December - dedicated to the memory of C.

C was my hairdresser for more than ten years, and if you're a regular reader here, then you know he passed away this year and the loss still stabs at me at unexpected times. All the traditional cliches - he was larger than life, he was one of a kind, blah, blah - don't help me much in describing him to you. He was certainly one of a kind! And he was far more to me than just some dude who cut my hair. He was part of my family.

He joked each year as the holiday season rolled around that he was nice to people only in December; the rest of the year he felt free to be a bastard, but he made an effort to be nice during December. (It was a joke, people, "bastard" was never a word I'd use to describe him.) He'd trot out that line when he didn't charge me for trimming my hair, or when offering a beer (yep, there was beer in his salon's fridge - most of the year, but always in December!) or offering to share the "confectionery crack" his mother sent up every Christmas, her own home-made divinity. (Indeed, confectionery crack was an accurate description.) I always brought cookies, which sometimes stayed at the salon and sometimes went home with him. His wife sent me a very sweet thank-you card in January of this year for the cookies of last year; I don't know if I kept it, but it said something along the lines of We didn't have much to be cheerful about this year, (as he was very ill over the holidays, although his death happened in March or April) but your cookies were a bright spot and we really enjoyed them.

I've written before (extensively) about why an Atheist bakes Christmas cookies, and there's no need to re-hash that here. (again!) But I will say that the cookies I bring to various people in holiday-decorated tins certainly fit into the definition of a Mitzvah.

Scrapping the religious part (620 rules were handed down from on high, and humanity should follow these rules. All good deeds come from these commandments.) leaves me with a very secular definition of the word; an act of human kindness.

The challenge from NaBloPoMo is to be "giving" for a month, and to write about those acts of giving. As I choose to define it, this can mean anything from actually giving someone a wrapped present to giving someone the gift of a smile on a difficult day, to doing something unexpected for someone - making a second pot of coffee on a cold day in my office (and there are many) might fall in to this definition too.

So for the first one, even though the task is not 100% complete yet, I'm going to write about a project/social experiment I joined on Ravelry.

Rav is more than a site with patterns and descriptions of yarn and nutcase knitters & spinners. There is a community there; I've tried explaining the site as "facebook for knitters" but from the blank looks I get when I use that description, it ain't gettin' through. Ravelry is part organizational tool, part social networking site, part online community like any fandom, part advertising opportunity, and part forum. I spend a lot of my online time on Ravelry. I belong to 19 groups (which function just like the FB groups, although the boards of those groups are much more active than any board of any FB group I've ever seen). They're pretty diverse groups, among them are; an Agnostic/Atheist group, a group of people who don't have and are not planning to have children, an NPR fangroup, a fangroup for the BBC TV show Top Gear, a Swedish group, a Supernatural group, a group that discusses yarnie culture in the wider world (oh, we're SUCH geeks), a group of naughty girls, and finally, a group called P.S., I knit. PSIK is a group of people who wanted grown-up pen pals, to exchange real snail-mail letters. This is incredible fun, much better than the mail I usually get; junk mail and bills!

The board for PSIK had a little announcement right before Halloween that the moderators were interested in setting up a Christmas Swap. Swaps are a big part of the Ravelry culture. Hilariously, one of the mottoes or guiding principals of Ravelry is "Be excellent to each other," which any child of the 80s will tell you is a line from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Swaps tie in to that 'be excellent' idea because they're essentially gifts, although there isn't always a monetary value involved. Most swaps on Rav involve yarn; I have something you want, you have something I want, they're of roughly equal value, and so with the help of FedEx, we trade. Swaps can be 'de-stashing,' which help a knitter to decrease her surplus stockpile of yarn; they can be Random Acts of Kindness, they can be around a theme of color or television show or day of the week or type of fiber. Anything, really. A day when you receive a swap package is like a little joyous ray of sunshine.

The PSIK swap had some rules; almost every swap does have at least guidelines. But since PSIK is all about the letter writing, they set out some rules related specifically to that. You must include a letter in the box you send. Something handmade. Something holiday-related. Stationery. An item from your country/geographical region. Something yarn-related. Any other goodies you'd like to add in. Not to exceed a dollar value of $25 (pre-shipping). Everyone who signed up answered a short questionnaire about allergies and likes/dislikes, so you did have a little bit of a clue to start for your person. (Do I need to explain that no one in this group has actually met in real life? I think it goes without saying, but it might have been a wee bit unclear until now.)

Of course, this wasn't the simplest task. I can not claim to have followed the value rule, but I went over, and IMNSHO, that's far more desirable than under. I biffed it with the handmade item. I knitted a scarf from a skein of handspun I got from a fiber club. I don't remember how much the monthly dues are for the fiber club...25? 35? Something like that. The first month, the spinner shipped everything late, and she felt bad about it, so she gave everyone an extra skein of handspun. (Believe me, that more than makes up for the tardy package!) That means that I got 2 skeins for the price of one, and cheaper than her retail off-the-rack rate, but the price on the skein wrapper says $26. I'm over at that point without even casting on a stitch. So I decided that the dollar value of the yarn was exempt from the dollar amount limit of the package. It was, after all, just sitting in my stash. Admittedly, sitting in my stash does not equal free, but....yeah, well, I justified it in my own mind. :p

For the 'from your region' item, I choose something from a local company that makes pewter and brass decorative items; they run the gamut from coasters for drinks to serving trays to light switch covers. I choose a bookmark in an art-deco pattern that I'd really like to keep. (>_<)

I found a Christmas-y mug at the grocery store for a dollar, and some lemon-flavored hard candies from the same grocery store run will add little sunny spots in the package. My swap partner's questionnaire mentioned liking lemon-flavored stuff.

Then there's the scarf from the fiber club yarn, and some stitch markers from Hide & Sheep for the yarn-related and hand-made items. (They make the cutest little stitch markers, and they come packaged in these adorable little tins. Plus, the company name is Hide & Sheep. How can you not love that??)

I found the stationery at Pier One on clearance, and so now all that remains is to write the letter, wrap the scarf, bookmark, stitch markers, coffee mug and writing paper, box the whole shebang, and mail it off to my swap partner. Oh, plus I plan to add in some vanilla sandalwood hand-made soap that is sitting in my "gift drawer". {The gift drawer is a small drawer full of little but tasteful things that can be whipped out at a moment's notice and wrapped for a forgotten birthday present. Right now the gift drawer has a lot of hand made soap, but there's also a few delicate silvery book marks, some jewelry I got on Etsy, something my handbag designer friend sent me along with a piece I commissioned from her (a little extra that I've chosen not to keep for myself), and a Swiss Army knife bought as a gift for a guy friend a few years ago that has dropped off the face of the planet. (The friend, not the knife.)}

So that's Mitzvah #1. It's taken me a few weeks to gather all the bits and bobs and knit the scarf, and the deadline to get the box sent away is December 10; I want to have it in the mail by Saturday of this week and am excited to hear what my swap partner has to say about what I've chosen. It isn't a one-to-one exchange, it is a round-robin style, so the person I am sending a gift to is not the same person I will receive a gift from. But the point of the swap is not to get presents; it is about the thrill of the hunt and the fun of knowing you're making someone's day.

This was my first swap, but it won't be my last. I've enjoyed trying to find things that fit into each category. I wanted, desperately, to send Buckeyes as a symbol of Ohio, but alas! My partner is allergic to nuts. So that knocked both buckeyes and most chocolate that is processed in a factory right out of the water. Go ahead, you find chocolate that doesn't have a little disclaimer on the wrapper that says something like "processed on machinery that also processes nuts". Good luck with that one!

I've spent a little bit of time post-stalking my partner, reading her forum posts and checking out her projects and 'about me' on Rav to get a sense of the person. I got a message from the person who has me as a partner asking for my address, and thus far, I haven't looked her up (other than her 'about me' page, which is very limited on the deets) because I want to be surprised by her letter and package; I don't want to know anything about her until I get the box.

The mailbox for our house is down the street a bit from the house, and is a pain to get to, but I'll be checking it daily until that box gets here! I'm also waiting for a letter from my pen-pal person (a totally separate person) and that makes the trek to the mailbox a bit more fun.

Overly Sensitive

I'm spending more time than usual walking around outside. We don't need to get into where, or why, suffice to say that I'm in the out of doors more than usual. (This is NOT a complaint. I like walking around outside.) In the summertime, even when the weather is cloudy, I wear sunscreen. Yes, every day. Usually 30 or higher. I'm not in the habit of re-applying, but now that I'm out more often in the daytime, I probably should.

