Hearts and Minds

I love Christiane Amanpour. I remember seeing her on CNN when I was in my early teens. I was one of those geeks in middle school who would actually read the Time and Newsweek magazines in the school library, and I remember reading an interview someone did with her about her apartment, which at the time was in Paris. How glamorous, 13 year-old me thought. Her elegant accent fascinated me, and she was always in the midst of whatever conflict was going on, wherever in the world that might be.

Even as a young teenager, though, I was a princess, and I thought that the conditions reporting in war-torn countries was a bit miserable for my tastes. Running water? No. That means 1. no showers and 2. no flush toilets. Hmm. I don't think so. Spotty telephone service; in those days, long before mobile phones were common; no contact with my friends and family, except for rare, rushed, and expensive phone calls. Yeah, I dunno if I'd like that so much.

So I admired her, and I envied her a good bit (an apartment in the Île de la Cité?? Sign me up!) but I didn't want to be her.

About a year ago, CNN advertised a documentary that she did, and I wanted to watch it, but didn't remember to either set the DVR or to watch it when it was on. Fascinating stuff. But TV isn't super-important to me, and unless J-man happens to be in it, yeah, I'm not making a supreme effort to make sure I'm watching.

I happened to catch a bit of it tonight, on the HD version of CNN that my cable company carries on its digital tier.

It is funny to me that we talk so much about bias in the media, and yet, Amanpour's opinion is crystal clear; she disapproves of programs she profiles in Gaza and The West Bank that are teaching children to be militants. She likes a few children's programs that are run with American money, Yankee teachers, and western ideals.

Yes, I happen to agree with her. However, does it serve purpose, then, to change anyone's ideas? I don't know. She's profiling the Islamic world, in particular, young people in Gaza, Kabul, and in other places in the Muslin world. I wonder how someone whose families were killed during the most recent bombings in the West Bank would feel about her reporting. Neutral? Balanced? Not so much, I don't think.

Fascinating, absolutely. Mystifying, too, I don't understand the points of view because I've not lived under a constant state of war and bombings. Something I'll need to watch again to absorb more fully.

Summertime laziness, I presume.

Since I've come out of the dark ages and use an RSS feed reader to follow the various blogs I like, I've found it easier to include more and more and more blogs and newsfeeds. The reader tracks two of Sweden's biggest newspapers for me, the Svenska Dagbladet (The Swedish Daily Blade) and Sydsvenskan (The Southern Swede). Both big newspapers, both on the newsy beat 24/7. So every time I open the feed reader, the count is over 100. 50 or 60 or more of the new, unread items are from the newspapers. And I can't deal. I end up clicking the "mark all as read" button rather than slogging my way through the headlines.

I read Swedish OK. I speak it far better than I write it, but I'd judge myself at about a 4th or 5th grade reading level, whereas my writing looks like a 2nd grader. I'm overly proud, even smug sometimes about my ability to speak it, I haven't had to say, "I don't understand" in a very long time. Conversation is noooo problem. The only way I've managed to retain the Swedish all these years (and the 18th anniversary of the day I left for Sweden was this week, damn, when did that happen?) is because I've worked hard at it. Often. The rise of teh interwebs really helped that, because even back in those dark, early days of the technology, all of the major media jumped right on board and I could look at the newspapers. Sometimes it made me sad to even see Swedish written, because I missed it a lot. And the Swedish newspapers, even the reputable ones, tend toward the tabloid end of things, much like the British press. Three inch tall screaming headlines, sensationalism at its finest. Sometimes amusing, sometimes annoying, always attention-getting.

Anyway. I'm off track. Again.

