So, I had an appointment with the doctor after work today, and was sitting in the waiting room for a while, reading my book (re-reading Amsterdam by Ian McEwan). The other women sitting there seemed pretty content watching TMZ - one of the many trashy Hollywood gossip shows on TV - so I just tuned out and read my book. The Simpsons came on after the gossip show, and everyone seemed pretty happy watching that, too. Having seen that particular episode umpteen times, I continued to read my book.

Another patient walked into the office and sat down. After 30 seconds of staring at the TV and sighing and huffing and flipping through the pages of People magazine with audible irritation, she stood up and proclaimed, “I can’t watch this. Does anyone mind if I change the channel? I come here to get away from my kids and I don’t want to be watching this cartoon crap.” (Oh, insert thick stereotypical NJ accent).

Everyone else nodded in apathy, and I didn’t care at that point, so I said, “Go ahead.” This was folly, but it wouldn’t have been socially acceptable to say, “NO - I’m really enjoying this while I’m reading my book” or “Well, it depends entirely upon what you’re going to change it to.”

The latter was what I really REALLY should’ve thought about. But I had my book, so whatever.

She got the remote and instantly punched in the numbers of her desired channel (premeditated -I should’ve known). She popped right over to The Insider, yet another Hollywood gossip show. This show started off with random crap about Jennifer Aniston appearing on Oprah and saying she’s proud of Brad Pitt and feels good about turning 40. OK, fine. Innocuous. Then it turns to the American Idol “shocker.” That shocker is the suicide of an obsessed Paula Abdul fan (also named Paula). The family members spoke out about this young woman’s death, and I’m sure they had meaningful things to say in remembrance of their loved one, but this was chunked down and boiled down to sounding something like this:

Paula’s mother: “She was my daughter and she was not that kind of person.”
Paula’s cousin: “She was my cousin and I loved her. She was Paula, you know?”

That commanded about 5 seconds of airtime - the “correspondant” then cut to footage of various American Idol personalities looking somber (whether it was in relation to this woman’s death was not apparent, but I’m guessing it was just footage of them not caring about anything in particular) and commented, “It’s not apparent how this will affect the judges on Idol, but we’ll find out when the new season premieres on January 13th.”

I was more than a bit disgusted.

After the commercial break, they dove into the exciting story of a Houston housewife who has already had 10 breast augmentations bringing her most recently from a 38FFF bra size to a 38KKK. She had to go to Brazil to get that done since they wouldn’t perform the surgery here in the good old US of A. Now, a plastic surgeon with a reality show of his own (at least, I think he’s one of the doctors featured on Dr. 90210) has made it his personal mission to dissuade her from leaving the country to get yet ANOTHER augmentation mere months after this most recent one. She really wants to get up to a 38MMM. He told her that her breast tissue is too thin to support larger implants and that they will tear through her flesh and drop to the floor. He showed her video of her last augmentation surgery. After groaning over the grossness, she decided that she still wants the surgery because she wants to have the largest breasts in the world.

The woman in the waiting room at the doctor’s office - the one who didn’t want to watch The Simpsons because it’s apparently nothing but a dumb cartoon for kids - commented about the Houston housewife, in complete sincerity - “Poor thing!”

Commercial break. The Insider returns with a “shocking revelation” in “the case” of the Houston housewife and her enormous breasts. She’s pregnant.

This is why I really don’t watch TV anymore. When I do, though, I’m more than happy to catch an episode of The Simpsons or Family Guy. Why? Well, for one, they’re chock-full of cultural references and pretty brilliant social commentary and parody if you actually watch and pay attention. Tonight’s experience, however, reminded me that some people don’t want to watch TV so that they might occasionally think or laugh at our culture or, ultimately, themselves. They like to watch to pull themselves away from all thought and to be manipulated, for someone to put on a show for them and give them something very simple to respond to. No complexity, thanks. Good / bad, happy / sad, normal / freak.

It reminds me of the future of TV in the movie version of Fahrenheit 451 where Montag’s wife is tranquilized by her pills and the soothing voices of her “friends” on TV. Though that was more of a statement on how TV destroyed the desire for intellectual pursuits (namely, reading) by  providing a substitute for both intellectual exercise and social interaction by tricking people into believing that they had an active role in what happened on the screen - the TV characters spoonfeeding them questions to which the answers were fairly obvious or completely inconsequential (”where would you seat so-and-so at dinner” or something like that, if I recall correctly).

