know!

Not since I was little did I really know what I wanted to do as an adult. For a time, I thought I could be a professional story teller, or at least a semi-professional. That idea was squashed out of me in college. The closest I came to finding something that really interested me was the graphic design. I moved from Cowtown to Cowcity to continue design courses. It was just starting in Cowtown, but Cowcity had a real curriculum and was building a 3D modeling/animation curriculum at that time. Eventually, I didn't get enough hours working at a coffee shop and couldn't afford to live there anymore. (You can actually read about this time on this blog by clicking through 2004 and 2005 through September or October. Crazy.) I ended up back in Cowtown, where I didn't have to pay rent, and looked for a job that would actually pay me money and I wouldn't have to live with my parents or a roommate. That's how I ended up with the State in September 2005. In 3 1/2 months I will have finished my tenth year with the state. Fuck.

Most of the ten years have been okay. Just a job. Stuff I do for money. Unfortunately, I've never done a lot outside of the job stuff because of the depression thing. So, I just worked at work that was work that didn't make me more miserable. Work I didn't hate. Work I still don't hate. The problem is that I was reminded about something that I liked that could have lead somewhere, or not. Like I wrote, it's been hard to go to work and then stay there for the full day.

And along with all that it's been really easy to want to quit, give up, and go away.

Egotism and Emnity

I just finished reading Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen.

It took 30, or so, chapters to become interesting and then there were only 30, or so, left to read.

I enjoyed it, for what it was. However, I refuse to belive that people actually talked like the characters in the book speak. Why say only two words when you can say two dozen instead and bury your true intention under useless verbaige?

It's nice that the two words in the title applied to both the main character and her love interest.

In the end, Jane Eyre was better. Read that instead.

Another Year

Happy birthday to me
I'd rather not be
I'm tired of existence
Happy birthday to me

The Move Is On

My March has been spent preparing myself to move.
Not by choice, mind you.
The whole thing was handled badly.
Very badly.
On the side that owns the land.
I just stewed.
I'm still stewing.
I'll probably be stewing for another week or two.
Saturday I move.
I'm moving from a house to an apartment.
It's not much smaller, but it is so not private.
The price is more, though.
One Fifth more.
Right now I feel like this will be my last move.
This apartment feels like the last place I will ever live.

The Missing Word

I spent 10 hours, today, giving a civil service test. 150 people took the test. People of both genders and of all flavors. Ages ranged from 19 (I know because his mother is a coworker) to somewhere near or in their 60s (I saw at least two driver licenses with birth dates in the 1950s, but I can't remember the actual year). Most of the day was spent slowly walking around the room watching people fill in little bubble, waiting for a hand to be raised so I could replace a pencil or scratch paper.

When I was young(er?) I used to watch the proctors of exams and think that it was a very grown-up job to do. They were in charge of this thing that seemed so important to me. The thing was proof of education. Proof of learning. An ethereal thing made tangible. Made measurable. (Which seemed very important to me, once upon a time.)

Today was a reminder of just how not grown-up the world is.

I walked around the room for many hours. I stumbled a few times. I stopped to whisper banalities with the other proctors. I sang songs, under my breath, to myself.

I don't know why, but I keep expecting there to be a moment where I'm suddenly a grown-up.

Even after talking to my parents, brothers, other people I know who I'm sort of close to and think they like spending time with me, and learning that none of them have ever really felt GROWN-UP. These are people with children and grandchildren. It seems like raising a family should be one of the most grown-up things people can do. It's too bad any couple of assholes with a half six-pack and a broken condom can fall into this.

The grown-up moment doesn't exist. I know this. I know that everyone is just faking it and anyone who says they feel like they're a grown-up are either a liar or insane. I know this, but I keep waiting for it to happen. I keep looking at moments of my life and wonder if that was it. Then I wonder if I missed it, that moment. That it somehow just didn't sink in for me.

Do other people even worry about this? If they do, how do they push it into the back of their minds so they're not sitting up late at night with tears behind their eyes with worry? What do they do to get it out?