When I'm speaking Swedish, I understand it with no problem. When I'm reading it, sometimes I have to read it out loud, sounding it out, reading the same sentence 3-4 times before I get a grasp on it. For an avid reader, it is frustrating, to say the least. But this dis-inclination to read the headlines is an odd thing. I changed the language setting on both Facebook and GMail to Swedish, and I'm dealing fine with that. Of course, you're seeing the same thing all the time on both of those, your in-box for e-mail and the list of who has commented on what for Facebook. Whereas the headlines change frequently, so I'd actually have to work at that. Mmm-hmm, I'm calling that. Summer laziness.

Proof, if anyone needed it, that I have a twisted sense of humor.

Saw this on a forum I frequent; the context in which it was posted is irrelevant here.

Suffice to say, it made me absolutely howl with laughter.

Twisted? Moi? Surely, you jest.

NaBloPoMo

I've written this post twice now. Blogger must have liked the taste of the last incarnation, because Blogger ate it.

Anyway, I MADE IT! NaBloPoMo, over! I wish, to stay with the theme for the last day, that writing was part of my daily routine, but it isn't unless I'm doing this.

The clip below is meant to be funny, but still manage to convey how I feel about having managed NaBloPoMo for the second time. I really wanted only 30 seconds, but I couldn't find that on YouTube, so you will have to make do with this.

"Real" ID (because, apparently, every ID you already own is a figment of your imagination, i.e. not real.)

I've avoided a whole lot of Current Events postings for about the last year, treading carefully when and how I write about the news and my favorite news programs. My reasons are my own, but since I've written about the Real ID program before, I feel I'm justified in revisiting the issue. Granted, that post was a year and change ago, but the proposal didn't die just because the administration changed.

According to the story I heard the other day, in the end, many states passed laws and resolutions specifically refusing to implement the changes that Real ID was supposed to bring. Good on ya', mate, I think the rights of the individual states are very important and at times supersede the rights of the federal government. But I digress.

Since so many states refused point-blank to make the changes to their drivers' licences, and Uncle Sam never funded the mandate, Real ID is sort of DOA. But wait! There's more! There are people (read: lobbyists) that want Real ID completely funded, left as is, and forced down the throat of every state. Then there is a group of legislators who have gotten together and come up with another version, called Pass ID.

Now, since we all fall for the marketing gimmick of New! Improved! Shiny! New! Better! it would appear that all the legislators are doing is re-packaging Real ID, giving it another name, et volia, new legislation! Allow me to use a phrase from my teen years in response: NOT!

One of the many things about Real ID that got my dander up was that this was supposed to make your state driver's license proof of citizenship, among other things. (Like making driver's licenses immune to faking and tampering, to which I say what-ever!) We already have identification that is proof of citizenship. It is called a passport. You are required to present rock-solid proof of citizenship to get a passport, and worldwide, passports are the standard for proof of citizenship.

Why didn't Congress just require everyone to get a passport and be done with it?

Well, firstly, because that's too expensive, for one. After September 11, the gub'mint raised the fees for passports, and although it was never "cheap" to get a passport, it is costly. Besides the processing fees, you have to go and have a picture taken, fill in a bunch of paperwork, blah, blah, bureaucratic process, blah, blah. It is time consuming, too. If you live in a big city, you can go and get a passport in person, but if you're a country mouse, you have to mail the stuff away, and wait patiently for it to come back to you. Want a delivery confirmation, or to have it shipped more expediently than the US Postal Service? That'll be an additional fee, thankyouverymuch.

So passports for everyone isn't the answer. But Real ID isn't the answer either. Thankfully, figuring out what the answer actually IS - well, that ain't my problem.

Politics as...unfortunately, usual.

I have been fascinated with politics since I was about 10 years old. True story. I've always been frustrated by voter apathy in America; not to be all rah-rah flag-wavey, but that right to vote for citizens of the United States was a hard-fought battle. Rights for women to vote, also a long uphill battle. So when people complain to me about "the gub'mint," my first question is always always:

"Did you vote in the last election?"

And usually, the answer is no.

But that's not what I really set out to write about. There's a relatively new president, and congress is marginally controlled by the Democrats, something that makes me very happy, liberal lefty that I am.

