Regular readers of this blog know that I have been clamoring for this for a long time.
So in response, I say this.
Dear Barack,
I hope that you have learned a tough political lesson; namely, the one that states a candidate must go for his opponent's jugular as quickly as possible. Nice guys finish fifth.
Imagine what it could have been like if you hadn't waited to fall a full thirty points behind Hillary Clinton before going on the attack. Now your attacks seem motivated out of desperation rather than out of righteous indignation. If you had reacted this way back during your honeymoon period with voters, imagine where you might stand now in the polls.
Please now allow me a brief five minutes of I-Told-You-So.
P.S. The consolation gift you will now receive is a copy of a book called All The King's Men
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Irony, at a Base Level
Oh-my-fucking-God.
The Klan is protesting itself.
Or rather, one Klan group is set to protest another. This is another one of those "Only in Alabama" sort of events.
The protest is set to occur in Cullman, an area of Northwestern Alabama which is a lily-white small town that has been well known for its history of past racial intolerance. Thirty years ago, it was a sad fact of reality that Black folk better pray their car didn't break down anywhere near the place.
I think it stems from jealousy, myself. Can't Grand Dragons get along?
What if we had a gay version of the Klan?
Oh wait, Dave Chapelle already thought of that.
File under wrong, wrong, wrong.
On a related tangent, I hate Illinois Nazis.
The Klan is protesting itself.
Or rather, one Klan group is set to protest another. This is another one of those "Only in Alabama" sort of events.
The protest is set to occur in Cullman, an area of Northwestern Alabama which is a lily-white small town that has been well known for its history of past racial intolerance. Thirty years ago, it was a sad fact of reality that Black folk better pray their car didn't break down anywhere near the place.
I think it stems from jealousy, myself. Can't Grand Dragons get along?
What if we had a gay version of the Klan?
Oh wait, Dave Chapelle already thought of that.
File under wrong, wrong, wrong.
On a related tangent, I hate Illinois Nazis.
Halloween War Games
Tomorrow is Halloween, which contrary to what some may believe, ISN'T a pagan holiday. I just thought I might clear that up, because I have my reasons. I still often hear people, particularly right-wing ultra-religious wingnuts, utter that tried-and-true condemnation of an utterly harmless holiday.
Halloween, cynically speaking, is a holiday that keeps the profits up for candy companies. It's also a way for people to scare other people in socially acceptable ways. It also provides needed impetus for people to dress up like Zombies without being thought of as hopelessly eccentric and at war with conventional concepts of reality. But most importantly, it's another in a series of good reasons to get sick drunk at a party. At said party, it is imperative to lock yourself and your latest sexual partner in the one available bathroom of a house where said party is being thrown. This forces everyone to have to relieve their urination situations out on the front lawn. This also encourages you to take silly risks like having sex in a sink. Assuming the sink doesn't give way, flooding the bathroom with water from burst pipes, then all should be well.
When Comrade Kevin was a boy, he knew to avoid the houses of the Pentecostal sorts who instead of leaving candy, left a bowl full of religious literature. He also knew to avoid the houses of certain evasive sorts of folks (usually old people) who didn't want to deal with us urchins and instead left bowls of bad candy, like say butterscotch, out on the front porch. A silly move by any stretch of the means, mostly because this meant that problem kids usually took the liberty of taking the entire bowl and dumping it into their Hefty Hefty cinch sack already chock full o' candy.
I plotted for Halloween like a mini-fucking Napoleon. My friends and I schemed weeks prior to get the maximum amount of candy. We would start our rounds early, when it was still light out, not quit until late at night, and have a good four months worth of candy to show for our efforts. One memorable Halloween, we trick o' treated for five hours straight and I had HALF a garbage bag full of sugary sweets.
If lolcatz had been popular then, my personal lolcat would have stated:
OH HAI! I BE TRICKERZ TREATINGZ! I WANTZ CANDIEZ!
