I'm Fine

First off, I'm fine. Thank you for your concern, and I'm very sorry if I worried anyone.

I'm back on medication, and I don't hate myself anymore, and that's a really good thing. The side effect is that I'm not writing. Not writing here (obviously), not writing in my journal, finding it difficult even to answer e-mails.

This happened the first time I went on medication, too. Difference being, I was writing fiction then. The ability to write fiction never came back. Here's hoping this hiatus from the written word is of a less permanent nature.

However, the medication isn't temporary. After three go-rounds with this, I have to consider that my depression is chronic. I can't just go off and expect to stay fine. And I can't live with every other random thought in my head being some variation on "you suck" or "life is hopeless." So, the meds and I are going to stay together for awhile.

What that means is that writing, which used to come so naturally, now comes with excruciating slowness.

I don't want to spend my life not writing. I am hoping that my writing bone has just been injured, not amputated. I'm hoping that it just needs some rehab and time in the mental gym. So here I am, taking some steps, and it's really uncomfortable, but I'm hoping that if I keep doing it, it will all come back to me.

I'll try to keep it up. Love to you all.

Lost

Sagacious Hillbilly asked awhile back if I was lost.

In short, yes. I am lost.

I've been struggling with another round of depression for months now. It's stolen away any desire to write, stolen away even the idea that I can write.

I'm coming back. I started on medication a couple weeks ago, and I've been having sessions with a moderately useless psychologist.

I'm going to try to start writing again. Emphasize try. We'll see.

I've had this screen open for hours, and this is all I've gotten done. I've opened up screens so many times, just to have them sit there for hours, empty and sterile.

So, we'll see. I've still got a ways to go on the journey.

My Day

Last night:
1 kir royale
Half a bottle of white burgundy
Four course meal
Bonus dessert of creme brulee.

Bonus dessert did not include chocolate. So on the way home, stop at the grocery store for a slice of flourless chocolate cake. Once home, open the 16-year-old port that MP's been saving for 15 years.

Today I woke with a headache. Shocking, huh? I'm blaming the chocolate cake.

So, I started the day by siting on the couch and watching While You Were Sleeping while the coffee and Motrin work their magic.

Then:

Vitamin Cottage
PetSmart
Starbucks
Bed Bath and Beyond
Best Buy
Joe's Crab Shack
CostCo
Scandinavian Designs
Jason's Deli
World Market
King Soopers
Checker Auto Parts

We spent money at all of those places, except the furniture store and the auto store.

Stimulating the economy is hard. I am exhausted. Good night.

Amazon Fail

Amazon.com has removed the sales ranking of certain books. They still sell the books, but without the sales rankings, the books don't show up in certain types of searches.

When someone first noticed this, he sent an inquiry, and some hapless help desk person named Ashlyn D. responded:

"In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature."

So, "adult" material would be sexually explicit material, perhaps? Er, no. "Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds" still has its rank. As does "Super Beauties: Nude and Natural."

"Adult" in this context seems to be any book that touches on lesbian and gay issues, including such steamy titles as "Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America" and "Ellen DeGeneres: A Biography." Feminist writers have also taken a hit.

Amazon is now claiming this is the result of a "glitch" in their systems. Hell of a glitch. Who knew that when the computers started taking over, they'd target the gays and lesbians first?

I have sent an e-mail to Amazon expressing my extreme displeasure about this, and I hope everyone else will, too. E-mails, phone calls, whatever. Let's make Jeff Bezos squirm so much that this gets fixed immediately and never becomes an issue again.

Friday Again?

Where the hell did the time go? This week flew by, and I don't even feel like anything got accomplished.

Many funny things this week:

First off, there's the conservative obsession with their tea parties and Fox News' willingness to repeatedly say "teabagging" on the air. It's impossible not to mock them. Rachel Maddow did a segment on it last night on her show, and she could barely keep a straight face.

I made the mistake of trying to eat dinner while watching and nearly spewed angel hair pasta all over the table when Ana Marie Cox actually uttered the words, "who wouldn't want to tea bag John McCain?"

Then there's the National Organization for (straight people) Marriage (NOM).


NOM, in addition to launching the world's lamest gay fearmongering TV ads, has acronym issues. Their latest initiative is Two Million for Marriage, which they have chosen to brand as 2M4M.

Really? 2M4M. You're an anti-gay group, and you're pushing an acronym with M4M in it? Do you really not get the irony here? Let me help you out:


And finally, putting all politics aside, a brief movie review. I long resisted watching the movie Role Models because I just assumed it would be juvenile, silly, and crude. It was, in fact, all of those things. But, it also made me laugh out loud, and at one point, I laughed so hard I could barely breathe. I don't want to give away the specifics of the best scene, but I will say this: it involved an epic battle, the band KISS, and Paul Rudd's manly chest.

Happy Friday everyone!

Note: LOLCats pictured above are totally getting gay married as soon as they're old enough to run away to Iowa.

Friday Funny

I was feeling blue earlier, but then I saw this at Pandagon.net, and I laughed really hard and felt better.

These are actors reading actual quotes from fundamentalists about evolution and atheism.



I think this is my favorite quote:

Everyone knows that scientists insist on using complex terminology to make it harder for True Christians to refute their claims. Take Deoxyribonucleic Acid, for example. Sounds impressive, right? Have you ever seen what happens when you put something in acid? It dissolves! If our bodies were full of that acid, we’d all dissolve! So much for the Theory of Evolution.

Explain Please

I just started reading Republican Congressman Paul Ryan's op-ed promoting the GOP's alternative budget. Here is his second paragraph:

We will first consider President Barack Obama's plan. To be clear, this is no ordinary budget. In a nutshell, the president and Democratic leaders in Congress are attempting to bring about the third and final great wave of progressivism, building on top of the New Deal and the Great Society. So America is placed in a special moment in our history -- brought about by the deep recession, Mr. Obama's ambitious agenda, and the pending fiscal tidal-wave of red ink brought forward by the looming insolvency of our entitlement programs. If this agenda comes to pass, it will mark this period in history as the moment America turned European.

And this is a bad thing why?

Update: Just finished reading it. This is from the end of the piece:

We hope the administration and Democratic leaders in Congress do not distort and preach fear about our Republican plan.

In other words, please don't use our own favorite tactics against us.