Part of all of the AAAARGH! in my brain is me thinking about my last visit with the brain doctor. The last time he really pushed on me that I need to meet people. People who I want to spend time with. People with like interests. People who want to spend time with me (who aren't family). And I just can't do it. I can't.

He asks about co-workers near my age and I say it's a no go. Why? Because I don't know anything about what they are interested in except their children. And that's the way it should be. Their children should be their number one interest. That's good parenting. What else do they like? I don't know because I don't know how to talk to most human beings when there isn't lifescript involved.

What do I mean by lifescript? It that thing everyone can do with everyone when it comes to talking about work because no one cares, but everyone has crap to say. It's rattling off all the crap that needs to be said when I talk to people on the phone. It's the way kids instinctively know how to dodge their parents' questions about school. It's the rote conversations everyone has each day with other people where they put little thought if any into the responses, but always require some basic topic that's so internal to people that the thought really isn't necessary.

The last time I saw the brain doctor he kept telling me that I need to go somewhere and do something with people and somehow, due to like interests, we'll become and everything will be great. You know, because putting a person whose throat freezes around new people in a social situation is the perfect idea. The worst thing was that he made me feel like I was wrong. Like I was lying. Like this part of me that's been a part of me for as long as I can remember is something that I use as an excuse for I don't even know what.

When I first walked into his office and sat down he spent a long time and a lot of words telling me that the depression in my head is real. After I took the brain test he wanted me to take he spent a lot of time and words telling me that my depression is more than normal depression, but it's chemical. It's real, he kept telling me. This thing I have about people, my inability and lack of desire to make he just doesn't understand.

Two or three sessions ago, I spent a long time trying to make him understand that the desire to go make just isn't inside of me anymore. It was there when I was little. I wanted to be with everyone so much and I tried so hard, but they never seemed interested and trying hard was especially hard because I couldn't vocalize things well to the other kids. I wanted to be with adults, but I was a goofy little kid and goofy little kids aren't with adults. Eventually, I reached a point where I just didn't want to be disliked by my peers and that can be done by just staying out of the way and flying under the radar. I thought I made him understand. Apparently I didn't.

The worst, this last time, was when he told me that I have to make more of an effort with the people I already know. That I have to take the time to go to them and figure out things that we can do and I'm tired of doing that. I've been doing that for years. At least it feels that way. And like earlier, a lot of it has to do with people focusing on families and that's the way it should be. Still, I'm tired of it, trying to set up stuff with people who are.

I see the brain doctor in about 10 days.

I don't know much about what it means to be a human being, but I'm pretty sure that I'm not actually a person.

The Bed Song

A favorite waltz of mine:



Although I think the song should be a duet.

My Father's Mother

On 12/25/14, my grandmother died. My mother got the call as we were pulling up to my uncle's house for Christmas dinner.

I've been thinking for a week about how to say something about her and her place in the world, like I did for my grandpa earlier this year, but it's much harder to do this for her. With my grandpa, I could, and can (and somtimes do) talk about his idosincratic behavior and his contracictory nature for ever. Everything with him was right on the surface and very little was held back.

She was different. She was kind and cared for everyone, maybe even everything. (Not snails, so much, because they ate her plants.) That kindness the simple way she showed it was who she was.

Which isn't to say she was a simple woman. How could she be simple? She was my grandma.

She was born in the USA, the daughter of immigrants.

She and her best friend couldn't eat lunch at Woolworths because the lunch counter there wouldn't serve colored people. They had to walk downtown to the Jewish deli and did that every day.

She never learned how to swim. She had a bathing suit and would come into the water with us, but she'd never go in past her hips. She enjoyed just wading, she said. As a kid it always concerned me that she never learned and, when I asked, she said she wasn't going to learn. Now that I'm older I wonder if she was scared.

She loved playing games. Cards and board, mostly. She introduced the family to Spite and Malice and when she got going she'd let out a wheeee and when things weren't going so well she'd put hexes on the other players and circle her chair for luck.

She'd take my brothers and me to the mall and we'd all just browse. There was nothing we needed, but it was always fun just looking.