Halloween, cynically speaking, is a holiday that keeps the profits up for candy companies. It's also a way for people to scare other people in socially acceptable ways. It also provides needed impetus for people to dress up like Zombies without being thought of as hopelessly eccentric and at war with conventional concepts of reality. But most importantly, it's another in a series of good reasons to get sick drunk at a party. At said party, it is imperative to lock yourself and your latest sexual partner in the one available bathroom of a house where said party is being thrown. This forces everyone to have to relieve their urination situations out on the front lawn. This also encourages you to take silly risks like having sex in a sink. Assuming the sink doesn't give way, flooding the bathroom with water from burst pipes, then all should be well.
When Comrade Kevin was a boy, he knew to avoid the houses of the Pentecostal sorts who instead of leaving candy, left a bowl full of religious literature. He also knew to avoid the houses of certain evasive sorts of folks (usually old people) who didn't want to deal with us urchins and instead left bowls of bad candy, like say butterscotch, out on the front porch. A silly move by any stretch of the means, mostly because this meant that problem kids usually took the liberty of taking the entire bowl and dumping it into their Hefty Hefty cinch sack already chock full o' candy.
I plotted for Halloween like a mini-fucking Napoleon. My friends and I schemed weeks prior to get the maximum amount of candy. We would start our rounds early, when it was still light out, not quit until late at night, and have a good four months worth of candy to show for our efforts. One memorable Halloween, we trick o' treated for five hours straight and I had HALF a garbage bag full of sugary sweets.
If lolcatz had been popular then, my personal lolcat would have stated:
OH HAI! I BE TRICKERZ TREATINGZ! I WANTZ CANDIEZ!
Monday, October 29, 2007
Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid
Not like he ever really gets the opportunity to forget this, readership, but Comrade Kevin lives in a fairly conservative part of the county. Alabama middle-class suburban residents often lend their support to Libertarians in times such as these as a sign of rebellion, protest, and dissatisfaction with the current slate of candidates. Their true colors show in times like this, times when they figure they have nothing else to lose.
Forgive me for being blunt, but to these eyes, the libertarian political persuasion is a viewpoint so very close to logic, and yet so far away from sense at the same time. I ought to know this better than most due to the fact I grew up with a libertarian father. Some months back, in a conversation I had with fellow bloggers, someone described Libertarianism as attractive at first glance, that is, of course, until you closely examine the postulates.
I've said this once, and I'll say it again. The irony of many ironies is that most white Alabamians, though they vote GOP, are really libertarians. The idea of small government and limited government interference with one's personal life and affairs are political viewpoints which are quite widespread and popular amongst the masses. In areas like the city in which I live, Hoover, people have enough education to realize this.
The city I live in is more liberal than say, Dog Patch, but far less liberal than any town in a blue state. Suburbia is at least more educated than Podunksville, and so I am grateful for small favors.
Let me tell you, I get down on my hands and knees everyday and give thanks for the fact that I was never raised in the small town South. Scarily enough, this could have very easily been a reality. Had my father gotten his way, I would have spent most of my formative years in a backwoods rural county and I can safely say I would have managed to feel even more isolated, alien, and alone then I did already.
Like David Cross said, "Can you imagine me trying to fit in with a guy named Skeeter?"
Your humble narrator has seen many signs around these here parts that say: "Annoy the Media, Vote Ron Paul 2008." I agree that such an action would definitely annoy the media, if by media you mean Faux News. I'm not exactly sure how the rest of the so-called liberal media would react to a Paul presidency, but I'm not going to even entertain such an silly fantasy.
If I lived in a more liberal part of the country, I might very well see Kucinich stickers thrown up every so few yards as a means of protest. Speaking of which, this Southern boy took a trip to Boston a couple years back in which he encountered absolutely zero W stickers. It was a comforting, yet utterly bizarre experience. Culture shock max factor one.
Comrade Kevin grew up in an area where David Bowie is thought of as a degenerate, the female condom is an exotic concept, vegetables are mushy and over-salted, LGBT folk are either invisible or quietly out, and intercourse is punctuated by a steady diet of missionary, missionary, lather, repeat, rinse.