Ugh. Then I went and talked to the doctor, got my concerns and crap out on the table, managed not to cry the whole time, and left feeling just a little bit better yet than I have these last few nights.

The end.

I’ve been feeling crappy for several days (mentally now, not physically, though the one does have power over the other if you recall yesterday’s post) so I’m trying one technique which is to do things “outside” (put on a happy face, as the song says) that might then bleed inside and improve my mood. I’ll let you know how that goes. For now, it’s a very fleeting respite from the crap-storm in my head.

One goal was to get some exercise tonight (because we know that exercise and a routine are as good as, if not sometimes better than, anti-depressant medication), so when my friend from the rock gym said he’d be there and willing to belay for me, that cemented my evening plans. Even if it was only an hour of climbing, it was a solid hour, I did some good climbing, and broke a crazy sweat (and now I am cold and need to shower). Having that sense of accomplishment helped improve my mood a little.

Before I left, I changed my Facebook status from something a little sad to the following:

I was referring to the fact that the last two times I climbed, I tore holes in the palms of my hands. The original time was painful enough, but tearing the partially healed “flappers” was even worse. That time (last Monday) when I went to rinse the ick off my hands in the bathroom at the gym, I actually cried because the water hitting my hands stung so badly. I normally have a very high tolerance for pain - but that was just too much. My hands aren’t as tough as those of my climbing friends; they’ve been at it for years and have rough hides, like so many forest creatures (or hippopotami.) So that experience for them is a distant, faded memory… as some woman say childbirth becomes.

Either way, thinking about my bloody palms called to mind the stigmata and -boom- I’m moderately irreverent. I’m hoping most people just find it confusing, that those who should get it do, and that I don’t horribly offend anyone. Considering that the only comment on that status so far is, “Um, what?”, I’m not sure which I’ve done. Hopefully #1.

So, other things I’m going to try to do include climbing again tomorrow since I have a visit with the doctor on Thursday night. I’ll bring my camera to work to take some photos since I’ve noticed that the view outside of the office looking out over the Hudson River and the NYC skyline is quite lovely in the twilight hours (since 5pm is quite dark these days) and I should capture that now. I’m going to count down the days until this weekend when I’ll get to see friends. That should carry me through.

And tomorrow is Wednesday already, after all. I hate to be “working for the weekend” because it’s such a ridiculous cliche, but there’s a reason it’s cliche. That said, it’s still a shitty realization.

Now, warm shower before my muscles start hurting.

This morning, I got to work early to get some things done before my cadre of meetings. Because that’s what today was.

I wanted to make myself some tea and then looked at my desk where I normally have my obnoxiously huge but perfectly-sized-really mug that I use for tea. It wasn’t there. And yesterday came flooding back to me… pouring out my tea at the end of the day, rinsing my mug, going to the ladies’ room, putting down the mug on the counter, leaving the ladies’ room…. with the notable exception of forgetting the mug.

WIth all the other stress and feeling down that I’ve been doing, this was a kind of last straw. I just wanted a comforting mug of tea. But I was a bloody moron and I left it in the bathroom where the cleaning people probably took it and threw it out. I don’t forget things. This is not me; I just don’t. I don’t lose keys, misplace papers, forget where I put my glasses. So I’ve been beating myself up all day (between meetings) over the sheer stupidity I exhibited in forgetting my mug, which I’ve had for the three years I’ve been at my job.

It’s stupid and ridiculous and you can laugh; I would laugh too if I weren’t on the brink of depression and insanity, but I almost cried when I realized it was my fault it was gone. I called our corporate services desk to see if it had been turned in to the lost & found or something, but it hadn’t. So it’s gone and I’m angry.

I don’t know whether I should go to Target or Home Goods and see if I can find a new obnoxiously large mug for tea, but this one was perfect. It really really was. And I’m genuinely pissed and upset at myself and this is what I do. I beat myself up over stupid stupid shit like misplacing a mug. Because I should know better. I should remember these little things. That’s what makes me, me. Now I feel too tired and angry to leave the house and deal with people.

Also, I’m not improving mentally. I’ve been thinking things like, “I only get up in the morning and go through the motions every day because it’s expected of me.” I take no joy or pleasure in anything. Food is for sustenance. Sleep is to pass the time between days with some unconsciousness because being conscious exhausts and saddens me. Everything else is Distraction, parading around in its sequined suspenders and platform clown shoes, keeping things noisy so that I’m not left alone with my thoughts. I’m more concerned with letting people down and being seen as irresponsible than I am about how sad it is that I don’t care about anything - and that’s what’s driving me. My heart isn’t in anything. I’m tired of this.