For the days when I forget the sunscreen, or when the Oh-hia-ia sun peeks out from the pervasive grey skies, I've been thinking about buying a parasol. Yep, just like the Victorian ladies carried. Although the one I've been looking at is Oriental, not frilly Victorian lace. Lacy-frilly-frou-frou is so not my style, and worthless for sun protection anyway.

I do have an umbrella that I've added to my bag o' stuff that I carry around every day, which changes from day-to-day. Most of those bags o' stuff are too large to be called purses. Because you never know when the skies are going to open up and pour torrential rain down on you. Why not use that? I don't know. Perhaps because it is counter to my inclination to buy more stuff. Or perhaps because it looks like an umbrella, and I get all sorts of weird looks when I carry it when it isn't raining. Honestly, I don't care what people think, my comfort of being both cooler and not sunburned is more important to me. I think a rice-paper parasol with cranes painted on it might be less.....what? Noticeable? Not. Conspicuous? Not. I don't really know what I'm thinking there.

(Acquisition? Maybe? Perhaps? An excuse to shop? Ya think? ~editor)

I know that this would be looked on with less disdain and amusement if I lived in Miami or Los Angeles, heck, any of the major cities it probably wouldn't get a second glance. Here in the rustbelt, where the skin cancer epidemic is treated with the "that's never going to happen to me" attitude, yeah, it looks strange.

Being sunburned sucks. I've been there, done that, often enough to know. Several very bad burns in my teens served not only to increase my awareness, but also to exponentially heighten my risk of skin cancer. Every bad burn you get only makes it worse. I'm so careful with the sun that I rarely even end up with pinken-ed cheeks after a day on the water. I don't think of color from the sun as adding a "healthy glow".

Am I pale? Yeah. I like to joke that ya just don't get much whiter than me. Scandinavian, Slovak, Danish, Czech, and British heritage basically means that my skin is really fair. Fair enough that I have a hard time finding concealer, powder, foundation make-up to match the tone of my skin, even if we just drop the I'm-allergic-to-everything-in-the-whole-world part of the equation.

So carrying a parasol ought to really be a forgone conclusion. Plus it is pretty. The last thing, though, is something that my vanity doesn't want to allow me to admit out loud. My hair is very thin, and I've actually had a sunburned skull. Hats are fine, but I think the parasol would be more fun.

Really, didn't we have enough of this during the 80s?

The BBC reported today that President Idiot is moving forward again with Star Wars, the space missile defense system that is too stupid for words. Expensive, non-functional, asinine, and yet, the Idiot At The White House insists that we need it. Um? Dude, he crazy.

The Beeb is radically opposed to Star Wars, and rightly so. At billions of dollars cost with no end in sight, Star Wars has yet to accomplish a single of its objectives. Several tests have been conducted over the years with media invitees, and it never frigging works.

What a clusterfuck. Do we need this? No. A thousand gallons of no. Remind me again, who elected this fool? Oh, right....no one. During the 2000 presidential election season, the Supreme Court made a mockery of the electoral college system and installed W, who was NOT elected by popular vote. Yep, that still pisses me off, seven years later.

And just look what he's done with his appointment; he dragged the country into wars on two continents, pushed women's rights back 30 years or so, eroded your civil rights and turned the economy to complete shit. Heck of a job there, Mr. President.

Busy little bee

I have not been updating as frequently this week because I'm still out of the loop on the news cycle. I'll get back to ranting and raving about the Idiot Administration, really, I will. Just not today.

I'm not able to write at all about what's going on in my personal life either, but I will be able to do that soon as well. Hopefully.

I did scribble some fangirl idiocy this week over at MySpace, but that's hardly news, is it?

For now, know that all is well, I'm feeling mentally better than I have in ages and ages, in fact I managed to sleep last night for almost 10 hours. Not uninterrupted 10 hours, but I'm beginning to think that I will never get an uninterrupted night's sleep. C'est la vie.

I should be back for the Tuesday Brain Dump next week. Until then, Glad Midsommar!! (Happy Midsummer!)

The music in my head isn't soothing to sleep to.

So often when I begin to write these brain dump posts, I start in one place and end up completely another, straying far from my original intent. That IS part of the point of the Tuesday posts, that they're meandering, a walk through what's going on in my head. Don't think, WRITE! But today I have a whole lot of disjointed issues to talk about that I'm going to try to make a cohesive whole. We'll see how that ends up working out for me.

First up is a bunch of things related to my mental health, which is so much better than it had been. After feeling like I'd been locked in solitary, in some dank and miserable place where no light ever shone, I'm back to feeling like my sixteen-million-projects-at-once self. And while this is an enormous relief, it is also frightening. That fear is entirely a product of the Catholic guilt that is instilled in every practitioner of Catholicism, or, if you like, a bit of that old Roman or Greek saying, that the gods don't like to see happy people. As if I were tempting Fate by being back to as normal as I ever get. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. But at least I'm no longer living in utter terror of that shoe dropping, as I was.

Today I was in my car after stopping at a local bookstore. I can't ever go into the bookstore and not buy ANYTHING, and this visit was no exception. I picked up two trashy brain-candy novels, the sort of thing that's perfect for reading poolside or at the beach. Typical summer fare. At the cash register, I grabbed a very small chocolate bar, an impulse that I'm rarely able to restrain. Buy me books and chocolate, and I'll be yours for life. It must be DARK chocolate, just in case, you know, you ever got the urge to buy me some. Once I was driving down the highway, I opened the white wrapper of the one-point-two ounce bar, peeled back the inner silver lining, and broke off two tiny squares, then broke those in half. Savoring the taste, the richness, the deep intoxicating scent and the feel of it in my mouth, I was struck suddenly with a sense of wonder.

I reached for my ever-present bottle of water, which had been sitting in the car for nearly an hour, and was stunned to discover that the water was still cool, even though the car was about 140 degrees F. (Yes, I'm such a geek that there is a thermometer inside the car. Don't ask why, you would only giggle all the more at the answer.) My sense of wonder deepened, amazed that the water had remained cool despite the day's blistering heat, and I took a deep breath, glad to be alive.

And it was then that I realized that I've been in a very, very bad place lately. Yes, I've scribbled and droned on and on here about how the depression was crippling, but that barely does the feeling justice. I wanted to, not die exactly, because I was never suicidal throughout this whole ordeal, but to not exist, to become invisible, to disappear. I know that I wasn't suicidal this time around because I've been there before and I wasn't there this time.

I felt for a little while like I was running around in a fog, when the medication started working. I wasn't despondent any longer, but I wasn't feeling anything else, either. Numb may or may not be preferable to the sludge that resides inside your head when you're depressed, I haven't made up my mind about that yet, but I know I didn't like it much more than the depression.

I know that I'm better now by leaps and bounds because I can feel other things now. My sisters are coming home to Oh-hi-ia later this week from New York City and the Los Angeles area, and I am so excited about that, excited in a bouncy, kid Christmas is two days away feeling. I haven't had a sense of anticipation about the future for an extraordinarily long time.

Several people in my real-world life have told me that I'm better, among them DH, friend K and my mother. I can tell that I'm better too, and since we each have such trouble recognizing change in ourselves, that is perhaps the best barometer of all.

I ate just those two small squares of chocolate, not needing, for once, to scarf the whole thing down without taking the minute you need to truly appreciate expensive chocolate. That's another great indicator for me that things in general, not just my mental health, are better. I need to eat less these days. That is ABSOLUTELY not to say that I'm not still hungry all the time. I am hungry all the freaking time, and I suspect that I will always be. But it takes less to satisfy that hunger, less to satiate me.

I remember someone saying something very close to that in one of the thousands of Weight Watchers meetings that I've been to over the years, and I inwardly rolled my eyes and thought as loudly as I am able to think, "Whatever, you bitch, you've lost three times the weight that I have." You never, ever, ever say such things aloud at Weight Watchers. I'll say them aloud to my friends who are as catty as I am, but I would have never said that aloud to the woman in my group. Bitchy I am. Cruel and that tactless, I am not.