Everyone she met she treated as an old friend. She called everyone darlin' and meant it.

My Brain

It's not at its best, my brain. It's been fuzzy. Tired.

The brain doctor didn't increase the dosage when I saw him a couple of weeks ago. He said what I'm at is the max. I decided, and he concurred, to continue on the way I am, for a while. The only other choice would have been a new drug and after six month (I think it was that long) of trying to find something that didn't hurt me while it helped me I need a break to just settle down.

Not to say that I'm doing well, though. I'm just existing. If I didn't have a job to go to five days a week, I wouldn't leave the house. At least I'd leave as rarely as possible.

At work, I've had a couple of major screw-ups that could lead to some future problems, although I doubt it. I've also made lots of minor ones. Most I've caught before the next step and no one knows about them. Some went on but came back to me to correct. Rarely have they gone past that state, but if they keep going, they're gone.

I'd like to quit my job. Not because I dislike it, but more because I'm "meh" about it. The great manager has moved on, for at least a year, but I expect she'll fit in the position permanently. The current acting manager is a good guy, but we only have him for a couple more months and then who knows. The biggest problem is I can't see this job leading anywhere that I'd like to end up. Even as I look out across the virtual 160,000 square miles of the state for a different job I see nothing that I want to do. I don't want to arrange contracts or spend my day in meetings or arranging travel plans or track expenditures or write reports or work with the public. That's all that I see available to me.

When I look out at other places, away from the public sector, I get lost in not knowing what I can do. There are a lot of things that I can't do or haven't learned to do and most of the time when I see a job that I might like I think I can't do it. When I see things that I can do and would like to do, I have no experience and would have to start at the bottom.

One of the best things about working for the state is knowing that every 12 months I'll get a step raise until I hit the top of the pay scale as long as I have performed my duties well. I don't beg to get that little bit more. I don't have to dance around convincing some asshole that what I do is valuable and that I do it well like people do in the private world. That kind of thing is especially hard because I don't believe it myself. Never have.

Sometimes I think I'd know what I'd like to do for a living. It would require a lot of work, though. A lot of time and learning to do things that I can actually do. Worst of all it doesn't really pay enough for a person to live. And then there's all the rest "social" "media" bullshit that you have to do just to stay "connected" with "people."

"Oh, he surely must be happy with everything he's got."

The meds that I've been on for about six weeks now have helped and don't seem to have hurt. (Except for maybe the break-outs on my forehead, but that could be something else.)

I feel nowhere near as well as I felt last year at this time, but I'm not scouring the internets looking for people thinking like I was thinking and reading what they've written. I'm not finding websites that give me information I would need to better make sure that I would end up dead. (Because, honestly, the scariest thing to think of when thinking the horrible thoughts is what if I fail and wake up tomorrow.)

Obviously, I'm still thinking things, though. However, it's much easier to turn on a smile and laugh at the appropriate and expected moments and make sure that people at work and people in my family don't even suspect what's in my mind.

So, I am feeling better.

I don't know what the maximum dose of the medication is, but I bet that if I can take one step more the brain doctor will put me at that level when I see him on Tuesday.

Children Without a Parent

About three weeks ago my brother caught up with this here blog. He worried and fretted and then showed what I had written to his wife. His wife, the kind and sweet woman she is, told him to drive down and see me. Which he did.

However, he didn't tell me. I just got cryptic messages about breakfast and seeing him and I don't really know what. Of course I had a feeling that he was driving down from Oregon, but I hoped, so hoped, that he wasn't on his way. My brother, being my brother, didn't respond to me about, well, anything. His wife, unlike how she usually is, kept cryptic on me and experienced a partial me not being so nice. (This is where I try to tactfully tell the person who they are or what they're doing in child friendly language, but all the subtext comes out as me yelling at them to stop being a fucking asshole and tell me what I want to know, in a very passive-aggressive way. I did, sort of, apologize for acting this way.)