That being said, I was very naive, uninformed, and unaware of the sort of minutia that characterizes radical leftist activist politics until I reached my earlier twenties. Rest assured that my eyes were opened. Here, the left is easily stereotyped as passive, weak, peace-loving, meek, and generally so mild as to be inconsequential. Radical politics I associated with a time long since past. I wasn't aware the left had the same kind of ugly anger to it that I associated with a few batshit crazy ultra-conservative wingnuts who didn't celebrate Halloween.
Instead, this is what I discovered.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
More Songs
Sometimes the medication I take for sleep prevents me from having the concentration necessary to write for any length of time, so here's another song.
This song is pretty timely, actually. Particularly the lyrics of the first stanza.
This song is pretty timely, actually. Particularly the lyrics of the first stanza.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Hope Nobody Hears
I did about thirty takes of this before I was satisfied. It's a tricky song with a clever little key shift about three-fourths of the way through.
Saturday Nonsense
This is why I had the nickname "Square Root" as a child.
Nude taking picture of self in mirror.
by Comrade Kevin.
2007, digital.
The digital camera produced such an interesting blur, I figured I might as well.
My friend Camilla Taylor has a whole STREAM of such images. Camilla's Photostream.
Friday, October 26, 2007
This is Why I Love Poetry
I love the way this poem keeps the reader in a slight sense of "where is this going?" before it reaches its inevitable conclusion. In my opinion, this poem must have been written by Ted Hughes in the immediate aftermath of Sylvia Plath's suicide. The images are so fresh, the pain so obviously close at hand.
Yet, since the author has passed on, we might never know for sure. Do we really need to, though? Sometimes forming one's own conclusions and coming up with individual interpretation without the Cliff's Notes quick capsule summary in review is more fun.
*Still, it would be nice to have gotten Hughes' perspective on this. He died leaving so much unsaid. The pain must have been unbearable.
The Blue Flannel Suit
I had let it all grow. I had supposed
It was all OK. Your life
Was a liner I voyaged in.
Costly education had fitted you out.
Financiers and committees and consultants
Effaced themselves in the gleam of your finish.
You trembled with the new life of those engines.
That first morning,
Before your first class at College, you sat there
Sipping coffee. Now I know, as I did not,
What eyes waited at the back of the class
To check your first professional performance
Against their expectations. What assessors
Waited to see you justify the cost
And redeem their gamble. What a furnace
Of eyes waited to prove your metal. I watched
The strange dummy stiffness, the misery,
Of your blue flannel suit, its straitjacket, ugly
Half-approximation to your idea
Of the proprieties you hoped to ease into,
And your horror in it. And the tanned
Almost green undertinge of your face
Shrunk to its wick, your scar lumpish, your plaited
Head pathetically tiny.
You waited,
Knowing yourself helpless in the tweezers
Of the life that judged you, an I saw
The flayed nerve, the unhealable face-wound
Which was all you had for courage.
I saw what gripped you, as you sipped.
Were terrors that had killed you once already.
Now, I see, I saw, sitting, the lonely
Girl who was going to die.
That blue suit
A mad, execution uniform,
Survived your sentence. But then I sat, stilled
Unable to fathom what stilled you
As I looked at you, as I am stilled
Permanently now, permanently
Bending so briefly at your open coffin.
Yet, since the author has passed on, we might never know for sure. Do we really need to, though? Sometimes forming one's own conclusions and coming up with individual interpretation without the Cliff's Notes quick capsule summary in review is more fun.
*Still, it would be nice to have gotten Hughes' perspective on this. He died leaving so much unsaid. The pain must have been unbearable.
The Blue Flannel Suit
I had let it all grow. I had supposed
It was all OK. Your life
Was a liner I voyaged in.
Costly education had fitted you out.
Financiers and committees and consultants
Effaced themselves in the gleam of your finish.
You trembled with the new life of those engines.