I'm surprised, nay, astonished, to find that she was right. It does take less to make me full now that I'm thinner. Huh. Who'da thunk it? I still have a really, really long way to go in my quest to be in fighting shape, but I bought a pair of yoga pants yesterday that are size medium, and they fit. Medium! Wait, let me say that again. My new yoga pants are a SIZE MEDIUM!! I may have a long way to go, but I've come a long way, too.

Thinking about having come a very long way, it has been a very long time since I lived in Sweden, more than ten years, *sigh*, it has been fifteen years this year since I left Sweden. So why, all of a sudden, am I thinking in Swedish and having trouble finding English words for things? If I wasn't positive that my mental health has taken a turn for the better, I would think I was losing my mind. Talking to DH at home the other day, I was suggesting to him that he try to persuade a co-worker to do something the way DH wants it done. And I said, "Honey, why don't you just, what's the word, overtala honom, um, talk over him, y'know, make him see your way."

DH and I have been together for a very long time, and he's used to me swearing in Swedish, the occasional outbursts that I don't want people around me to understand, the phrases that mean 'that's stupid' and 'I don't know,' but the poor guy does not speak a word of Swedish. So he looked at me with complete incomprehension until I was able to find the word, persuade.

Over the weekend, at my parent's house, I did the same thing with my dad. Who also speaks no Swedish. WTH? And WTF? Why is this happening now? Over the years since I've left Sweden, if I get very, very intoxicated, I'm likely to start babbling bits of Swedish at you and not be able to understand why you're not following along. But stone cold sober? This has never happened. I've even had bits and pieces of dreams in Swedish lately. Again, I say WTH?

I seriously doubt that thinking in a second language is a side effect of my anti-depressant medication. How do you list THAT on a drug's warning labels? But that's the only thing that has changed for me in the last couple of weeks, my dosage has been upped. I haven't been spending time IM-ing the folks in Sweden, or composing long e-mail messages to them, or even spoken with them on the phone for about a month. So it makes no sense to me.

The meds make a lot of sense, but they are worrisome samtidigt, GAH, there it is again, samtidigt means 'at the same time.' This is what happens when you do stream-of-consciousness writing. Where was I? Oh, the meds. They worry me because I know that they are changing my brain chemistry, forcing my body to either make more dopamine or allowing it to absorb more of it, I don't remember which and I'm not going to look it up to verify. Either way, it is an artificial thing, and I don't want to take them for the rest of my life. I'm hoping to not need them for the rest of my life. That's why I'm doing talk therapy too, trying to work out some of the issues, to change my way of thinking, and some of the maybe self-destructive things that I do.

I've always had a very difficult time living in the moment, appreciating what's going on TODAY instead of worrying about what needs done to prepare for a doomsday tomorrow that might not ever come. Several friends have suggested to me that in this moment, right now, I need this help and hey, dumbass, you should just roll with it. I'm trying.

The visit from my sisters means that I will be offline for several days. Both of them heartily disapprove of my internet addiction, and since I only see them about 3 times a year and lately only get to have time with the three of us together at Christmas-time, I'm going to do my best to spend every waking moment with them, appreciating the moments that we have. I do sleep lots less than they do, so it is possible that I'll be online when they're sleeping in during the early morning hours that I'm not sleeping, but I'm not counting on it. Babysis comes home from California late Thursday and Middlesis from New York City on Friday, so at the least I'll be offline over the coming weekend.

One sister shares my SN ardor, no, that's not completely correct, one sister also LIKES Supernatural, the other one could care less, so I might even get in a few viewings of S2 episodes while they're here. Heee, heee, heee!

I hope YOUR Tuesday has been a nice one.

Listening to: Red Wanting Blue & Michelle Branch on the iPod, and a Gloria Estafan song that is stuck in my head.

Everyone else is doing it....

so why shouldn't I?

Running their mouths about the whole Paris Hilton thing, that is. Nancy Grace, on Headline News. The President Idiot-worshiping fools on Fox. Larry King on CNN. But honestly, I feel like adding my two cents worth is just adding to unneeded hype. And telling the world how I feel about it isn't adding anything to the debate either. Do I feel bad for Paris? Sure. A little. Does she deserve to be in jail? Yep. Do the crime, do the time. But I do have to agree with one of the talking heads I saw on the news, who said something like "Do you think that you would see anything like this for a similar crime, a misdemeanor, that a sheriff's department would go and get someone for a regular person?" No, I don't. I think absolutely everyone involved in this whole sorry mess is desperately trying to wring their 15 minutes of fame out of it. Which is sad, frankly.

Obviously, the young woman needs help. I disagree with another of the talking heads, who said that she couldn't see any way for Paris's career to recover from this. First of all, WHAT CAREER? She's famous for being famous, although she has been in several movies, recorded an album, done some modeling. But not only does she not need the money, being one of the heirs to the Hilton hotel chain, I don't think she's all that interested in working, really working, for a living.

But let's allow the ugly, brutal truth to come out. I think she's beautiful, and I freely admit to a tiny bit of jealousy, of her beauty, youth, and wealth. I also think she's either not very bright or crazy like a fox, laughing all the way to the bank. You decide for yourself.

Crap!

Did you have chicken pox as a kid? I did, at 18 months old. A very mild case. When my sisters got it when I was in high school, I moved in to a friend's house to avoid being exposed to it again. I'd been informed, you see, that since I had it so young, and such a mild case of it, I was susceptible to a second bout of it.

I discovered that I have been exposed to it inadvertently very recently, a pretty virulent strain of it. The reason I'm so worried about it? I can't leave stuff like that alone. My cuticles are always torn up because I rip at them when I'm stressed, which helllooo, is all the damn time.

GAH! I do not have time for this right now! Keep your fingers crossed for me that I don't end up coming down with it.

You know that as soon as I heard about being exposed to it, every single inch of my skin started to itch, don't you? AAARRRRGGGHHH!

May cause some side effects....

I've been taking the increased dose of Wellbutrin XL for more than a week now. Oddly enough, when I began taking this medication back in April, I didn't bother to read the information that comes along with every prescription that you get, usually a page or two from the pharmacy that lists side effects and talks about what the medication is usually prescribed for. I was so desperate to feel better that I didn't care what else the drug might cause my body to do.

I say that's odd because normally I will not take anything prescribed for me until I've done my own research and determined that it is the best drug to take for whatever is wrong. Yesterday, I picked up the refill of the prescription, and while DH drove us to a wonderful shopping center where I got a new pair of Calvin Klein jeans for $30, (ahh, retail therapy!) I read all the information that the pharmacist had given me.

I had looked up on Wellbutrin's website the side effects a few days ago when I noticed my hands shaking rather more than usual. My dad and middlesis also have these slight tremors in their hands, which are more pronounced when we're tired. But this is a more violent shaking. The website says that tremors are a side effect, and I stopped worrying about it.

But while talking to the pharmacist about the new higher dosage, I showed her my trembling hands and she pulled a complete WTH sort of expression. I hastened to reassure her, "Their website says it is a side effect, and it doesn't hurt or anything."

"Yeah, it is a possible side effect," she told me, "but it shouldn't be that pronounced. How long has it been going on? Have you talked to Dr. H about it?"

We talked about this for a few minutes, and she made me promise that if it does not disappear I will call Dr. H and talk to him about it. When I began the prescription, the Wellbutrin gave me a headache every afternoon, for about 8 days, at precisely 3.30 every day. I take it at around 9.30 every morning. The XL part of Wellbutrin XL means that it is an extended release medication, so it does stay in your system for 24 hours each time you take it. But the headaches went away, and the pharmacist thinks the tremors will too. I hope so.

It makes drinking anything a slight adventure, writing with a pen a bit tough, and typing rather more slow than I'm used to, because I have to go back and correct words when extra letters appear.

I'm rather entertained by the two pages of info that I got from the pharmacy, as the side effects, drug interaction precautions and instructions on how to use the medication are all a scream. They contradict one another as well. Under side effects, the following sentence can be found. Dry mouth, sore throat, nausea, vomiting, stomach/abdominal pain, flushing, headache, loss of appetite, constipation, trouble sleeping, increased sweating, strange taste in mouth, joint aches, dizziness or blurred vision may occur. Then, under a section titled "Precautions," this sentence makes me scratch my head. This drug may make you dizzy or drowsy; use caution engaging in activities requiring alertness such as driving or using machinery. Didn't you just say about 3 paragraphs ago that this medication would cause me to lose more sleep?