So why is it that almost nothing has changed? I was listening to the news on the way home, and there was a story about Sonya Sotomayor's dodging of questions of substance during her confirmation hearing. The reporter even pointed out that Sotomayor used the exact same language as Republican Supreme Court nominees (and eventual justices) John Paul Roberts and Sam Alito used during their confirmation hearings to dodge questions about abortion and other hot-button issues of the day. Really? That's just exasperating.

I understand Sotomayor's reluctance to answer. Hell, I understand Roberts and Alito's reluctance. There's a whole nation divided right down the middle and the resulting tumult in Congress...well, it'd ensure that nothing at all got done during this session of congress.

I'm exasparated at the same old, same old partisan bickering, and the fact that the tone is unchanged.

I think it might be time to remind our elected officials serve at the pleasure of the electorate; does anyone remember the words that go something like this:

A government by, of and for the people

???

Unintended consequences.

I attended a mandatory session on password security the other day. (Yes, for work, but we don't talk about that here, remember?)

Long story short, I left that session completely paranoid about my one-size-fits-all password that I have been using, oh, EVERYWHERE, for about the last, um, TEN YEARS. Duuuh. Wait, let me say that again. DUUUUUHHHH

The session leader gave us all copies of this article, which suggests some cute ways to make up memorable and un-guessable passwords. Dutifully, I set about doing just that.

Except that my first couple of mnemonics weren't so mnemonic. And I promptly forgot which numbers I'd used. Because, of course, you don't ever ever write passwords down, because then they can be stolen.

I ended up needing to request a password reset from Gmail, Facebook, Yahoo Mail, Amazon & eBay. I think that I have it all straightened 'round now. I think.

But I forgot that the password to G-Mail is also used by my Blackberry to sync both my calendar and e-mail. The calendar sync app asked straight out for the new password when it tried to sync (something it does behind-the-scenes most of the time) and wasn't able to, it popped right up on the screen and said, hey, dumbass, I can't get into your calendar.

I'm still trying to figure out the mess with the Blackberry. Argh.

Counting down

NaBloPoMo has just 5 more days to run. Yay! I'm almost there.

I spent the vast majority of the past weekend in bed, dozing off and on. I slept even more poorly than usual last week, and I felt like I needed the rest. Sunday, then, I woke up at 3 AM with a headache that lasted until about 7 PM.

So how is it that I'm so tired on a Monday morning?

Tuneful

Music is such an important part of my life. I'll listen to almost anything, from punk to world beats, hip-hop to classical, and everything in between.

I will happily see almost any act live. Live music ends up being a near-religious experience, or as close as I think an atheist can come.

I had the chance to see a world-renouned pianist play Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue, an opportunity I happily took advantage of.

The thing for me about seeing live music is the pure joy musicians take in their work. This young pianist was clearly passionate, and thrilled to be doing what he is. I love watching that.

Add a lovely summer evening to the mix, and it is bliss. Bliss, I say.

Burn The Day

That's from a Dave Matthews Band song, and I'm misquoting it there. The line is actually "DON'T burn the day away".

I'm not heeding his advice. I'm tired, haven't slept well all week and ya know what? The house can be cleaned tomorrow. So say I!

If you will excuse me, I'm off to take a nap.

Oh coffee, my coffee

I miss Swedish coffee. I miss Swedish coffee a whole lot.

I brought home two "bricks" of Zoegas (brand name) Skåneroast (roast "flavor") and I shipped a couple of bricks of Gevalia (another brand). I say bricks because that is what the 500 gram packages look like; bricks.

I kept one of the Zoegas, gave one to my mother, and I am still waiting patiently for a package to arrive that I mailed from Ängleholm on May 19th. Sigh.

I used the last of my brick of Zoegas this week. Not to worry, though, I have found an online supplier; two, in fact.