Eventually, I got confirmation from my brother that he was in California and he wanted to take me out to dinner. Nothing about why he had driven nearly 700 miles, but I could guess. I knew what I had been writing and how it would look to someone who hadn't been following daily, but rather read everything in one chunk. Of course, I spent the whole day feeling sick to my stomach because I had made my brother leave his family out of concern for me, which is something I never wanted to happen.

It also made me rethink this whole blogging thing. In part, especially over the last year, this has been a record of just how sick my brain has been. Reading it, you can see the few highs and horrible lows. And I think that's a good thing. Maybe not for me or my family, but there's this sickening cycle of thought on the web that may help other to understand what it's like to be a severely depressed person. A person on meds that worked and then stopped working and the mental and physical pain that's one can go through trying to get back to okay.

That evening we met and we talked. I felt like I was driving the conversation more than him. There are two reasons for this: 1. I'm very good and sneaking conversations onto other topics that are comfortable for everyone. 2. I kept pushing back toward the blog and depression because I wanted to reassure my brother that nothing was going to happen, for the foreseeable future.

It was a weird dinner and a weird after dinner, too.

He left for Oregon so his wife could get back to work. I went back to the house and thought about deleting everything I'd written on the internets, or at least this blog.

Also, while he was in California, he stopped and talked with each of our parents. Our dad, for the first time ever, had a flash of understanding about the sheer insanity this depression thing is made of. I'm not sure what he and our mom spoke about, but she reminded me that I can talk to her and my dad about anything. ("Hi. What'd you do today?" "I stared at the brick corner of the building for a few minutes trying to figure out how fast I'd need to swing my head so I can smash the bricks through my skull and deep into my brain while picturing that exact scenario in my head." "Uhhh...")

A couple of nights later, my dad wrote me a pretty long e-mail, at like two in the morning, which I feel guilty about. In it was all sorts of advice on how to counteract bad things with good. (He's a fixer.) He reminded me that he has felt depressed in his life so he does know what it's like and not to dismiss his advice. I wrote him an equally long e-mail and very carefully laid out what my depression is like; what depression is like when you can find no person, no action, no thing, no emotion to blame it on; how this depression is just being mentally exhausted all the time and knowing, simply knowing, that there is only one way to stop being exhausted and that one way is socially unforgivable. I think he understands what I've been going through better. The other night he was willing to engage me with questions about depression and that's a big step for us.

As for the blog, I don't know. I didn't like the idea of deleting it. It charts the course of my life very well, especially the last year when I decided no one was reading so what the hell. I'm surprised I'm writing this. I still feel very uncomfortable and I'm censoring myself more than I was because it was my fault my nieces didn't have their dad for three days. And that's just one problem that I know I caused.

Schrecklichen Schönheit

On TV, death can be funny and it can beautiful even when it's horrific, but it's rarely sad.

In life, death is never beautiful. It is always sad and often horrific, but it is never beautiful and only "funny" in the Darwin Awards.

Yet in my head I see stark, contrasting colors and unique environments.

Day Off

I took a mental health day today. Well, mental and physical health. The new pills are still doing a number on my stomach, so much so that I hurled this morning.

On the brain side, well, I'm ready to take a trip to Utah.

I see the brain doctor tomorrow afternoon. We're going to have to try something new. I don't want the sweating and the headaches and nausea anymore. How can someone feel mentally good if they feel physically disgusting all the time. It's hard enough being morbidly obese and trying to be accepting of oneself.

Anyway, the time away from work didn't really help me, but I made sure that it didn't hurt other people, either. Tomorrow my concentration will be just as poor as it is today and my stomach will be just as achy, but I'll go to work and then, eventually, drive an hour to see the brain doctor. And I'll hear him tell me, again, to just hold on. Of course I'll hold on. There's a lot of stuff to do before I'll be ready to go to Utah.

*blink*

Away It Goes

I haven't read a book in over three weeks.

I haven't finished reading in book in four or five months.

Reading was one of my favorite things to do. I used to be able to spend all day reading and now I can't muster enough concentration to read for more than ten or so minutes.

This makes me angry and sad and that doesn't help me with anything.

*blink*

Fancy Pants

I think if I were thin, or normal, I'd be a clothes whore.

