bad mental health week...or two

So it wasn't just one of those little stressy recurrences of depression. Not only was it bad, but I had my first experience of delusions, albeit minor. A few times this weekend, waking up or falling asleep, I found myself worrying about mind control of children, accompanied by an image of upside-down red and purple tulips falling like a rainstorm - I suppose this was the delivery system for the mind control agent. Those thoughts showed up about three or four times.

That shit is fairly scary, and told me that it was high time to get my meds managed. I haven't seen a doctor in the year-plus I've been on this health plan because it's a $30 co-pay to see the primary doctor, and then a $50 co-pay to see a specialist. Plus my long-time primary doctor is not in the network. But I picked a new primary doctor today, made an appointment for Monday, and called my old doctor to arrange to get my records.

I need a psych consult, a consult for what seem to be two trigger fingers, and a new set of labs, since my body chemistry is no doubt a mess.

Luckily, work gets slightly easier after tonight. Classes are over until September, so no more late Monday nights. There'll be a lot of work through the end of June, three kinds of end-of-term evals to collect and some fundraising stuff, but July and half of August should be dead. I have ten vacation days coming to me and I'd like to take a full week in July and maybe a few other days. I do need some serious stress relief.

Part of the bad stuff was triggered by another horrible money squeeze last week. Barry was under the impression he would be paid in the middle of last week (when actually it's this Friday), and Verizon suddenly decided that no one can carry any back bill at all, did not notify us, and cut off our TV and internet (and would not reinstate it without full payment). We had zero money and no TV or internet, and really no resources to raise what we needed. So we ended up borrowing from my uncle and aunt, which I loathe doing, although they are very kind and generous and non-judgmental. We asked for $300 (Verizon needed $165), and they sent $500.

This kind of thing kicks up more shit than I can even start to get into. My issues with parental generosity/lack thereof are deep and broad and are making me cry right now.

Needless to say, I found I had no interest in reading riddles by an insecure wealthy actor.  SO not into Big B.

I also found some of my weird self-comforting behavior kicking up, the easiest one to mention being excessive playing of computer games (the really dinky puzzle ones). Another one is sleeping most of the weekend. One other I'm too flat-out embarrassed to mention, but I'll simply say it's been a few years since it kicked up.

Oh, and I pretty much ran out of lorazepam in the middle of this, which is what I take as-needed for anxiety, up to two 2-mg pills per day (this is the generic name of Atavan). Since I'm not seeing a psychiatrist now, it's a bit of a hassle to get it, though I don't do it illegally.

It sucks, it sucks, it sucks. But we had back-to-back functions at work today, and I am off to eat some leftover cheese.

Bad news and good news: Jannah's dog Sasha died last week, one of her two little Yorkies. I don't generally like small dogs, but hers are very sweet. Were. Max still is. The upside is that I'm going to visit over Memorial Day weekend.

I also had lunch last week with a friend from Penguin who doesn't want her name in this blog. Can't blame her. I'll just call her Liz, and say I haven't seen her in nearly a year. We ate Thai food at Qi, and I gave her some raspberry sours in a Hello Kitty tin that I bought at Dylan's Candy Bar.  That Dylan's sure is one dangerous spot if you don't want to be eating candy.

much better now

I was feeling pretty crappy over the weekend. My head kind of ran away with me. I fret too much over the past sometimes, I obsess about the future, and therefore I am miserable in the present. Smart, huh?

So I'm taking the "friend cure." Dinner with Robin tomorrow (plus I plan to take my jewelry to The Village Scandal beforehand).

Barry and I are going for dim sum on Saturday, which is a late valentine's something. Significant gifts don't really happen with us anymore except birthdays, when we do manage something. But to be entirely truthful, I'm a little bummed that I didn't get flowers yesterday, not from anyone. Maybe I'm a little old-fashioned, but I love getting flowers. Kama Sutra says you should give flowers with your tooth and nail marks in the stems. Call me ancient-fashioned, but I think that's kind of hot.