My brother called me while I was on my way home from work. He got food poisoning from some bad shrimp and asked me to get him some Gatorade. So I did, brought it to his apartment, and then left because he just wanted to sleep. It hit me: I am a resource. I am useful. I am here to perform my functions as a sister, daughter, friend, co-worker. I’ll drive you to the airport, notarize your papers, buy you Gatorade, do my job, do your job, take your guilt trip, provide support… whatever. I’m highly proficient at being there and doing stuff. I’m not here to enjoy life and that’s kind of good because I’m really not enjoying it lately.

I’ve been having an exceedingly difficult time thinking of words lately. I feel rather sluggish and stupid. Not good. I also have random phrases and words on repeat in my head for no apparent reason. Like today, the phrase, “you will know us by the trail of our dead.” I couldn’t think of where it was coming from, so I googled it.”And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead” is an art rock band, according to Wikipedia. A band that got its name from a Mayan chant. I don’t know the band and I don’t know much about Mayans. So, that’s not it… but I fully admit that I might’ve read about the band somewhere in my musical discovery travels and the phrase could be sticking with me as a result. It’s just annoying.

What’s also annoying is how stressed and frustrated and absolutely drained of life and energy I’ve been feeling lately. And how alone and disconnected, even more so than last week — since the height of happiness over the weekend that came from attending the birth of my friend’s child is making the current low that much lower. This is why I try not to get my hopes up about things; the higher the hopes, the more dramatic the fall.

I’ve been sighing a lot and crying a lot and generally not myself. None of the usual distractions are doing a good job of distracting me; nothing is fun or enticing or interesting. I am burying myself in work and that’s not good either since that’s just stressing me out more. I’ve been through it enough times at this point. I get it. Textbook depression. This is onset. Sleep disruption, change in appetite (loss), anhedonia (inability to find pleasure in things that are normally pleasurable), crying for no reason, aches and pains, irritability, moodiness, lethargy - and I just feel sort of wrong and empty. I don’t know what’s worse - feeling palpably hollow and cold inside or the anhedonia.

There’s no pleasure to be found in books, friends, movies, food, photography, writing, work, sleep, shopping, talking. None of it. Everything feels burdensome and boring. I’m not generally jaded, but lately? Yes. Nothing feels right.

Even this post sucks and feels wrong. I might delete it in a few days when I feel that it’s a waste of time. Because it’s what I do, like a dog trying to kick dirt up over its shit.

… a vacation.
… some blunt object to hit me in the head and put me into a coma for a few weeks.
… to win the lottery and spend the next year decorating a beautiful house I’d buy with my winnings and going back to grad school to pursue whatever intellectual pursuits I want next.
… sleep.
… my routine back.
… to really know that the people I care about also care about me.
… time to figure out what’s next.
… to get back into writing or something creative.
… a hug.
… a martini, but only one.
… to calm the fuck down already.
… to not care.
… to stop feeling this way.
… to boost my emotional immune system.
… a warm bath.

I’m moving into some bad mental territory. It’s triggered by stress, but that doesn’t make it any less real or valid. Now is when I start with the distractions… because if I leave myself alone with my thoughts for too long in a state like this, bad cyclical thoughts and things will happen and I will revert back to a person to whom I thought I’d bid a final farewell about this time last year.

The little iPod auto kit I have for my car busted last week (the plastic casing on the end of the cable split open and the wires started fraying, thus leaving the iPod unable to connect with the auxiliary audio input in my car - the aux input being a nice feature on the Mazda3). I ordered another auto kit - the exact same thing - from J&R Music World via Amazon. It arrived today, but what was in the package was NOT what I received last time. It lacks the second cable that leads into the AUX jack, so someone somewhere screwed up. Either at Belkin or at J&R.

So that sucks. I’ve already spent over a week without good music in my car, and I’m not about to spend hours burning CDs. I sent a detailed email to the folks at J&R and asked them how to resolve this, going so far as to provide them with the order information from the last time I ordered this exact item… a mere four months ago in May. We shall see. It was packaged in one of those impossible to open blister packs and I had to essentially destroy the package to get inside and find out the cable wasn’t there. Ugh.

