Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts

Aug 10, 2010

I've got my laptop for pleasure and my guitar for pain...

Pteranodons are not dinosaurs Who knew?
I do know, however, that pteranodon screeches practiced in the car alarm the driver.

I like having my car to myself. I almost never have my car to myself.

I regulate my mood through music. Usually kid-inappropriate music.
I also regulate my mood through chocolate and booze. Both of which are too caloric to eat/drink to levels which will functionally elevate my spirits. (Heh, booze, spirits, get it?) Not to mention, using any substance to regulate one's mood is probably a bad idea.
Thus, my mood.

I hate my job but I can't gripe about it to Mr. PPG because he gets depressed that he doesn't make enough money so that I don't have to work. (This, mind you, is (sincerely) not my intention but an inevitable result.)

Where was I going with this? I don't remember. Oh well, tomorrow is also a day filled with wet underwear.

~~
Jay Brannan, from the Goddamned album. As opposed to the goddamned album. Which it certainly isn't. He's coming to Portland/Seattle and a bunch of other places that aren't near me. Go see him if they're near you. Great voice. Great lyrics. Great use of rhythm for emphasis.

Feb 22, 2010

Like the Swallow

I've been debating for a while about this post. Whether I really had the guts to begin to talk about it, even to begin to think about it. Whether I really needed to work it out for myself or just I could let it keep sleeping, hidden under the surface. I think I need to... even though it's not the sort of thing I normally talk about. I mean, who really wants the darker parts of themselves on display? So, if you're looking for a cheerful, ain't life cute post, today ain't the day. (May I suggest LOLCats instead?) But if you don't mind digging in my psyche with me, come on along.

First and foremost, I'm an adrenaline junkie. Most pilots are. Even when I'm in total control of the aircraft, that adrenaline rush of landing, the kiss of tires on tarmac is beyond compare. I like speed - the faster the better. This is not to say I don't have common sense. I understand the need to control that demand for faster, higher, farther for the sake of others.

Living on that kind of edge is not a place for mothers. It's not fair to my children to put myself at risk like that. As long as there are lives that depend on me, it's my responsibility to put them first.

But I crave the danger. And it's not enough to speed or fly. There's a part of me that wants to be dangerous. That is dangerous. This is the part that lives deepest within. The part that screams with the need to express physical rage. The part that blinds that common sense. The calculating cruelty that I cannot seem to excise from my soul. Part demon, part merciless avenging angel.

I have no outlet for that part of me. Neither my vocations nor my avocations allow for violence. I am trapped: by my life, by my love, by myself. I'm fat, clumsy, and middle-aged; when I see my reflection as I exercise, I realize my only danger to others is if I sit on them. I'm hardly going to take up being an assassin or some such at this point in my life yet there is a deep part of me that needs to let that avenging angel soar.

In a few years, when all the kids are in school, I want to learn to sword fight. Yes, it's a useless skill (unless, of course, there's an apocalypse rendering ammunition impossible to come by - then it might be useful) but it calls to me. There are times I wonder whether another lifetime saw me metal-clad and armed. I don't know whether this "pretend" dangerousness will be enough to let the angel rest more quietly, keep the demon locked away.

It scares me, the need. Even as I physically crave the danger, the craving scares me.
Who am I to need that? Logically, it makes no kind of sense. Neither my place in life, nor my faith in God permits it. If I am to trust God, I am where I should be. And where I am distinctly precludes walking the edge.

On a wagon, bound for market
there's a calf that is born to die.
High above him, there's a swallow
winging swiftly through the sky.

How the winds are laughing, they laugh with all their might,
laugh and laugh the whole day through and half the summer's night.

"Stop complaining," said the farmer,
"Who told you a calf to be?
Why don't you have wings to fly with
like the swallow so proud and free."

How the winds are laughing, they laugh with all their might,
laugh and laugh the whole day through and half the summer's night.

Calves are easily bound and slaughtered,
never knowing the reasons why.
But whoever treasures freedom,
like the swallow, must learn to fly.

How the winds are laughing, they laugh with all their might,
laugh and laugh the whole day through and half the summer's night.

Mar 31, 2009

Don't Get Around Much Anymore

Missed the Saturday dance

It's been a little crazy here. We got John's dad buried then John went to Miami. Then I went to NY to do a jewelry show. Now we're heading into Holy Week with loads of rehearsals this week and next. I'm still sick. It's been, what, 7 weeks now? 8? But, hey, I'm out of the first trimester as of last Saturday at least, even if I can't breathe.