I did discuss extensively with Dr. H how I was worried about taking an antidepressant when he prescribed it for me, and the first question I asked him when he said "Wellbutrin" was "Can I drink?" Yeah, he assured me, in fact he said that would probably help me sleep better if I was having wine with dinner. Now I know he's wrong, sleep experts say that you should not try using booze to get more zzzs because it won't be good sleep that you get. But the instructions with the drug make it pretty clear that having a drink or two isn't a good plan. *Shrug* I don't think there are many meds out there that will cause you to keel over dead with just one drink.

It is helping, and I'm very grateful for that. But I'm hoping to not have to take it for any longer than necessary.

The Stranger

And a music/mental health post to end the week. Maybe I'll get back to politics next week. Maybe not.

You might have never heard of O.A.R. Or maybe if you're a fan of a reality television show where they tear down houses and build new ones, you've heard of them because they sing the theme song. They're a band, with a decent sized following, but not (at least as far as I know) mega stars on the top 40 circuit. They're mostly from Maryland, but the band lived in Columbus, while they all attended Ohio State. Which is of course my connection to them, that they lived once upon a time in Oh-hi-ia. Never mind that it is a large state and Columbus isn't all that close to me.

O. A. R. stands for "Of A Revolution." It is tough for me to describe their music, being comprised as it is of equal parts crunchy sweet pop, reggae, roots, ska and rock...

I'm a fan, have been for years. Babysis introduced me to their music, back when she was in high school and running to Columbus from the cornfields of our region to visit friends of hers who were going to OSU. I never went with her, but I wish I had, she got to see them in small Columbus clubs.

They released their latest album, Stories of A Stranger, in 2005, although a quick check of their website shows that they've got a new live album dropping on June 5th. Their website is also currently featuring the song I'd like to talk about, "The Stranger," so if you'd like to take a listen, check out the link to their page.

The song captures well what I've been feeling lately, being alienated from everyone and everything with the huge dragging suck of depression. It is hard to explain to someone who has never been there, but I feel cut off from the world, which is sunny outside my door. Inside, however, it is dark and gloomy, and I don't know how to change it. I can see where I want to be, I know how I used to feel, there's memory for the pathway back, but I just can't take the first step. There's a lyric in the song,

I remember
how to get there
Will you be there
When I'm coming through?

Take me back
Into your arms
Where I belong
Where I'm no stranger
To you

I'm fairly certain that friends and family feel that I'm radically different than I was a year ago because of this fog that surrounds me, that I've become a stranger to them with very little that is recognizable as "Lucy," when they're not thinking simply that I'm completely off my rocker.

Unfortunately, as I have told nearly everyone in my life, this is something that they can't fix for me, can't change for me, that I have to work through it on my own, despite how much I appreciate that they'd like to be able to just wave a wand and change it for me. (Why, yes, I'd happily accept a Cheering Charm from a Hogwarts student!) Some days are better than others, and as I told one friend the other day, I feel like every time I talk to any one of my wonderfully supportive friends, all I'm doing is whining and dumping on them, and I really wish I could stop that, because it isn't fair to them.

I can't help but wonder if the meds are not as much of a solution as I'd hoped. I'm taking 150 mg/day of WellButrin XL, and I've been taking it every day since early April. Do I feel better than I did during the darkest days before I was able to admit that there's a problem? I do. Do I think it is working as well as it ought to? I do not. Unfortunately, with the entire class of anti-depressant medication, sometimes what works for one person will not work at all for another. Another problem is that you need to give the meds 4-6 weeks to get into your system and begin changing your brain chemistry. Four to six weeks is a pretty long time when you're depressed. And a third problem is that researchers have recently discovered that even while changing your brain chemistry, sometimes the medications pescribed for depression make the patient suicidal. Suicidal thoughts are a SIDE EFFECT. Yikes.

Lest anyone start pushing the panic button: I am NOT suicidal. I do understand how someone suffering from depression can get there, though. With pretty frightening ease.

But I think for me, the meds are making it hard for me to feel much of anything. I'm not sure if this is a side effect or if the depression is progressing and getting worse. I feel obligated to point out that if I truly thought it was getting worse, I would ask my therapist to put me into inpatient psychiatric treatment. I don't really think it is getting worse. It just seems to not be getting better, really, either. I had said a few months ago that feeling nothing at all would be preferable to feeling the way I did, but now I'm not so sure. I'm having a very hard time being excited about anything, and the joy that I have always taken in very simple things is severely lacking. Except for randomly bursting into tears over really stupid stuff (such as television commercials?!) I'm not really feeling any emotion at all. I'm tired, and that's about it.

The emotions that I do end up feeling are like flashes of lightening, intense, bright, and very brief. Visiting a friend a few days ago, her little girl ran up to me and threw her arms around me, which nearly sparked more tears because I felt so good, for just a second. How can you not feel wonderful when confronted with a toddler's enthusiastic greetings?

I called Dr. Hottie's office, looking for some assistance and guidance about the meds. He's changed my dosage, and I'm hoping that helps. Of course, I don't have a medical degree, but the logic in my mind goes something like this; if the small dosage of the anti-d's helped, but wasn't quite the solution, then perhaps a larger dosage might be the ticket. I hope so. My next appointment with the therapist is in two weeks time, and I'm very glad that I have it scheduled.

I spent the whole day on Friday listening to "Stories of a Stranger" over and over, as is an occasional nutty habit, and I'll probably have bits and pieces of all the songs popping up in my head for the next 3 days. Shall I share with you? Yes! Why should I be the only one with it stuck in my head?

From "The Stranger"
I'm a stranger
on the outside
when I'm not right
next to you

From 52-50
fifty two, fifty more
days till I might come back from war
I'm gonna love you up and love ya down

From Program Director
Program director
on the radio
won't play my music
till I call and tell him so

See?! Crunchy, sweet, sticky pop...but you gotta listen to the music for the full effect.

American citizen held in Iranian jail

NPR had a story this morning about an American woman who is being held in an Iranian jail, accused of being a spy. She's been prevented from leaving Iran for four months.

Considering the fuss that was made over the Brits who were held by Iran earlier this year, I am surprised that this is the first time that I've heard about this.

My disparaging thought is that because this is one woman, female, that they're not going to make a fuss over it, but I honestly think it far more likely that there hasn't been a huge fuss because this woman was born in Iran and became a naturalized American citizen. Which admittedly, isn't all that much less disparaging, really.

Haleh Esfandiari is the director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, which without Googling I'm guessing is a Washington DC think-tank. Lemme check. Wow, my own powers of intellect amaze me sometimes. From their own website:

The Center is the living, national memorial to President Wilson established by Congress in 1968 and headquartered in Washington, D.C. It is a nonpartisan institution, supported by public and private funds, engaged in the study of national and world affairs. The Center establishes and maintains a lively, neutral forum for free and informed dialogue. (Source)


Living under a totalitarian regime must be terrifying. While I joke quite a bit about President Idiot being a dictator, truth is that even with the erosions of personal freedoms we've endured under his tenure in Washington we still have due process. Ms. Esfandiari's attorneys have yet to be able to speak with her, and the news today was that the Iranian government fully intends to charge her with espionage. Unreal.

Treading into personal opinion here, it seems to me that the religious leaders who make up Iran's de facto government can't handle a successful and well-educated woman, which is why they've arrested her.

I hope sincerely that the Idiot Administration gets involved here to negotiate her release. I'm thinking positive thoughts for her and her family.

Perhaps baking as a form of therapy.

I was channel surfing yesterday and caught a few minutes of "Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee" on Food TV. I wasn't fully focused on the telly, having the laptop in my lap and reading fan's accounts of Jensen's new movie Ten Inch Hero from the Newport Beach Film Festival. Lucky, lucky, lucky fangirls who attended the screening!!!! Part of the cast, including Jensen, was there. So since I was more engrossed in reading about how one fan got to take his picture and hear his voice in person, ('scuse me while I swoon!) I missed exactly how Sandra Lee made the cookies that I thought looked good.

I don't like most of what she does, because I vastly prefer to make my own stuff instead of doctoring box mixes or using some of the other shortcuts that she uses. Yes, she makes homemade cooking more accessible to folks who think the kitchen is a scary place, but for the rest of us who really enjoy the process, the chemistry, the end result, her recipes are usually a "pass". Besides, pre-packaged mixes are always full of the worst things for you, bleached flour, white sugar, tons of salt, high fructose corn syrup, even tBHQ. If you are trying to avoid those things, as I am, you've got to read the label on positively EVERYTHING you pick up in the grocery store, because you never know what you're going to get in that box of Hamburger Helper, or sugar cookie mix.