What also sucks is how busy I was today and how busy I’ll be tomorrow. I don’t want to dwell on it. I ate lunch at my desk in under 5 minutes. It was that kind of day. That’s something I can normally handle, but my emotional immune system is down already from feeling stressed over the upset in my home life, over finances and thinking about impending apartment-hunting, impending responsibility for being at my friends’ side during the birth of their child (which is not bad stress, but I feel the pressure now - she could go at any moment!), and feeling generally lost in terms of some large scale changes that have been taking place lately and how those have affected my life. Sigh.

When I get on this roll, the negative thoughts just start going and building on each other to almost laughable proportions. I’m unable to laugh at them for a long time, but for the present I have to take myself aside and say, “All right. STOP IT. Just STOP IT. RIGHT NOW. Today was a good Flickr day. 54 views, bitch!”

I do that. Except for the last part about Flickr. I was just throwing that in for lame comic effect. The rest of it - the “STOP IT” part? I do that.

Today’s negative thoughts included one particularly lengthy and insane meditation (I have to note that it’s insane before I start typing it) on how/why it is that so many of my acquaintances and friends are attractive, wondering if it’s possible that they’re my friends and keep me around because having me around heightens their attractiveness even more… for the contrast I provide. I proceeded to decide (here’s where I get really horrible and insane) that liking me or enjoying my company has nothing to do with it because I tend to be a miserable wretch about 56% of the time (down from 78% this time last year and 100% the year before) so it must be because I serve some purpose or provide some purely utilitarian function, whether it’s my plainness and non-threatening nature, my random knowledge, my general reliability or the fact that I’m not pure evil.

Ah, well. Re-hashing this is fruitless and quite silly. But the good thing is that it’s out of my head. I can read it and recognize just how redonkulous it is, then pick up a book and let it all go… with a big old sigh and an “ADIOS!”

Last night, I had 11 hours of sleep. I got home from work, had some soup and toast and got into bed with a book to read. I fell asleep at 8:30 (without setting my alarm) yet miraculously awoke at 7:30 this morning.

I hope most fervently that I’m not getting sick. The only times that I can sleep this much or need this much sleep are when I’m getting sick or in the depths of a nasty-ass depressive episode. It’s not the latter, so it would seem to be the first. Perhaps that overabundance of sleep will have recharged my body and left me healthier and able to fend off whatever is trying to sicken me.

Ugh.

Anyway, I’ve been feeling a bit of pudding-brain lately and needing some sort of mental stimulation. The NYT crossword puzzle will only take a girl so far. Rock-climbing does involve a decent degree of mental stimulation in the form of problem-solving and strategizing, and I may very well have a new climbing buddy in the coming weeks (my friend messaged me through Facebook and asked how she could get started; we have plans to go this afternoon).

But I need more. I don’t have the money to go back to grad school, and I checked our local adult school offerings and there were some interesting (and affordable) courses like introductory Japanese, introductory guitar, photography, and a film discussion group - so I may try one of those (perhaps guitar since I have one now).

Another thing I’ve thought about is just getting some college textbooks and walking myself through a course (for fun, mind you) that way. Lifehacker just posted their list of the best places to save money on textbooks. Working in the publishing world, I’m aware of how the used textbook trade doesn’t do the book industry any favors, but having been a student who got away with paying very little for her textbooks (English major = NOVELS, working in a bookstore = discounts), I remember well the shock I felt when I actually had to buy something at the campus bookstore at full price. Say, an intro to psych textbook (which I still have today) that set me back $160. Which was and continues to be a sizeable amount of money to pay for a book you’ll use for only a few months, honestly.

Of course, this was 1997 and prices have increased greatly since then. And I know from my brothers’ experiences that the hard science topics like chemistry and the various maths and engineering can easily set you back $300+ per book.

It’s a bit of a no-win situation. The prices are high because the production costs and values are high and the bookstores mark them up to make a profit. Students don’t usually have assloads of money, so they’re looking to save money by buying the last edition or buying it used from last semester’s classes. But I’m beginning to pontificate.

The point is that it might be worth ordering some textbooks like an intro to Japanese or art history. That might keep my brain stimulated for a bit.

And now, time to get ready for work. Half-day = twice the work in half the time. But it’s a holiday, so I should not complain.

It’s been a month since I’ve been able to sleep in my own bed. It’s right here - and although I’ve removed the plastic sheets, boxes and chunks of plaster from it, I can’t sleep in it yet since it’s in the middle of the floor, surrounded by towers of boxes and bags that were thrown there haphazardly by people other than me.

I’m unbelievably tired. I’m cranky. I want my comfy bed and a good night’s sleep.