That first morning,
Before your first class at College, you sat there
Sipping coffee. Now I know, as I did not,
What eyes waited at the back of the class
To check your first professional performance
Against their expectations. What assessors
Waited to see you justify the cost
And redeem their gamble. What a furnace
Of eyes waited to prove your metal. I watched
The strange dummy stiffness, the misery,
Of your blue flannel suit, its straitjacket, ugly
Half-approximation to your idea
Of the proprieties you hoped to ease into,
And your horror in it. And the tanned
Almost green undertinge of your face
Shrunk to its wick, your scar lumpish, your plaited
Head pathetically tiny.
You waited,
Knowing yourself helpless in the tweezers
Of the life that judged you, an I saw
The flayed nerve, the unhealable face-wound
Which was all you had for courage.
I saw what gripped you, as you sipped.
Were terrors that had killed you once already.
Now, I see, I saw, sitting, the lonely
Girl who was going to die.
That blue suit
A mad, execution uniform,
Survived your sentence. But then I sat, stilled
Unable to fathom what stilled you
As I looked at you, as I am stilled
Permanently now, permanently
Bending so briefly at your open coffin.
The Bipolar Soul
If any of you ever wanted to know what it's like to be bipolar, then watch this.
The first part is hypomania personified, well, perfectly. The second part shows foulest depression of the worst sort.
If we think of both conditions being tied closely to serotonin levels in the brain, then you can see that lots of serotonin = euphoria and not enough = depression.
The clip shows the effects of Ecstasy on "average" humans and granted this has some degree of romanticized gloss being that it's been pulled from a movie. Don't take this as anything scientific but do enjoy the brilliant witticisms. Oscar Wilde is a much better narrative companion than any random pedagogical stranger.
The first part is hypomania personified, well, perfectly. The second part shows foulest depression of the worst sort.
If we think of both conditions being tied closely to serotonin levels in the brain, then you can see that lots of serotonin = euphoria and not enough = depression.
The clip shows the effects of Ecstasy on "average" humans and granted this has some degree of romanticized gloss being that it's been pulled from a movie. Don't take this as anything scientific but do enjoy the brilliant witticisms. Oscar Wilde is a much better narrative companion than any random pedagogical stranger.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Life Imitates Art Imitates Life
I didn't post much the past couple days, so I figured I'd post two today. I have to be productive when I have the opportunity, or I might not get it again.
President Pryor
Do click on the link above. This is the best quality clip that YouTube has to offer. I didn't want to subject you to an inferior quality truncated clip. Embedding on this video was disabled by the user's request and I can understand why. Parts of this clip could easily be used to flame the fires of race-related flame wars. That's not at all what I'm gunning for in this post.
Richard Pryor's demeanor in this skit, undertaken intentionally in an over the top and shockingly informal manor, plays for laughs. Hard to believe there was a time when Presidential press conferences were dull affairs punctuated by stuffed shirts. They may still be dull, but for the past almost seven years they have been full of W's verbal gaffes, earthy comments, and brazen belligerence.
________________________________
I find it tragic that certain people actually believe an Obama Presidency would result in something like this. This sort of fear is so pervasive that it has been exhaustively personified in media, dating back as long as the moving image itself--as far back as The Birth of a Nation.
President Pryor
Do click on the link above. This is the best quality clip that YouTube has to offer. I didn't want to subject you to an inferior quality truncated clip. Embedding on this video was disabled by the user's request and I can understand why. Parts of this clip could easily be used to flame the fires of race-related flame wars. That's not at all what I'm gunning for in this post.
Richard Pryor's demeanor in this skit, undertaken intentionally in an over the top and shockingly informal manor, plays for laughs. Hard to believe there was a time when Presidential press conferences were dull affairs punctuated by stuffed shirts. They may still be dull, but for the past almost seven years they have been full of W's verbal gaffes, earthy comments, and brazen belligerence.
________________________________
I find it tragic that certain people actually believe an Obama Presidency would result in something like this. This sort of fear is so pervasive that it has been exhaustively personified in media, dating back as long as the moving image itself--as far back as The Birth of a Nation.