I've been so weighted down by the depression which I've been trying to work my way through that I haven't made anything from scratch, or created a new recipe, or even fussed much in the kitchen over about the last two months. Y'know things are not good when the food writer isn't working in the kitchen, doesn't want to eat, and can't focus enough to make dinner, right? Something about these macadamia nut cookies made me want to get in there and bake something, though, so today I went rooting through the cupboards and discovered that yes, I did have an unopened container of macadamia nuts. I'll take the spark of inspiration wherever it comes from, I'm not picky.

I next went to my cookbook shelf, which takes up an entire section of my library's built-in bookcases. I was looking for a sugar cookie recipe that didn't require rolling out on the countertop (more mess than I could currently handle having to clean) or chilling in the refrigerator (I want COOKIES and I want them NOW).

Much like collecting shoes is an issue for me, collecting cookbooks is a habit that I can't break. I will actually sit down and READ a cookbook, just like I'll read a novel, learning new techniques or getting an idea for a concoction of my own. I own somewhere around 70 cookbooks, at last count. Go ahead, point at me and say, "Lucy, you're a complete geek." Yes, I know that and am OK with it. I have, at a minimum guess, about 10 cookbooks that are strictly cookies, and several of the old standby all-purpose cookbooks, like the red and white checked gingham covered Better Homes and Gardens, the Joy of Cooking. I couldn't find a recipe that I wanted to use, and even leafing through the huge three-ring binder full of things I've clipped out of magazines, printed from the web and photocopied out of library cookbooks didn't bring any inspiration. Dejected, I put the books all back on the shelf and went to lie down for a bit.

Christ, how ridiculous is it that something like that will put me into a tailspin? The anti-depressant seems to be helping a bit, but not enough, yet, to bring me out of that horrible funk. In my defense, I did only sleep about 3 hours last night, from around 3 am until about 6:30, so perhaps a short nap was just what I needed.

After napping for about a half hour, I thought about the bag of chocolate chips that I'd seen while hunting for macadamia nuts, and I decided that instead of a kind of sugar cookie with macadamia nuts in them, I'd make macadamia nut chocolate chip cookies. There are any number of good chocolate chip cookie recipes out there; I'm fond of the original Tollhouse recipe, with a few small modifications such as using all brown sugar instead of white, and the addition of a little bit of milk, but in about the last two years whenever I've made chocolate chip cookies, I've used Alton Brown's recipe for "The Chewy" which seem to stay soft after baking. I don't like rock-hard chocolate chip cookies. It is very much a personal preference.

A quick second of OT gushing...I heart Alton Brown's show Good Eats. Love how he explains the chemistry of cooking and baking, love his insistence that the only tool in your kitchen that only does one thing should be a fire extinguisher, love how he shows unique ways to accomplish complicated kitchen tasks with things that you already own.

When I'd finished mixing the dough, I looked at the lump of it sitting in the bowl, and was overwhelmed at the idea of scooping out four dozen cookies. (I make them much smaller than Alton recommends.) Just more than I could handle, I guess. So instead I put the whole thing into a round 9-inch cake pan and baked it for 30 minutes, and now cooling on the countertop is what looks like a cookie pizza.

I certainly don't NEED these cookies in the house. One of the problems that I have with food is that I can't eat just one cookie, I want a dozen. I don't want just the recommended serving size of potato chips, I want the whole bag of them. So I don't normally have things like that in my house to avoid temptation. I know this and can plan for it so it doesn't become a problem. When I am testing recipes, or working on a foodie article, I will give whatever it is away after reserving a small portion for myself.

This cookie pizza is cute, though, and I won't cut into it until DH gets home so that he can see what it looks like. And then it will go with me to work tomorrow, so my staff can eat it instead of me. They love it when I'm testing recipes.

Progress, however, in that I was able to get the house cleaned up today, I made something in the kitchen, did some laundry and I'm on the computer looking for story ideas for posts next week. The sun's out, birds are singing, distantly I hear lawnmowers chugging along as people cut the grass for the first time. My house smells like cookies and clean laundry, good, homey things that are sure-fire spirit lifters.


If only baking wonderful things was the answer. Wouldn't it be nice?

Really Weird Dreams

Sleeping is such a problem. I want to lie in bed and do nothing, but I'd also love to get more than a few hours sleep, and it just isn't happening.

Last night I climbed into bed around 12:30, after watching Supernatural (twice). I spent from 10 pm until just after midnight talking online to other SN fanatics. Yes, a new episode of Supernatural aired last night, and yes, it was wonderful. I'm resisting the urge to write a complete rehash of the whole episode. I do have this one thing to share...Jensen's character had several lines that made me laugh out loud, but the best one has to be when he's being interrogated and someone asks him "You think you're REAL cute, don't ya?" and he responds with a mile-wide grin, "I think I'm adorable!" Yes, yes, you are. And that sound you heard? Was about 30,000 fangirls screaming their agreement.

Moving on. I'm going to talk about sleep today. Really.

I am still taking Ambien, and it gets me to fall asleep very quickly, but it seems to level out at about 4 hours of sleep, because without fail, unless I climb into bed after 1 am, I wake between 4:17 and 4:38 every day. I get up at 5, and waking thirty minutes or so before when I am going to really get up irritates me. I'm not sure why, other than perhaps I feel that I'm being robbed of a precious few minutes of sleep.

Sometimes I am able to fall back asleep for those precious few minutes. Sometimes not. I have vivid dreams in that short space of time when I do manage to fall back asleep. I am able to "lucid dream," something I've been able to do almost as far back as I can remember. Sometimes I'm even able to control the dreams. Not all the time.

This most recent one that bothered me was one that I wasn't in control, nor was I lucid. It involved a dinner at a restaurant, with a table for about 12. I can tell you what the table looked like, the chairs, the decor of the restaurant, even what the dishes and glasses looked like. Very, very crisp, vivid detail. I can't tell you who all was around that table for twelve, but one person was one of my ex's, and another was a parent of an old friend, a third was a high school classmate that I haven't spoken to in a while. The parent was asking how on earth I could be friends with the ex when I'm married to someone else. I tried in vain to explain it, finally coming up with the lame non-explanation "Because we're friends." (real life answer isn't all that much more clear: he's a good guy, and we're both grownups enough to be able to be nice to one another. We share a political viewpoint, I like his wife, and we're not interested in ever getting back together...this is a friendship, not an opportunity, fer gawd's sake.)

My classmate and I left the restaurant, shaking our heads over the inability of some people to recognize that men and women can actually BE FRIENDS, walking down a set of concrete steps, and we ran right in to another ex-boyfriend of mine. In the waking world, I haven't seen this particular guy for a very long time, and in the dream, he of course looked exactly the same as he did when I was 15/16. I'm not sure I'd be able to pick him out of a crowd today, like many of my schoolmates, he remains forever 17 in my memory.

He persuaded me to come back into the restaurant with him, after spending several minutes kissing me in the parking lot. Um? WTF? Hadn't I just finished explaining in the dream a few minutes ago that I was married to someone else? And in real life, I am very happily married to someone else. Dreams like this bother me so much. Not only did I go back into the restaurant with this ex, holding his hand, but also introducing him around the table as "my ex-boyfriend Joe" and then kissing him again in full sight of everyone, who gave me jaws-on-the-floor-shocked glares. I woke up a minute or so later, gasping for breath, convinced I'd done something wrong. I was very disoriented to discover myself in my own bed, DH asleep beside me, instead of where I'd expected to be, standing in a restaurant surrounded by accusing glares and angry words.

Sometimes dreams mean something. Sometimes they're just dreams. I attach no particular significance to this dream, it isn't allegorical or a statement about my life, but man, it made me squirm. I don't have dreams quite like this when I'm not taking the Ambien. Never as vivid with the detail, and hardly ever traumatic. The level of weirdness knows no bounds.

Run, girl.

I had another tough day on the treadmill. I don't understand why this happens. I couldn't run for more than about eight minutes today, when I've been doing 11 for a few days.