One is an importer that operates out of Fort Bragg, NC, and it appears that all they do is import Zoegas. Their website is clunky, but it appears that they have every single roast that Zoegas makes, from the very light roast to the darkest and oiliest roasted beans available. Whole bean, or in the brick format. Unfortunately, when I tried to order the whole beans, their website took the order form and turned it into a bunch of gibberish, opened Microsoft Word as an e-mail editor (GAH!) and did nothing else. I've sent a normal, regular e-mail to them asking what was up, but I'm guessing that they're going to tell me "no dice" for the whole bean.

The other online supplier intrigues me more, as it is based in Sweden, and appears to be a mom-and-pop enterprise dedicated to bringing Swedish expatriates a taste of home. A translated name of their website would be "The Homesickness Boutique". That makes me laugh right there. Their website is less clunky, although still not like the smoothly navigable e-commerce sites that I think we all expect these days. It forces you to look at page after page of groceries, all under the heading of "food", (no further categorization) but on the upside, they have a few other things that were in my lost box, like the orange marmalade.

They carry Digestiv crackers/cookies, too. Digestivs are kind of like graham crackers, but they have a more mild taste than graham crackers. They're good with cool whip on them, but they're also really good with a mild cheese, lending themselves to both sweet and savory alternatives. I brought only one package of them home with me in May (transporting them is a pain, they're VERY fragile) and of course, they're gone. Want. More.

Then there are the books. They have a wide assortment of trashy novels, both books that are by Swedish authors written in Swedish, and books that are by American and Brit authors that have been translated into Swedish.

I spent a merry hour or so cruising around The Homesickness Boutique, adding everything that caught my eye at will to my shopping cart. The grand total for this? SEK 1,044, not including any possible duties, tarrifs, or customs fees. Just $135, for 4 paperback books, a jar of marmalade, two packages of crackers, and one brick of coffee. Ouch. I did not click the "order now" button after seeing the total. Oh, but I want to.

The proprietors of Butik Hemlängtan are also willing to search out anything else you'd like from the grocery store or the chemists' in Sweden. I'm fighting the urge to e-mail them and ask them to ship me the Bliw Björk & Äng soap, whole bean coffee, and to ask them to run to Apotek, the state-run pharmacies/chemists' to fetch some lip balm that I fell in love with. The soap and the lip balm, as best as I can determine from extensive research (read: wasting huge chunks of time surfing teh interweb) can't be purchased in America.

Well, that's not exactly true. The soap, at least, is a no-go. So far, every online store that I've come across that sells Bliw in the US does not have my prefered scent. And all the Swedish websites that do sell it, well, they won't ship it to the US.

The lip balm, however, is of a skin-care brand carried widely here in the US, Eucerin. Unfortunately, the lip balm isn't part of the US line of products Eucerin sells. Bugger! I even called Eucerin's customer relations; first they told me that there is no such thing as Eucerin Lip Balm in the US. I asked the clerk to look at the web site I was looking at;

www.eucerinus.com/skincarecenters/body.html

and whaddya know, they did have it once upon a time, but that's an "old product line and shouldn't be on the web at all".

eBay has the lip balm (but not the soap) at the completely outrageous price of $11.39 for a 4 gram tube. $11.39! For lip balm! WHAT? From a seller located in Thailand. I knew the dollar is rather weak right now, but I wouldn't think the exchange rate was so out of whack that it would turn from 23 SEK ($2.50) to $11.39. Yeesh.

So if we added the lip balm, the soap, and the whole bean coffee to the novels, marmalade and cookies/crackers, we're looking at about $150 worth of stuff from Sweden. Worth it? Le sigh. I think so, but money talks, and I'm not spending that money on those things at this time. Oh, coffee. I miss you.

Mooooooooom! Are we there yet???

Sit down and pipe down you little whippersnappers, or I will stop this car right now!!!

No, we're not there yet. NaBloPoMo still has a few days let to run, like 8. And just like last time, it is going to be a slog through to the bitter end.