On Voting
Thanks for all the well-wishes. I'm feeling a touch better today--good enough to blog at any rate. If I'm up to the task, I will drift over to your own blogs and leave you comments.
_____________________________
A little over a year from now, we will FINALLY be casting ballots to elect the next President of the United States. Yes, it really is that long from now.
When it arrives we will all go down on our hands and knees.
Dear God, thank you! Thank Jesus! Thank Buddha! Thank Muhammad! Thank somebody!
Those of you who are, like me, already sick and tired of the 2008 Campaign need not worry. We only have twelve more months of this! Oy. Someone ought to coin a new adjective for this election cycle that cleverly encapsulates how sick and tired the overburdened American public are with the early deluge of hyperbole and histrionic. Which, if current opinion polls are to be trusted, is not really going to be much of a race in the first place.
I read in the British media about a week ago that the 2008 Presidential election has become a kind of "Extended Coronation of the Sun Queen." I agree.
Today I wanted to talk about the importance of voting. Please don't worry that this is going to be some of civic exercise punctuated by a film-strip and a PowerPoint presentation; I am not going to throw a lot of heaviness your way. Instead, I'd like to talk about my own experiences.
I voted for the first time when I was eighteen years old. Slipping under the wire, I barely made the cut-off date in time to be able to cast my ballot in the November general election. How excited I was! How depressingly few of my classmates had the same sense of zeal which I did! I chalked it up to another instance where I was much more in line with older adults and out of step with my peers.
Being a smart child is tough enough. By fourth grade I was reading Thoreau. I would try to explain it to my classmates and their response was often That sounds really smart, Kevin. Now I'm going to go play kickball. Being a smart teenager is worse. For whatever reason or another, adolescent coolness is attached strongly to how carefully you can casually disengage yourself from any behavior your parents might condone, or God forbid, follow. Not caring a whit about anything of substance thus becomes some badge of honor. I wish it were not so.
The only time I've seen a goodly number of people my own age bothering to even show up is for major events like the Presidential Election. The media tends to bemoan the fact that few young people bother to vote, making it almost appear as though they are the sole reason turnout is often so depressingly low. In reality, that's an BIG over-generalization. Though more older adults vote than people in the 18-30 year old demographic, there have been numerous elections where people who supposedly should know better can't be bothered to turn out either.
When I was a Unitarian, I often heard variations of this joke.
Q: What do you call a Unitarian Universalist?
A: An atheist with children.
Maybe it takes having kids of your own to feel some sort of passion for the issues. Maybe when you're raising your own family and are having to bust your ass to provide for your own hungry brood--maybe that's when you buckle down and get serious about issues that affect your life directly.
Then again, think about how many campaign issues are directed only towards older adults, usually with children. Think about how almost every campaign entertains at least one token issue that deals directly with Senior Citizens. In contrast, think about how FEW campaign issues are directed towards single adults, particularly single young adults.
I used to wonder why candidates didn't pay more attention to people my age, and then I realized that they had no reason to. If we made our voices heard and they could actually LOSE elections based on whether we turned out as a bloc, then they might pay us more than cursory lip service. Campaign money is better spent where it can direct influence voters who go to the polls versus just eligible voters in general. T hat's how I perceive of it. There are two kids of voters: those who can and those who do.
I cast my ballot every applicable Tuesday at the polling place which doubles as a Catholic Church most other days of the year. With only a few occasions, I've never had to wait more than two minutes to flash my ID, sign my name to certify I am who I say I am, collect a paper ballot, and then find a quiet place to bubble in letters just like a standardized test. Some people make up their minds when they arrive at the polls; I'm not that sort of person. I've normally decided who I'm going to vote for days, if not weeks before "the day".
In saying this, I make a point to show up for each and every election, no matter how supposedly minor it might be. If I don't vote, it's likely because I was violently ill on election day.
_____________________________
A little over a year from now, we will FINALLY be casting ballots to elect the next President of the United States. Yes, it really is that long from now.
When it arrives we will all go down on our hands and knees.
Dear God, thank you! Thank Jesus! Thank Buddha! Thank Muhammad! Thank somebody!