Monday, a little wine-and-cupcakes get-together for Bob Steiner's 60th birthday. Even though he only lives in Park Slope, it's probably been about 20 years since I've seen him. He's another one I've been in touch with on FB. On top of that, his old summer-camp roomie Ethan Ries is showing up, and I haven't seen Ethan since camp (I think I friended him on FB but he doesn't really post and we haven't communicated). Bob and Ethan were each briefly a bit more than a friend to me, but that's how camp was.

A week from Friday, I am off to Yardley for a weekend with Jannah, which is always so wonderful. We will just be taking it very easy, talking about everything, and cooking and eating and partaking of our favorite herbal remedy, and we usually watch a movie at night. (Oh man! I gotta bring an Indian movie with me! Of the 11 Indian movies that I actually have on DVD, all but one are Amitabh, big shock. Jannah will love him, I think. Which movie to bring? I'm thinking Don, and maybe also Nishabd, for younger Amitabh and older Amitabh. Quien es mas guapo?) Anyway, I'm going myself; I go about three times a year, and Barry comes with me maybe once. So it's very serous girl-time. Jannah is bummed out about something (either husband or difficult teenage daughter), and said I should bring a lot of earrings, so I guess she's in a buying mood. (No matter how much I give her, which is always quite a bit, she wants to buy more.) I always feel so great after a weekend there: lots of talk-time, a slower pace, laughing, sitting out back when weather permits. She sometimes uses my visits as an excuse to invite a bunch of folks over, and by this time (I've known her 8 or 9 years now), I know her friends pretty well. They're very eclectic, mostly quite smart, and comfortable to be around. If I'm lucky, I'll get to see John and Linda Andrews; I first met Jannah at a party at their house. Love them. Love Jannah.

So yeah, I already feel better to have so much friend-time scheduled, and of course my online posse also does my heart good. I've gotten a little less absorbed in FB and Twitter and such, although I've been watching a lot of music on YouTube and posted quite a few videos on FB.

And speaking of online communities...Amitabh is still in the hospital. He was doing very well for the first day, but did not go home after 24 hours as expected. He started to have pain, then more pain, and then it was determined that the pain was not from the surgical incisions but from something else, so he's having more CT scans, x-rays, tests and so on. He's been blogging and tweeting through all of it, but his blog was very brief today, and he actually tweeted something mildly angry, which I've never seen him do before. It was something along the lines of "Anyone who is asking me to reply personally right now is being very inconsiderate!" More cranky than angry, maybe. He's is not doing well. The EF are extremely freaked out. And this isn't just the FmXt (same as EF) that comments on the blog, about 250-300 people per day. This is also the people who read the blog but don't comment, and I have no idea what kind of page hits he gets.  This is also the (wait for it...) TwFmXt (figure it out), the two million plus people who follow him on Twitter. Then lets add in the people who aren't online and only get their news from radio, TV, and newspapers. There are a lot of freaked-out people out there.

As far as the blog EF...all of the religious people are getting really religious. (Most Hindus, maybe some Muslims, and a couple of Jews - also an astrologer.) The non-religious in-love-with-you ladies are somewhat hysterical, and offer to come to the hospital (some from overseas) and help with anything. Everyone else is just a little on-edge and frantic. Amitabh reports his his discomfort pretty bluntly, and the blog hears more detail than the Twitter followers. He doesn't name or detail any conditions, but we always know how he feels. He reports mild worry, but I think he's a bad liar. I think he's scared.

The blog EF definitely consider him a friend. He treats us like friends. He's at least skimming the comments, because he never fails to wish happy birthdays, wedding congratulations, get-wells and condolences. He mentions certain of us here and there, and every so often replies to about 40 comments. It's not an equal relationship we have with him, but it's also not entirely one-sided.

But enough about Amitabh for now. Check this out:

I don't want to say when this was taken because I am lately a little self-conscious about my age. I refuse to explain why that is. In this picture (which Robin took, in her old apartment), my hair was still naturally brown. I started to go grey when I was about 25, so I'm a young kitty here, 23 or 24. I do not appear to be wearing a speck of makeup. I dressed a different kind of weird than the other girls my age, and I dressed fairly fearlessly.

Video time! (no Indian ones today.)