/topic shift

I was reading a new blog I've picked up recently, Crazy Aunt Purl, and she has a nice post about her little garden.

Sadly, I didn't get much of a garden planted this year. No tomatoes. No cucumbers came up, although I did plant them. The lettuce has been left alone by the bunnies and the deer, amazingly, but it is just hanging out, I haven't bothered to harvest it. I planted a few beets, because I'm informed that if you pluck them young, they're sweet and delicious, but I think I missed the "young" harvest.

My herbs. Oh, sigh, my herbs. I have more oregano than I could ever use in one lifetime, but the thyme is struggling, the cilantro never came up, the parsley has some issue with aphids or disease, and the mint is taking over, while the landscapers hurt my small, precious lavender patch by heartlessly tossing a shovel-full of dark, heavy mulch on top of my wee little sprigs. By the time I managed to dig it out, irreparable damage had been done, although I am sure it will come up in fine form next year.

Bill Alexander, author of "The $64 Tomato", noted serenely that gardeners have eternal hope; if it didn't work so well this year, there's always next yet.

Yes, I hope so.

Just a few years later...

Today is my 9th wedding anniversary. I'm happy about that, of course, but I'm thinking about the folks who danced at my wedding that aren't around any more, and that makes me sad.

I started the day of my wedding with my hairdresser washing my hair in the kitchen sink in my parent's house. He did my hair, and my sisters' hair. He even trimmed my Dad's hair, a spur-of-the-moment request that he granted graciously. We laughed as he unrolled his little leather case that he carried his scissors around in; there had been no plans to cut anyone's hair, but he told us that he never went anyplace without them, as impromptu haircuts happen all the time when you're a hairdresser. He died earlier this year, and there was no funeral. There is a memorial a little later in the summer that I am both looking forward to and dreading.

Listing the rest of the folks that have passed on since that day is entirely too depressing a task for a day to be celebrated. So I shall resist.

I can scarce believe that 9 years have gone by; almost as if they've slipped away when I wasn't looking. Happily slipped away, don't misunderstand. Just that the passage of time does indeed speed up as the years go by.

Here's to DH, for standing by and everything else he does for me, in the Swedish tradition: Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

Yes. This.

Exactly.

It is my humble opinion that these two teenagers are not the exception to the rule, rather there are more of them out there than we know about. I found this story particularly inspirational.

Does this happen to you?

There is a shit-storm of drama brewing up on one of the forum boards I participate in daily. Snark, the usual order of the day, intended to be funny, can sometimes cut into tears.

I'm not involved, just a lurking bystander, reading the posts as they show up at lightening speed.

And even though I am not involved in this particular brouhaha, it makes my stomach hurt and upsets me to see the drama, and people who are usually making each other laugh hurting one another and being nasty.

Thank all that is holy that I am not a moderator for this group; mods will eventually step in and tell everyone to stop being blockheads, and possibly bar someone from posting for a while, dependant on how bad/nasty the bickering gets. I would swear that modding is a full-time job in of itself.

Unless someone drags me into the mess, I plan to stay the hell away, but it makes my heart ache to watch "friends" tear each other apart, even in the virtual world.

Alright, still.

Title of Lily Allen's album. Every time I see her in the gossip rags, I think of that.

Because it reminds me of telling stories to friends when we were teenagers, and angst and drama. It sounded a little like this:

Person A: But then, she apologized for calling me a skank, and turned around and kissed three guys.

Person B: She did apologize, though.

Person A: Alright, still. She's the skank.

Yeah, those were some deep, intellectual conversations there, eh?

Aw, hell.

I'm up too early on a Saturday morning, and while I wait for laundry to be done, I grabbed the computer, intending to surf a bit on teh internets.

And then I remembered I'm doing NaBloPoMo.

Heck, now instead of looking at patterns on Rav, I have to do some work. Meh.