Once I spend some time with friends tomorrow morning to a) play some tennis and get some damn exercise and b) so that I feel happy, I’ll get to return to this.

My only consolation is that in having to go through every item that I own, I’ve been able to start weeding out things I know I won’t need when I move or that I haven’t touched in years. I’ve found letters and cards and objects that made me smile, and others that I just shoved in the paper shredder without reopening them because I could remember quite vividly what was inside and have no wish to relive it. I found my early admission letter from NYU. I found a birthday card from a friend I haven’t spoken to in almost 10 years. I found an old journal; I don’t know whether to tear offending pages from it or to throw it out entirely.

I’m trying to view this as chance to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of personal belongings so that I might not have quite as much to deal with when getting settled into a new place. Hopefully soon. Hopefully before Thanksgiving.

Right now, though, my eyes hurt, my head hurts, my back hurts, my legs hurt, my feet hurt, my toenails hurt, and my left wrist is sort of throbbing. It’s only 10:15 and I could get some more cleaning done… but screw this. I’m done with today and with this week. Even if I can’t sleep comfortably, some sleep is better than no sleep.

My goal for tomorrow: a night of quality sleep in my own bed. Even if that means I have to work at it until 3 in the morning. I can take advantage of coffee’s speed-like effect upon me. Yep. That’s the plan.

Repair work is being done on my ceiling, so for the last two weeks, everything I own has been sheathed in plastic and inaccessible - including my bed, my computer, my clothes (save what’s in a laundry bag that I tote around with me) and my books. I’ve been hijacking computers from family members, etc., but it’s really beginning to get to me - sleeping in a guest room, living out of laundry bags? It’s a bit disruptive and certainly doesn’t help me cope with my pre-existing stress and being on the verge of a depressive episode.

The physical signs, such as they are, are appearing already: I have been going to bed at 10… far too early. I’ve been waking up at 6:00. Again, far too early. Despite all the sleep I’m getting, I have no energy. I have little appetite. My stomach is constantly in a state of mild upset. I am Little Miss Cranky Pants. I have pain in my shoulders and back (that’s where my stress lives). I’m having moments of logorrhea where my mouth keeps going, despite my brain’s awareness that I should just shut up already (trust me, while this is close to my normal state, it’s not always this bad).

I really just want to return to my regularly scheduled programming.

For depression (as for most mental illnesses and conditions) having a regular routine is highly beneficial. I’ve learned this somewhat recently (over the last 12 months). My routine has been severely disrupted this past month and I am feeling it keenly. I’m trying to create a new one (since the old one is currently fractured beyond repair) but that takes time. And that’s disheartening and frustrating.

Ah, well. It’s 8:05. Time to leave for work.

Tonight, I (mostly) ran my first 5K (well, 3.5 miles so 5.63 kilometers) as part of the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge. I signed up with my company and was one of 15,000 people from various companies who completed the course through Central Park.

I had to slow down to a walk more often than I would’ve liked since my allergies were bothering me and my throat was burning. I now have a nice cough and post-nasal drip to show for it, though. Still, I managed to finish 3.5 miles in just under 47 minutes, meaning that I’m doing a 13-minute mile when I split it between walking and running.

Afterward, a bunch of us went over to a pub to get some food and drinks. We got there about 8:10. They didn’t start serving us food until 9:40, at which time I had to leave to get to the subway (at 77nd and Lex) and take the 6 down to Astor Place (down by my old NYU stomping grounds) to get to the 9th Street PATH and take that back to NJ to get back to my car in Hoboken before the parking garage closed at 11. I got my car at 10:48.

So, until I had some of this peanut butter and jelly sandwich 3 minutes ago, I hadn’t eaten real food (Gatorade and a Special K bar don’t count) since lunch at noon, and had done a 5K in between. I have no appetite, but I ate half of the sandwich so that I don’t wake up in the middle of the night with hunger pains (it’s happened before when I told myself it was too late to eat dinner and skipped it after a day of physical exertion).

I’m glad that I did it, because I proved to myself that I could. But I’m angry that I couldn’t run the whole time because of my allergies. This just means I’ll be working to prove that on the treadmill - which won’t be hard because the treadmill is not asphalt, it doesn’t have hills, it’s not humid and covered in 15,000 other runners, and I can watch TV while I’m at it and not pay attention to how far I’ve gone or how fast I’m going.

Yes, it was good to do, but everything hurts (despite my stretching) and I am not feeling as tired or clear-headed as I thought I would in the aftermath. But that’s my problem, isn’t it?