The extremely great Emily Kaitz, singing a cougar song before anyone used the word "cougar." For many years, I had a cassette of a performance she did with The Dysfunctionells in the early 90s. Met her once. Very shy. But her songs are great and I love her voice. She's pretty low-profile. A couple of her songs have been recorded by The Austin Lounge Lizards and Trout Fishing in America, which is slightly less low-profile than Emily. I really try not to be an asshole hipster about obscure music and bands, but the truth is that I was truly truly into some really fringey music for a lot of years, most of which radiated out from The Holy Modal Rounders and Michael Hurley.

I'm not gonna scare anyone with the Rounders just yet, because they're something other than an acquired taste. It's more like, you have to be born with a genetic abnormality to like them, and the first time you hear them, you get it immediately and become deeply into them. If you don't have that predisposition, you just go, "they suck," and nothing will ever change your mind.

Michael Hurley is a far gentler vice:

Michael (and also Dave Reisch, playing bass here) are serious old-school country hippies. I met Michael (generally known as Snock) many years ago, and I used to see him every time he was in New York. Despite his relative obscurity, he was one of my major musical idols, and I did get to spend a little quality time with him on a couple of occasions. Way back when we both still drank, we were both at a party at Peter Stampfel's, and Snock and I stood and talked and drank a huge amount of red wine for about two hours. I cannot remember a thing we talked about. And maybe fifteen years later, he was in town gigging, possibly with Stampfel or The Du-Tels (Stampfel and Gary Lucas), and for some reason - maybe killing time before soundcheck? - we ended up going out to eat pirogi at a Polish restaurant in the east village, just the two of us. Michael's a good guy. but I find it hard to connect with those DEEP country hippies. Even at my most relaxed, I'm a little too urban. Dave Reisch lives in an old school bus on top of a mountain in Oregon. Which is not to say that I don't have mutual warmth with some of these guys.

Oh, all right.

So now you either love this or you think I'm crazy for liking such sucky music.

The above album, of course, is way old, and I didn't hear it until many, many years after it was released. Here are Steve and Peter the way I knew them:

And if I do not stop thinking about those days right now, I will get myself into a dark mood once again. Good night.

I take it back/how did you all get here?

That woman who was driving me crazy?  I'm just going to let it be.  Sometimes I'm a little oversensitive and see a slight or attack when none is intended.

I love to read the "stats" on this blog, although I'm not really clear on what they all mean or indicate, especially the part about "referring sites" and "referring URLs" and "traffic sources."  It's frustrating, because the part I can't quite get is how people are getting here.  They don't seem to keep stats for my keywords.  But I can say this:  I seem to be getting read more.  Double-digit daily pageviews (say that ten times fast) are new.  I absolutely don't get how or why I'm getting readers in Russia -- but hello, people in Russia!  And especially hello, people in India!  Considering that I've had a passion for Bollywood for all of two months, I think it's way cool that I'm attracting even a teeny-tiny bit of attention in India.

I can't figure out how to get people to this blog, although I've done better with this than getting people to follow me on Twitter.  I used to send my email with a signature file that had the web address of this blog, but I realized that I email quite a few people whom I don't really want here (e.g., my dad and stepmother).  It's listed on Facebook and Twitter (although the Twitter link led to the disastrous recent event of my oversharing being read by exactly the wrong person).  I know that a few of my personal friends do come here (hello, personal friends!); and then there was the friend I met through this blog who turned out to be my wife-in-law!  (Hello, Harriet!)  Anyway, you are all very welcome here, and I appreciate your taking the time to visit and read...since I'm kind of over-thinky and neurotic and obsessive.  But hey, we all have our shit.

obsession?

Even if Barry does think that Bollywood movies are good for me, it doesn't mean I don't have an unhealthy obsession.  But I'm starting to learn that I'm not necessarily the best judge of my mental state -- it came to me via analysis, which would mean I'm spending my money wisely. 