As if I'm not convinced that I'm completely losing my mind, I've had a couple of odd things happen to me that make me think I'm slipping over the edge. Tuesday, I 'lost' my iPod. Had it IN MY HAND when I got in the car...got to the gym, and it was gone. Now, really, where could it have gone? Had I dropped it in the garage? Set it down inside the house? Frantic searching ensued when I got out of the car in the gym's parking lot, looking around the seats, and it was nowhere to be found. So I used the gym's phone to call home and asked DH to look for it in the house and garage. No iPod.

Working out without music is horrible. Running on the treadmill is boring. Being at the gym isn't fun. So oddly enough, on Tuesday, I had headphones but no iPod. Fortunately, you can plug the headphones into some of the treadmills and I survived the workout.

Where was the iPod? Uh, in the car. Under the passenger seat. Found it when I got home, in the lighted garage. The gym's parking lot was just too dark to see it. But wait, that's not the worst of it.

This morning, I couldn't find my cell phone as I was on my way out the door to work. I'd tossed a load of laundry into the washing machine and started it, and somehow became convinced that the phone was inside the washing machine. Maybe it had gotten into the laundry basket. O, crap, what if it got in the laundry basket? Wet cell phone = bad. So I pulled every soaking wet thing out of the washing machine, shook it out, got water everywhere, and no, no cell phone. Finally found it about 10 minutes later, I'd set it down in my closet when getting dressed.

Scatterbrained like that isn't like me. Good god, I am losing my mind.

When is it enough?

I want to rant and rave about the massacre in Virginia, say bunches of things about guns, and how the University didn't handle it as well as they should have in the early hours, but none of that will change the fact that one person ruthlessly took 33 lives. I don't like guns, but the lack of enforcement of gun control laws is not to blame here. One person is. One person who was legally able to obtain the guns that he used; he was over 18, not a convicted felon, and the system, in this case, is not the problem. I'm sure he would have easily passed any background check anyone cared to run. He had a legal right to possess all the guns that he owned. I'm not suggesting that he shouldn't have had that right. But your right to own a gun does not extend to pointing it anyone and pulling the trigger, completely unprovoked. It certainly does not extend to killing 33 people.

Much like child abuse mystifies me, violence does as well. I have a tough time wrapping my head around things like this. I'm not alone in that, I know. Even President Idiot's speech writers managed to do a decent job yesterday, having him tell the grieving Virginia Tech community that there was no way to make sense of a tragedy like this. Astonishingly, I didn't even hear any grammar errors in his speech.


Remember Don Henley's Dirty Laundry song from the 1980s?

Get the widow on the set
We need dirty laundry

I'm watching CNN interview the brother of one of the victims, and he's not completely broken down, but he's a mess. Because you would be. Why do we do this, every time there's a tragedy? Why is there an insatiable appetite for sobbing family members? Can we not let these people grieve in private?

Why does this not happen in Canada, England, Europe? Hell, it doesn't happen in most of the rest of the world. Why is it America that has school shootings? When will it stop? When is it ENOUGH? How do we stop it?


I wish I had some answers.

Running Down A Dream

Before I get to my usual Tuesday Brain Dump, I need to point your attention to this piece on NPR, heartbreaking in its simplicity, about the shootings yesterday at Virginia Tech. Audio isn't available as I am writing this post, but will be later today. Judith Miller says so eloquently what I struggle to put into words. Give it a listen.





I'm thinking today about running, and the 'runner's high'

I'm still only able to run for 10 minutes out of the 35 that I'm on the treadmill. Some days are easier than others. I don't know why. My routine varies only by a small amount each day; get up, get dressed, go to the gym, come home, shower, get dressed for work, work, drive home, dinner, write, bed. Tuesdays and Thursdays there's an exercise class in between dinner and writing. That's about it. I drink a ton of water each day. I'm watching my portions and eating healthy. So why is it that some days are super easy and some so incredibly tough? I wish I understood.

I have been a runner for a very long time, but taken very long breaks in between times when I run and times when I don't. I was on the track team in junior high school, 7th grade? Or was it 8th? Too long ago to remember now. The junior high school in my hometown was on a tree-lined street, which has about 10 century houses on it, and in fact the original portion of the school is a historic building as well, was at one time a private college. A very, very, very small one. At the end of the school's street is a forest preserve, 243 acres of wild lands. I spent a lot of time there as a kid, and for conditioning for track, they'd have us run from the school, to the preserve, around the loop trail in the preserve, and back up to school. Then we'd have practice. I'm not really sure of the distance. Maybe 3 total miles, maybe less. It was tough, I'd get to the practice field dead tired, panting, and in no mood to do time trials or sprints. I hated it, but kept pushing myself because I wanted desperately to fit in somewhere, and since one of my closest friends at the time was a track star, I thought that this might be my niche. It wasn't.

I'm not a good runner, or a fast one. They stuck me with running the 400, and I never won. I did it for only one season of track, I remember saying frequently at the time that "The only GOOD thing about running is when you stop." I never felt that endorphin high that everyone talked about.

In the spring of the year I lived in Sweden, my best friend and I looked at ourselves and realized we'd gained some weight over the winter. Which is really ridiculous, she was 5'7" and weighed maybe 140 and I was 5'2" and didn't weigh over 100, but I was 17 and she was 19 and we thought we were 'fat'. We embarked on a very ambitious journey, swimming 2 kilometers in the community pool after school on Mondays and Wednesdays, and running between 2 and 5 kilometers on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Fridays and Saturdays we drank. Sundays we recovered.

We made a list, that I still have, of things we agreed to not eat. Nothing fried. No more stopping for something to eat on the way home from the clubs on Saturday nights. The town's cafe/bakery made these donut sort of things called munkar, which were square, filled with a wonderful apple/sugar/cinnamon blend, and I agreed to stop buying them when I got out of school every afternoon. No ice cream.

We did get into better shape, but what I remember most is coming to the back door of my host family's house, panting, opening the door and calling out to my host-mum, Snalla, kan vi har lite vatern? (Please, can we get some water?) We weren't allowed into the house without taking off shoes, and we'd stretch in the backyard before going inside. The route that we ran took us though farm country, and I had to really work to get the mud off of those running shoes. I still hated it, and I remember mamman asking me why we didn't just walk if we hated it so much. I would tell her how we'd look so cute in our bathing suits during the coming summer and she would roll her eyes at me. She ought to have smacked me one, considering what I weighed and my body image at the time. Not that it would have smacked some sense into me, but still, I wince when thinking about how I used to whine about being fat at 17. Someone really should have given me a beat-down.

Through most of my college years, I lifted weights, but did very little cardio, and my weight gain really escalated after I got married. Sure, I walked in our old neighborhood from time to time. I exercised never, though. I joined a series of gyms, but never really got off the couch. The thing that's different this time around is that I now recognize and understand that the working out has to be part of my life every day for the rest of my life, that once I've gotten to the goal, I can't just stop doing whatever finally works to get the rest of the weight off. I might be able to do 3 days a week at the gym instead of 6, but it has to be a part of who I am and what I do for the rest of the time I'm on this earth.

And I finally get that runner's high. Each day, when I manage to get to the ten full minutes running, I feel like raising my hands over my head and cheering. I want to jump up and down and shout "LOOK!! I did it! Ten minutes!!! GO ME!" I restrain the impulse, but it is there.

I'm still having trouble with cramping in the tibia muscles, and it hurts when I stop running. Which is a complete 180 degree turn from where I was, that it was good to stop. I have been trying for about a week to get up over ten minutes (woot! 11 whole minutes!!) but I can't quite get there. It will come, I know. Patience has NEVER been my strong suit.

What I love about running is that it is now very meditative for me. I can't focus on anything else but breathing and putting one foot in front of the other. I can't think about anything else, and considering the craziness that is going on in my life right now, a blank slate, a clear head, is a wonderful thing. It doesn't last for but a few minutes after I get off the treadmill, but it is nice to experience while it does last.

I was out of bed at 4 this morning, giving up the battle to sleep even a few minutes longer after watching the clock from 3:17 AM on. Can't sleep, can't focus, don't want to do anything, endless circles of the same thoughts chasing around and around in my head. I was at Dr. Hottie's office last week, and he encouraged me to continue to use the Ambien to get the sleep I need. Muscle repair and your body's regeneration happens in stage 4 sleep, and I'm not getting even a minute of that. Dreams occur during REM sleep, stage two. I have very little of those, either. The sleeping pill gives me exceedingly weird, disjointed dreams, but also about 5 hours of sleep as opposed to the three or so I get without help.