Book Reports (all trashy summer reading)

I'm not sure if I should be amused or disgusted that Teenaged Vampire Romance is a genre of novels, like SciFi or Mystery.

Thanks to the juggernaut of Twilight, a whole horde of writers have glomed on to the phenomenon, resulting in both bright lights and dreck. Mostly dreck; I read this type of stuff as escapism, and then I feel semi-guilty that I'm not reading things like Desmond Tutu's memoir, or The Year of Magical Thinking.

It was mostly due to reading a bunch of crappy novels that I started writing my own back in the dark ages. It languishes, unfinished, and may stay there for the rest of my life. But I was writing because I couldn't find anything I actually wanted to read.

I digress.

The novels I've blown through in the last few months are mostly of that aforementioned Teen-aged Vampire Romance Novel genre. First is Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy series; I read the first book sitting in Barnes and Noble that horrible winter where I should have been out on the road doing sales. I didn't know that she'd written two more until very recently. I bought them both, and breezed through both of them in a few hours. The fourth book is due out soon, and I will read it as well.

My opinion of most of these books is somewhat akin to my opinion about the Twilight series; the stories are compelling, enough to hold my attention, but we're certainly not talking about writing of a quality of Hemingway or Goethe. I hasten to add - before any of these authors' fans flame me - that the intent of the TAVRNs is of course, not world-changing, world-class writing. They're intended as a good time, an escapist read, and they accomplish that well.

The next series I stumbled across is The House of Night, by mother-daughter team PC and Kristen Cast. I have to admit, shallowly, that it was the shiny black-on-black designs on the covers of these books that made me pull them off the shelf. They drew me in from the first page of the first book, and the end of the second book made me sob, that bit of the writing was so powerful. It is impossible to tell where the mother-daughter team trades off, because it is seamless.

By the time I got to the end of the 4th book, though, exactly like my fatigue with Laurel K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series, I wanted the endless drama of the multiple lovers of the main character to either sort itself out, neaten itself up, or go the hell away.

In Hamilton's series, the main character, Anita Blake, goes from a prudish vampire-hater to promiscuous vampire protector in about 6 books. Her promiscuity is explained away as 'needful' (she's sort of a vamp herself - heh, pun intended - and "feeds" off of orgasm, sort of) and I understand that characters change and grow throughout a series, but this is 1. too extreme and 2. honestly, the multiple orgies get boring.

Anyway.

In the Casts' books, Zoey goes from one dopey football player high school boyfriend to being in a situation by the end of the 4th book where the high school boyfriend is still around, there's a vampire boyfriend who had been a fellow House of Night student (but graduated, sort of), there's the teacher that she slept with (!!!!) who was later murdered, there's an evil spirit who wants her and she's not sure if she can stay away from him, plus another student who she spends all of 4 paragraphs talking to before he dies in her arms and she thinks they might be soul mates. (Him dying and coming back to life just complicate that whole thing further.) Let's see....that's 5? No, wait, 4, because the murdered teacher doesn't come back to life. Yeah. I'm mostly over that. The classic literary device, the love triangle, is fine, but this is a love....pentagram?

I've also decided while reading all of these that I absolutely despise the literary device of foreshadowing. I think for horror writers, it is supposed to add to the doom that you feel building up while you read, but it just irritates the hell out of me. Maybe because my beloved DH loves to play "I Know Something You Don't Know" and that also annoys me. (You must imagine the game title in a sing-songy 5 year-old voice for it to work properly!)

So - verdict, then, for these two TAVRNs? Get 'em from the library. If you like them well enough, then buy them. But the $13 - $20 on the trade paperback editions? Nah, not worth it until you know that you want them in your collection.

The Triumph of the Proletariat

(or something)

Politics have endlessly fascinated me since the 1984 presidential elections, when I was <> 10.