Heard they crowded the floor

So, I was told a week ago Sunday that my hours at work are being cut 25%. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to still have a job but I'm just not exactly sure how the mortgage is going to get paid without that $500. And what kind of galls me is that the leadership isn't cutting their hours, nosirrreebob. I did the bills today (and isn't that always a party and a half; I can't even drink afterward these days!). The medical bills from the pregnancy are starting to come in. $600 this month. In order to pay on the plastic, I had to pay one of the medical bills with plastic. How seriously fucked up is that?* But, hey, that puts us $600 more toward the $2500 deductible after which all is covered.

(*Just so that everyone knows, the bulk of our credit card debt is from a surprise $7700 tax bill and subsequent doubling of our estimated quarterly taxes (basically, we had $12,000 due to the IRS within 2 weeks of finding out about it) and not from big screen TVs, unnecessary clothes, or fancy cars - I am pleased to report that both cars are paid for, not so pleased to report that our 24" TV (the only TV in the house) is starting to develop a weird line in the middle, and distinctly embarrassed that I've had to stop wearing my tennis shoes out because they're just too holey. We had a nice cushion - that proverbial 3 months all the planners talk about - when he went into his own practice but, funny, how quickly that gets eroded when your income gets cut in half.)

So he's been pushing me to donate more to charity. I'm not exactly sure where he thinks it's going to come from. I had to lay it on the line for him today. I don't like having to do it. He internalizes it and beats on himself for not "providing" better. In fact, I absolutely hate having to do it. He gets depressed about the credit card debt and I always feel like he's blaming me (though I am no more a spendthrift than he is!) simply because I'm telling him what he doesn't want to hear. It's frustrating because I feel like I can't talk to him about it yet I can't talk to anyone else about it either because that upsets him too.

Couldn't bear it without you


Life isn't all bad though - my sister, God bless her, hosted a jewelry party - the proceeds of which should pay much of my jewelry business's expenses for the year. She also, bless her double and her children too!, cut my hair (with her son's round nosed school scissors, even) into a cute little 'do that is a vast improvement over the "D.W. haircut" I sported until she got at me.

I'm looking forward to Holy Week and the Stabat Mater in particular. I really wish I could find a way to record at least my aria. I'd love to hear it - you can never hear yourself properly when you sing.

John's mom appears to be holding up well. She's been moved into a smaller assisted living apartment where, provided the stock market doesn't fall too much further, she should be able to stay without a problem. I was going to call her to come visit tomorrow but Katie threw up tonight so I'm not sure I ought to be exposing an elderly woman to that.

Don't get around much anymore...

Thanks for listening.

Jun 12, 2008

Dark Clouds Are Comin' In Like An Army

Soon the sky will open up and disarm me
You will go just like you've gone before
One sad soldier off to war, enemies that only you can see.

Dishes stacked, the table cleared
It's always like the scene of the last supper here
You speak so cryptically that's not news to me
The flood is here it will carry you
And I've got work to do.

Come on home, the team you're hitched to has a mind of its own
But it's just the forces of your past you've fought before
Come back here and shut the door
I'm stacking sandbags against the river of your troubles.

There is fire there is lust
Some will trade it all for someone they could trust
There's a bag of silver for a box of nails
It's so simple the betrayal
Though it's known to change the world and what's to come.

Just come on home, the team you're hitched to has a mind of its own
But it's just the forces of your past you've fought before
Don't you recognize them anymore
I'm stacking sandbags against the river of your troubles.

There's the given and the expected
I count my blessings while I eye what I've neglected
Is this for better is this for worse
You're all jammed up and the dam's about to burst.

I hear the owl in the night
I realize that some things never are made right
By some will we string together here
Days to months and months to years
What if everything we have adds up to nothing.

Come on home, the team you're hitched to has a mind of its own
But it's just the forces of your past you've fought before
Come back here and shut the door
I'm stacking sandbags against the river of your troubles.

Indigo Girls | Come On Home from All That We Let In

I'm both people in that song today, oddly enough. I can feel the dark clouds gathering on my horizon. A drop is falling here, a drop there. It's odd that, this time, unlike most, I can feel it coming. I, for once, recognize what is happening. I'm stacking my own sandbags though I have no idea how effective it will be. But, when the deluge comes, at least I will have tried.