Jacketed Hollow

Earlier this week, Tuesday I think, I found myself reading about bullet caliber.

I honestly don't remember how I got there, but there I was. Not only was I reading about the size of bullets, but I had tabs open relating to the fillings, or lack thereof, of bullets, reading about the different kinds of shapes and coatings. I read as much as I could learn about bullets in a short amount of time.

This probably isn't a good thing because the most recent fantasy (both an accurate and horrifying word) floating around in my head involves a handgun of some sort. The kind changes, but it's never a rifle.

Fortunately, I don't own any kind of gun, so there's all that time, right. But since I've done nothing for years, what are a few weeks for paperwork and background checks. And I can wait. I can wait as long as I need to.

Patience may be a virtue, but it's also a delaying tactic.

Just the Fingertips Touch

Yesterday I spent time looking up books to buy my neice for her birtday. When I look stuff up for her, I tend to look for two things: pictures and writing that's above her age group. She's only turning four, so she's not a great reader anyway, but I like to get her books above what's recommended for her age group because it helps push her a little and I expect that her parents will read with her at this age. I know that they do read with her because I've seen both of them read with her. Hell, she and her younger sister like to hand me things to read to them when I visit and the one turning four will correct me when I screw up. Reading at that age is a shared experience for their family as it was for my family while I was growing up.

I found things to get her, but I also make the mistake of reading the comments. Most of the comments were positive, four or five stars, but there were a few in the one or two star range, which I had to read. The common complaint was that these books were not really for "all ages readers." They complain that there's a lot of words and some are difficult, but maybe they could give it to a second grader rather than the kindergartener.

To me, this means they expect a child who is only five to read by his or herself. If something is out of the child's current range, shouldn't they be reading along with the kid? Shouldn't they use it to sneakily teach the kid? To push the child's abilities?

Apologies

I feel bad about what this blog has become. Especially after last night's post.

The blog used to be more fun. More funny. Maybe more thoughtful.

Yes, I spent thousands of words bitching about work and bosses, but interspersed were reviews of movies and comics or goofy things I found on the inturdmets. Plenty that was fun. And even when I was deep in my bitching, even when I felt as dark as I feel now, everything had a lighter tone than my posts do.

In part, it's because the vast majority of people migrated away from blogs. Myspace started the destruction or personal blogs, but Twitter and Facebook squashed it completely. People who used to blog several times a week quit blogging. For a time, they still read personal blogs, but eventually they drifted away from even that because it's so much easier to read 140 characters from a bunch of people or it's easier just to look at news-feed -- because it shows everything everyone wrote -- rather than use a feed reader which might force you to click to read a whole post. Away went the 1000 word essay about burning last night's dinner and in came the three word "I burnt dinner" post or worse just a picture of the burnt dinner. At least you get 150 "likes" on the short post/picture rather than the two to five comments your essay got, right?

I'm guilty of slowing down on the blogging, but I never stopped. I think that every month since October 2013 has at least one post. The average monthly posting is about 13 per month. Not perfect, but I'm still around. Mostly because I have to get some things out of me and the only people who come to this blog choose to come to this blog and can choose not to come, too. Sometimes I wish there were more readers so there could be conversations in the comments sections, but I can live without that interaction on my blog.

Interaction was never the reason I liked blogs. I'm not good at doing it and since, on bigger blogs or in message boards, my comments get ignored or trolled down I'm afraid that my comments come off as condescending or rude. What I liked about the personal blogs was seeing people's thinking and reasoning. I liked watching them drift around topics like a feather on the breeze or narrow down like an electron microscope as they wrote. I liked reading the slices of people's lives; it was never just a moment, though, but things leading to the moment and the fallout of that moment, too, because rarely did people blog just one sentence. Even though I wasn't a part of the story, I got to experience it in the unique way that each and every blogger wrote.

Now most blogs tend to be about hyperspecific topics that only interest small groups or regurgitate the new and all for money. Not that any of those things are bad, they just aren't people and the lives they lead.