My mother was a freelance reporter for our little tiny town weekly, and as part of that, she covered the local government councils, a village and a township. I went, whenever I could talk her into it, and had lots of questions on the way home. Even at 10-11-12, I thought that the township trustees were petty, back-biting, bickering brats, and the village council members were hoity-toity.

But the political process has continued to fascinate me, and the fact that we as citizens can contribute to that process with not just our money and our votes, but with our voices....well, at 34, I still think it is pretty freaking amazing.

A few weeks ago, I posted about Ohio's budget crisis, and the plan that our Democratic Governor, Ted Strickland, proposed to lawmakers, which would result in our state-run libraries operating next fiscal year with 50% of the budget of the previous fiscal year. I urged one and all to visit SaveOhioLibraries.com, where further information is available about how you can tell your Ohio elected official just what you thought of the plan to cut the libraries to such a devastating low.

I am proud, and humbled, by the number of people from Ohio (and beyond, too, impressively) who wrote to their local state reps, and to Gov Strickland, telling them was an abysmal idea the funding cuts were. Strickland spoke out vehemently against this public outcry, claiming he wasn't going to budge an inch on his proposed budget.

The folks elected to the Ohio State House and Ohio State Senate, however, recognized political suicide when they saw it.

In the end, the state cut 84 million dollars from the budget of Ohio's 251 library systems; painful, yes, but not as devastating as Strickland's proposed 227 million dollars. The state-wide protests, held in front of libraries and in Columbus on the steps of the capital, not only made noise, they got attention. National news coverage. I heard, although I have no source for this, that the telephone systems at the state house were so overwhelmed with the number of citizens calling to protest that they crashed a few times during this period.

So yea, I'm feeling pretty damn triumphant, and proud. A little of my faith in our system of government has been restored; they listened. It worked just like it ought to. Our elected officials work for us after all!

Power to the people, y'all!

Or....not.

After about two solid weeks of the lower dose of anti-depressants, I'm ready to declare the experiment a failure. I'm overwhelmed, super-tired, and not particularly cheerful.

But this isn't supposed to be easy, and getting ON the meds was tough, too. They take about 6 weeks to work their way into your system, although I don't understand the whys of that, since you take them every damn day. So the "I'll show you" side of my personality wants to stick with it partly in the belief that it will get better and partly to prove to myself that I can. Lowering the dose is never going to be easier than in the summer; trying this in the depths of winter would be catastrophic. I can picture that resulting in getting back to the point where losing my car keys is major meltdown time.

If I give up on it now, therefore, I won't try again until next summer.

I keep saying that I'm OK with the fact that I might need the meds for the rest of my life, but maybe I'm not OK with that. Because I don't think it is all right to need the maximum daily dosage for the rest of my life, really. What would happen to me if I was living in the times before these drugs were so readily available? Would I have been one of those people that friends and family would natter to pull myself up by my own bootstraps? Or would I have been one of the millions that suffered in silence, quietly choosing a handful of sleeping pills over the stigma of admitting that I had a mental illness? Thank goodness for the modern age, and for the meds.

Stepping down the dose is at the suggestion of my doctor, although we did not discuss the ramifications of it. He told me to step it down by 150 mg, which means that I take one 300 mg pill a day instead of one 300 mg and one 150 mg daily. I didn't expect it to be difficult. I didn't expect it to be such a roller-coaster. If nothing worthwhile is easy, though, I don't know why I thought this would be simple.

I should, in the interest of science, give it the same 6 weeks I gave the meds to start working. Give my body that time to adjust to alteration (again) of my brain's chemistry. But I'm sticking with the adage of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," and going back to the 450 mg dosage. The negative effects of lowering the amount that I take each day is not worth it to me right now.

One of my personality traits that I really don't like is that I'm indecisive. It is good to be able to look at a problem from many sides, to be able to see all the benefits of a particular decision, but not good to waffle between two or three options. I'm not fence-sitting on this one, and I'm going to try to stop fence-sitting in the rest of my life, too. June 1, 2010 seems like a good date to me to try again.