So I'm continuing to chase after that elusive fitness goal, and a good night's sleep. But looking in the mirror this morning, I can finally see some muscle definition in my shoulders, and when I turn around and look at my back, there are two fewer rolls of fat. Twenty-two pounds lighter, and that's all the difference I can see. Guess my self-image still needs some work.

Finally, I'm jumping on a bandwagon that I've just discovered. Searching for new music to run to on iTunes the other day, I found Podrunner, produced by LA's DJ Steveboy. Once upon a time, dance hall and trip-hop was all I listened to. And then I figured out that it can get pretty damn annoying. But I'm in love with the mixes that Steveboy produces. I'm gooving to Paintshaker, which was featured the week that Podrunner had its four MILLIONTH download. So yeah, I'm behind the times a wee bit. I haven't subscribed to the podcast yet because I'm running out of space on my iPod, a project for the coming weekend is to delete everything that I haven't listened to since uploading most of my music library in January.

I hope your Tuesday doesn't suck out loud.

Are you kidding me?

I was watching CNN at the gym yesterday evening, while running on the treadmill, without sound. So what I'm about to say may be completely wrong, but here goes.

It looked like they were talking about the British sailors who got to go back home....and the news story was more about what they were WEARING than the homecoming? Seriously. Dude. WTF? Let's talk about if they were injured, how lucky they are to be home, not about what they've got on. Don't ask me why that disgusted me so much, because I don't have an answer. Next!

And then I heard this on NPR. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is burning, bombing, destroying girl's schools. Why? Well, women aren't worth educating, according to these extremists. I'm beyond distressed about it. They're killing teachers, harassing students, forcing the closure of more than 200 schools nationwide.

I'm pretty sure I've told this story before, but it bears repeating. On September 11, 2001, I worked in one of the tallest buildings in a small city in Ohio. The plane that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, was in contact for a brief while with a traffic control center near us. The powers that be evacuated our building that day, sending us home around 11 am. I began making phone calls to friends and family across the country to ensure that they were safe. Towards the end of the day, I called over to Europe, to talk to family there as well. Since I don't talk to them every day, they never know from one day to the next if I'm traveling or not, so I wanted to reassure them that I was OK, my family was OK.

When I got my mamman on the phone, she asked me, "Lucy, do you think it will come to war?" Her voice was so sad, so forlorn, so disheartened. The Swedes have been a neutral country for so long that it is a deeply ingrained part of their psyche, the radical idea that violence ought to be the last answer.

And I responded, "Mama, 'we', the United States, can not just 'do nothing'. You know that." It made me sad, too, but I knew even on that day that our government would want to do something, no matter what it was, as an answer for so many deaths. And if you'll recall, even in the confusion that was that actual day, the talking heads on the news were already blathering on about striking Afghanistan.

I'll never forget what she said to me next. "But it won't solve anything. It won't bring back the people who died today. It won't change the people who hate."

She's so right. It hasn't changed or solved anything. Is the world a less dangerous place without Saddam Hussein leading Iraq? Sure. Has life improved for the average Afghani? I wouldn't give that a resounding yes. Are we foolish for being involved in wars on two fronts? Uh. Yeah.

Before the US began bombing the hell out of Afghanistan, I remember getting e-mails from various feminist listservs about life in Afghanistan for women, about the no education rule, the wearing of the burka, the way that they couldn't travel without the permission of a male relative. There was also fuss and complaining from other quarters, about the Taliban not allowing the practice of other religions, and the fact that opium poppies were/are a huge part of the agricultural infrastructure. Do you remember the worldwide uproar over this, when the Taliban blew up a sacred Buddhist statue in early 2001?

So did the Taliban need replacing? That I'll give a resounding YES to, but it seems to me that strides forward are not so quick in coming.

I don't understand why a body politic would want fully half of the population illiterate. Nor do I understand why on earth you would follow anyone who would suggest that women are less, simply for being female. But then, I am very fond of the bumper sticker that says, "Hate is not a family value." Which is usually a reference the deeply offensive idiots who claim that 'God hates f**s', but it works well here too.

So, what to do about the problems with the schools in Afghanistan? There are several organizations that could use your support. HASCO, Help Afghan School Children.Org, Help Afghan Women. Com, Women for Afghan Women.

Activism, in my ever so humble, is the best thing that we can do. Remember this quote...

"Never doubt that a small goup of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

~Margaret Mead

Back.... (In Black) to politics and my OCD

In no particular order, let's get to the political things I wanted to talk about yesterday and then on to the Tuesday Brain Dump.

First, the British sailors in Iran. Is anyone else reminded of the neighborhood bully taking all his toys and going home in this case? No, that's just me? OK. But really, I think the Iranians are being a weee little bitty bit ridiculous over this whole thing. Ask the Brits to apologize for 'invading their territorial waters' or whatever, but do we need to make this an international crisis? I don't think so. Let those kids go home already.

Next, David Hicks. This is the Australian citizen who has been held at Guantanamo Bay by US forces since 2002 and was christened the "Australian Taliban" by the media. I don't really want to rant today about the completely illegal detention center in Cuba, nor the totally unconstitutional tribunals they're holding there, or about the people that they're holding. Those are all things for another day, when I can annoy my family by talking about how "W" is the devil incarnate. No, I'm lying there. I do want to rant about how the military is holding people who probably have very little connection to Osama, or to the Taliban, or to terrorism at all. It is my personal opinion, perhaps naively so, that most of the people being held at Gitmo were in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I'm going to avoid going on and on about it today.

I think that the plea deal that was brokered for David Hicks is bunk. He's got a gag order from talking to the media (and I for one would like very much to hear what he's got to say) and he had to sign something that says that he was never mistreated while in US custody, which I'm sure is not just bunk, but bullshit. Complete bullshit, as he's stated previously that he felt his life was being threatened if he didn't agree to whatever his captors wanted.

What else was on my mind yesterday? Oh, yes, Nancy Pelosi traveling and W's threats to veto anything that comes across his desk that is a 'no' vote for the war. Let's wait on both of those issues for another day and get on with my usual Tuesday stuff, shall we?

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or OCD, is a disorder that has a myriad of definitions. Used to be when I thought of someone with OCD, I thought of Jack Nicholson's Melvin Udall in "As Good As It Gets", where his character washes his hands over and over, and carries his own silverware around. But then, someone close to me was diagnosed with the disorder, and the things that are the symptoms for this person are radically different. He gets upset when things are changed...which means that if you re-arrange your living room furniture, it bothers him. Changing the way a particular dish is made, or where each person sits at the dinner table also bothers him. There are other manifestations, such as obsessive organization of DVDs, music, spices...

I've never formally been diagnosed with OCD, but I've got my own share of symptoms. Like what?

Alphabetizing my CDs and DVDs is one. I really alphabetize things that don't need it, all sorts of things. An embarrassing amount of things. Spices in the spice rack, shoes...books.

Listening to a song over and over and over is another. I'll get 'into' a particular song, and need, NEED I tell you, to hear it. And listen to it until everyone around me is sick unto death of it.

The television show and the cute actor I'm into is a third. (Regular readers are groaning and covering their eyes, so I'll stop now. Or right after this. Hee.)

Counting things is a fourth. I count stairs, I count cars, I count keystrokes on the computer, I count strides on the treadmill.

Finally, I'm a list-maker. I make lists for EVERYTHING. What to pack when I go out of town. Grocery lists. List of things to do at work, with priorities attached to each one. Lists of words that I like. Lists of Bands I like. Lists, lists, lists, lists. Once upon a time, an NPR program was doing this fun little thing where people would send in alternative definitions for words, and they were all hilarious, but the only one I remember is "listless-verb. To be without a list. Lost." That makes me laugh every time I think about it. List-less. Without a list. Oh, the horror! I need my lists!

I'm adding a list in the sidebar today, giving in to my obsessive list-making, and allowing an outlet for it. I'm going to list the songs in my iPod's Top 25 Most Played, but I'll update it and change it as I see fit, making other lists to share as the whim strikes me.

There is treatment for OCD, but mostly I'm not interested in it. I tend to view these manifestations of mine as personality quirks, rather than hardcore insanity. And while one or two of these things may slip over the line from time to time, mostly, they're harmless. At least, I keep telling myself that.

NO TIME!

There is quite a lot happening on the political front that I want to talk about, but since today is going to be completely insane for me, you're going to have to check this space much later for general ranting about David Hicks, Congress passing or not passing the thumbs down on the war, Nancy Peolsi's travels, the British sailors in Iran.......