I've mentioned, I think, that I enjoy reading AB's blog and that there's a community of around 300 people who are daily commentors.  (The interface here marks the latter word as misspelled with either -er or -or.)  And I'm starting to see some really icky obsessiveness there.  I think that the people who call him "a god" need to get a life, or perhaps a more conventional god.  And there are clearly some women who are very much in love with him, or think they are; crushes aren't a dreadful thing, but sharing them with strangers, and particularly with the object of the crush, seems weird to me.  Some of it makes me kind of queasy, and some of it makes me feel sorry for the people involved.  AB is kind to and patient with them all, but I wonder what he really thinks about some of those folks.  If he's truly as spiritual as he seems, maybe he doesn't judge them -- which would make him a way better person than I.

That having been said...here is a recent find on YouTube:

I think this is really funny, and the ponytail is kind of cute.

And one more:

This is an actual American-style music video, not a movie clip.  Adnan Sami is a Canadian of Pakistani descent, I believe, and living in Mumbai.  I have no idea what this song means, but I like it and the two of them are cute together.

Pogo and other addictions

I was wondering the other night if all of the so-called addictions -- alcoholism, drug addiction, compulsive debting, gambling, and all the rest -- aren't often or always simply the hypomanic phase of Bipolar II. Bipolar II is a mild form of Bipolar disorder, what used to be called manic-depressive. In Bipolar II, the depression and anxiety are severe, but the mania is a little milder, what is called hypomania. It's characterized by things like obsessiveness with new interests, overspending, and hypersexuality. Maybe that's why people who are addicted to one thing will often become addicted to another.

All depressed women know how to play Solitaire, I told my husband the other day. I don't even know who taught me. Probably another depressed woman in my family. I'm an old hand at it. For about ten months, I've been playing games at a site called Pogo, which is what they call a "casual gaming site." Apparently these are very popular with women, as opposed to those online roleplaying dungeon whatevers that boys seem to like. Pogo has things like card games and word games and puzzles; also, casino games. You win and lose tokens, which can be exchanged for sweepstakes entries. It costs nothing to play, but for something like $25 a year, you can use the site ad-free.

I have a handful of games I like to play, mostly puzzles and word games, and I play them every day in the same order, with various rules for how long or how many times play each. I played the casino games for a while but got kind of bored with them. (I've actually gone to real casinos a handful of times and only played slots, but at times felt a little too into it.)

Like all of my other strange little obsessions and habits, it seems to calm and relax me.

I actually got a small publicity job, trying to get a book blurb through one of my few remaining good contacts on behalf of the good former boss who hired me (as opposed to the bad one who fired me). I had to write an e-mail, basically, and will get a bonus if we get a blurb. It was nice to be asked, and I still seem to have my chops.

Lately, I see some of the smarter people I've known turning up as experts on TV shows and in documentaries. Recently, I was watching an old American Experience about John Dillinger, and one of the experts was Professor Claire Bond Potter, whom I knew as a graduate student in history when I worked at the NYU history department. Today, I watched a show about Folkways Record and the talking head was someone from summer camp, Richard Carlin, who wrote a book about the label and is a music editor and writer. I'm not an expert on much, but I'm awfully opinionated.

My jewelry-making stuff is still packed away, and I miss working with it. I'm subscribed to a beading magazine now, and I feel like some of the styles and trends are passing me by, though I'm rarely slavish about jewelry fashions. I just like trying new things.

One night recently, I watched a couple of those fascinating new shows about hoarders. The next day, I watched a show about "pickers" -- antiquers who travel around looking for old houses and barns where they can pick through "junk" to try to find treasures. The pickers visited some collectors who seemed to me to be just a whisper away from being hoarders. And are the pickers perhaps future hoarders? They almost seemed to have that hoarder mentality: "Oh, someone will want this sometime." "This could be used for something." "This is good stuff." At times, the only difference between some of the collectors and the hoarders is that the collectors had all nice stuff and they was often some sense to the arrangement, but their homes were almost as cluttered and dysfunctional/non-functional as the hoarders'.

My Dad and Mary came to town last week and took us out to lunch at the Second Avenue Deli, in lieu of Passover. It was a rare treat -- for them because they're actually good and generally don't eat this stuff, and for us because most of our local delis are not quite as good. It was actually kind of fun and informal, and about as good as deli gets. And probably a month's worth of sodium for the whole hypertensive crew. But good tongue, corned beef and pastrami are worth it, once in a while.