See, the interesting thing about the personal blog boom, for me, was the drama in daily life. Life isn't a TV show or movie. The story of our day doesn't build to a climax which gets resolved before a denouement and then bedtime. Victory in life is getting through the day. It's the lonely person having a good conversation with a stranger at the coffee shop or the hardworking parent making it home in time to tuck the kids into bed. It's the daily survival of high school by anyone in high school. It's the heavy petting that leaves both parties with blue balls because they're just not ready for the next step. Each day is frustrating and painful and hopeful and sad and angry and happy and everything all lumped into a mess. And that's what all of those personal blogs shared, the mess that we each live and those little moments that add up to life.

I guess that all this is to say that I'm doing my best to stick with the little things in life. Unfortunately, my life is not interesting right now and my only victory is not hurting myself each day. All those little goofy things I used to post now end up of Facebook because that's safe to post there. That's all I can post there.

Unintended Consequences

About two weeks ago, when I stopped for some sleep while driving up to my brother's house, I ran up one flight of stairs and walked to the door of my hotel room. As I slid the card into the lock my breathing got heavy, my heart began to race, and my stomach churned. I opened the door and I started to heave, but I kept my mouth shut. My backpack was hurled to the floor and I headed into the bathroom and hovered over the toilet bowl. If I was going to lose my dinner, so be it. I didn't, though. My breathing and heart-rate evened out and my stomach settled. I wondered if I was getting sick. Wouldn't that be fun -- getting sick just as I show up at my brother's house where he lives with a teacher and two children under five?

The next morning, after a longer than expected sleep, I hurried down the stairs and through the hall for the free breakfast. About halfway down the hall I had to slow down because my breathing got heavy, my heart began to race, and my stomach churned. I hadn't eaten anything for at least 12 hours and hadn't felt sick all night long. I continued on more slowly and by the time I found a table I could claim with my book, I felt okay again.

When I finished eating I hurried up the stairs again and guess what happened? If you thought I thought I was about to color the world with hardly digested food, your right!

Could this be a coincidence?

I figured not. It had been just over a week since I had been on the 80mg dose of the new drug the brain doctor had prescribed. Just long enough for everything to kick in.

I had already been getting the sweats. That was a side effect of the old pills, but these sweats were stronger, sweatier. Pretty sure that's the new stuff forcing it's way in. This has continued. At night, especially since this week has been so cool here, I go from extremely hot, sweat pouring from my pores to freezing because my body's covered in a layer of moisture and my body's not hot anymore. This happens if I'm under covers, or not, in sleepy pants, or not, in a shirt, or not. With the old med my sleep didn't get interrupted and it wasn't fun, but it didn't feel disgusting like this new sweating thing does.

I'd been having these muscle shock sort of things. They lasted as long as it usually takes to pop your ears, but they raced through all my body, head to toe, and made me dizzy. This happened several times a day and I was glad they were short because it's scary to have it happen while driving. There's no way for me to know if this was because of the new drug or a withdrawal thing. I still get them, but not nearly as often. At this point I'm saying withdrawal.

There was also this low- to mid-grade headache. It's just kind of there. Usually it's not anything to worry about because it doesn't HURT-hurt; it's just annoying. But it is always there. The rare times it has HURT-hurt the asprinolfrin has helped tamp it down to a mild enough level that I notice the headache, but it doesn't disturb my concentration or keep me from sleeping. Didn't have this problem before the new med.

All of that is to say that if this new drug made me feel better, which it doesn't, I probably would have stuck with it until this nausea thing started. I can live with the sweat and the mild, but permanent, headache. I can't deal with this nausea, though.

While visiting my brother I had to stop us going on a walk because I thought I was going to blow chunks and we were maybe 100 feet from his house. It kinda put a damper on the visit, for me, at least. My brother and his kids like going on walks, lots of walks, and I couldn't do it.

My brother and I went to a comic convention that weekend. I kept pausing and asking him to stop because I felt sick. I know he understood, but I didn't. I don't understand.

Thursday I see the brain doctor again and I have to convince him that we need to go with something that's generic. I can't be sick and sweaty and headachey anymore.

I'd rather be dead.