Work, work, work, work, work, no time to spend my money.

Motherhood and the Darkside known as MySpace

Tuesday and it is brain-dumping day!

I opened a MySpace account the other day. And before you call me a fucktard, and tell me that someone my age and marital status has no business being on MySpace, you ought to know why I did it, because that provides so much more fodder for making fun of me.

It can be traced back to my fangirly-ness, and my admiration of Jensen Ackles. He shot a movie last summer that hasn't been released yet called Ten Inch Hero (which is still looking for a distributor, apparently) and the movie's production people have a MySpace page. They also have a blog here on Blogger. The film is about a sandwich shop, not someone who is ten inches long, gutterface. Yeah, yeah, I know you were thinking it, 'cause I was too.

Anyway, on the blog, they announced a contest for fans to try their hand at making some manipulations of photos of Jensen. The film has not actually released any pictures of Jensen's character, Priestly, who wears a Mohawk and is apparently pierced and tattooed within an inch of his life. So fans have been making their own, with hilarious results. And the filmmakers put the submissions from fans onto their MySpace page. But to see them? You have to have a MySpace account of your own.

I don't NEED a MySpace page. I have enough trouble keeping up with this blog, getting my book finished, and taking care of the crap over on LiveJournal that DH and I do for our little piece of suburban hell. I spend too much damn time on the computer as it is. Friends of mine from high school have MySpace pages, and I've been urged to do one before...but there was never any reason to.

Curiosity over which of the pictures the filmmakers thought were the best, however, got the better of me, so I set up an account of my own. First, let me say that I'm not in love with MySpace's interface. That's probably only because I'm not used to it, and as humans, we're all pretty resistant to change. I digress. Secondly, I have to tell you about the photos...and then I'll get to why this has me thinking about motherhood. And no, the motherhood thing and the fangirl thing are NOT related. (I hear sighs of relief out there...)

Some of the pics are fun, but I've truly gotten old when punk hairstyles don't do much for me anymore. Once upon a time, I was a punk chick, with a bit of purple hair (carefully hidden from my parents) and I greatly admired the day-glo and easter egg shades of hair. My friend V would buy Manic Panic, and I think that Ultra Violet was the shade of purple that I had, but I couldn't swear to it.

In true late 80s/early 90s style, I had a tail of hair that was longer than the rest of my really long hair. (I could sit on it, y'all, that's how long it was.) I went to visit V, and she had just dyed her whole head purple. She had some of the Manic Panic left over, so we decided it would be a fantastic idea to dye my tail purple. With my head hanging over her mother's laundry tub in the basement, we proceeded to try to dye just the tail purple. Laughing uproariously, getting the dye EVERYWHERE, we were having a grand old time. When we were done, not just the tail was purple, but the whole underside of my hair, from about the middle of my ears down. And the laundry tub, and the floor, and our hands, and our clothes were all purple too. When my hair was worn down, it didn't show. Pulled up in a pony, or piled high on my head, you could see it.

So I do have some experience with the punk hair thing, although I never had a 'hawk. I generally put some washable day-glo pink spray or temporary dye into my hair for Halloween, because I like it and can't get away with it in my workaday world. But these pics of Jensen all punked and gothed out don't thrill me. There are maybe two out of 12 or so that I think are cute...and then I just want to cut and wash his hair. Sigh. All I want for my next birthday is to be about 24 again. Because this getting older crap really isn't very much fun. Better than the alternative, but still. Thirty-two vs. 24? I'll take 24.

After looking at all the pictures of Jensen as Priestly, I decided that since I'd bothered to set up the MySpace account, I should pimp out my own page, and began messing around with the settings and my profile. For a brief while, I had a real picture of my real self out there, but I've since removed it. It was not photo-shopped, since I don't have that program, but I did mess with it in the photo manipulation software I do have, MGI Photovista. I think it was still very recognizable as me, though, and my paranoia got the better of me, so off it came.

And then in the profile settings, there are a bunch of things that have radio buttons to click...married...single...divorced...gay....straight...bi....and I clicked all the appropriate toggles....married....straight....smoke, no....drink, yes....and at the bottom was a section about children.

I spent a few minutes staring at the screen, lost as to what I should click. Here are the options.

I don't want kids
Someday
Undecided
Love kids, but not for me
Proud Parent
No Answer

I eventually clicked Love kids, but not for me. But that decision was only after much soul searching. I'm at an age where I am maybe running out of time to have a child of my own. I hear the ticking of the biological clock, loud and clear. Hear it, but I'm NOT LISTENING!

All through my 20s, I was steadfast in my resolve to not get preggers, and in the fact that I never wanted to have a child. And for the most part, I still feel that way. The idea of my body being pregnant really grosses me out. Which is NOT to say that I think pregnancy is gross or disgusting, I don't. As long as it isn't happening to me. If that makes any sense. Carrying a child is the most natural thing in the world for a woman's body, but I don't want MY body to do it. Never? I hear my mother and grandmother ask. You will miss out on so much joy, they say. And maybe that's true.

My cousins are all older than me, and we're a tight-knit bunch, so there were babies being born every time I turned around in the family all throughout the decade of my 20s. A few friends even had kids that young, and co-workers of mine had a few as well. I love babies. Friends call me "the baby hog" because I'll steal away a newborn at a party or other gathering and hold the baby for hours. But I don't want one of my own.

Which makes me feel very strange. Unfeminine. Somehow, I've gotten the memo that in order to be a complete, whole woman, I must be a mother. The roles of my career, wife, sister, daughter, friend, writer, baker, cook, reader, knitter and fangirl are not enough, and to be all that a woman ought, I should be a mother as well.

Isn't THAT a load of bullshit? Do you hear early feminists rolling over in their graves? 'Cause I sure do.

And is it any wonder at all that I'm completely out of my mind if these are the connections that my brain makes every day?

This Celebrity Obsession? Has. Got. To. STOP.

So I'm chatting online with the sister who lives in NYC and she casually mentions that she's changed her view of my avatar, which is of course a picture of Jensen Ackles.

"Awwww," I responded, "Don't you like my cute actor? What did you change it to?"

"Some pic of you from xmas," she says. "I don't like looking at the little boy."

And I feel a completely irrational stab of, not anger, no, but rejection. I type a response full of teen angst that says he isn't a little boy (he is around the same age as this sister) and he's cute (this is my avatar pic on Google Chat, and helloooo, that's hot!) and blah blah blah blah, but I don't get a chance to send it because before I can, she sends me a link to Social Explorer and I'm off to geek around the maps for about an hour. A.D.D.? Me? No, why do you ask? Ooo, look, something shiny.

When I came back and read at our conversation again, I felt a little twinge of irritation at myself, and I realized that this obsession of mine has perhaps become a bit silly. I've made a few new friends online over the whole thing, and I'm really happy about that. New friends are great, and the longer you're out of University, the harder they are to come by. So that is to be treasured. I've been having a lot of fun in the CW forums, and Sunday, believe it or not, actually had a conversation about liberal vs. conservative politics with the kids in my favorite thread on the CW board. Really! I know, I was surprised too. The main forum that I've been participating in, JRA Unlimited, has some really great women on it from all over the world. One of the admins is in Brazil, other members are in England, Australia, Germany, Canada, Spain and Portugul...and besides being free to be completely ridiculous fangirls there, we talk about lots of other things.

I wonder where the line between fan and nutjob is. How close am I to treading it?

I guess I'm trying to reassure myself that I'm not crazy by all this angsty ranting, and my rationale goes something like this..."If I was nuts, I wouldn't be worried about it. Therefore, since I am worried about it, I'm not nuts."

There's a trivia game on the Anything But Ordinary board that took up a big chunk of time for me on Sunday, searching for a line from a particular episode. I watched parts of two different episodes looking for "who said that line?" and then I watched another complete episode to find a line of my own that would be hard enough for others to guess. Now that, that is silly. I'll freely admit to it. Sillier still, probably, is that I was thinking about starting a thread just like it on JRAU. So I can play the game on TWO sites, y'all.

Maybe I need a version of a 12-step program..."Hi, I'm Lucy, and I'm addicted to all things Jensen Ackles, I've been an addict for about 2 months." Oh, wait, I there's a forum for that, and I joined it. Yeah. Oy! Sigh.

Someone help me.

Please?

Soon!