Those of you who are, like me, already sick and tired of the 2008 Campaign need not worry. We only have twelve more months of this! Oy. Someone ought to coin a new adjective for this election cycle that cleverly encapsulates how sick and tired the overburdened American public are with the early deluge of hyperbole and histrionic. Which, if current opinion polls are to be trusted, is not really going to be much of a race in the first place.
I read in the British media about a week ago that the 2008 Presidential election has become a kind of "Extended Coronation of the Sun Queen." I agree.
Today I wanted to talk about the importance of voting. Please don't worry that this is going to be some of civic exercise punctuated by a film-strip and a PowerPoint presentation; I am not going to throw a lot of heaviness your way. Instead, I'd like to talk about my own experiences.
I voted for the first time when I was eighteen years old. Slipping under the wire, I barely made the cut-off date in time to be able to cast my ballot in the November general election. How excited I was! How depressingly few of my classmates had the same sense of zeal which I did! I chalked it up to another instance where I was much more in line with older adults and out of step with my peers.
Being a smart child is tough enough. By fourth grade I was reading Thoreau. I would try to explain it to my classmates and their response was often That sounds really smart, Kevin. Now I'm going to go play kickball. Being a smart teenager is worse. For whatever reason or another, adolescent coolness is attached strongly to how carefully you can casually disengage yourself from any behavior your parents might condone, or God forbid, follow. Not caring a whit about anything of substance thus becomes some badge of honor. I wish it were not so.
The only time I've seen a goodly number of people my own age bothering to even show up is for major events like the Presidential Election. The media tends to bemoan the fact that few young people bother to vote, making it almost appear as though they are the sole reason turnout is often so depressingly low. In reality, that's an BIG over-generalization. Though more older adults vote than people in the 18-30 year old demographic, there have been numerous elections where people who supposedly should know better can't be bothered to turn out either.
When I was a Unitarian, I often heard variations of this joke.
Q: What do you call a Unitarian Universalist?
A: An atheist with children.
Maybe it takes having kids of your own to feel some sort of passion for the issues. Maybe when you're raising your own family and are having to bust your ass to provide for your own hungry brood--maybe that's when you buckle down and get serious about issues that affect your life directly.
Then again, think about how many campaign issues are directed only towards older adults, usually with children. Think about how almost every campaign entertains at least one token issue that deals directly with Senior Citizens. In contrast, think about how FEW campaign issues are directed towards single adults, particularly single young adults.
I used to wonder why candidates didn't pay more attention to people my age, and then I realized that they had no reason to. If we made our voices heard and they could actually LOSE elections based on whether we turned out as a bloc, then they might pay us more than cursory lip service. Campaign money is better spent where it can direct influence voters who go to the polls versus just eligible voters in general. T hat's how I perceive of it. There are two kids of voters: those who can and those who do.
I cast my ballot every applicable Tuesday at the polling place which doubles as a Catholic Church most other days of the year. With only a few occasions, I've never had to wait more than two minutes to flash my ID, sign my name to certify I am who I say I am, collect a paper ballot, and then find a quiet place to bubble in letters just like a standardized test. Some people make up their minds when they arrive at the polls; I'm not that sort of person. I've normally decided who I'm going to vote for days, if not weeks before "the day".
In saying this, I make a point to show up for each and every election, no matter how supposedly minor it might be. If I don't vote, it's likely because I was violently ill on election day.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Pictures of Fall
Dear Readership,
I was getting myself all angry. A long time ago I realized that I have two options on days like this: lie in bed all day and feel sorry for myself, or push myself to keep going. Naturally, I chose the latter.
This it to say, I have been meaning to leave comments on many of your own individual blogs. Please don't think I don't care about you all and don't read your words on a daily basis. Nothing is more annoying than lurkers, so I do make a point to make my appreciation known.
Fifty or so blogs are bookmarked inside Firefox. I read over about ten earlier today and had every desire to leave substantive, thought-provoking comments like normal. But the words didn't come. It was an effort just to think and my perfectionism reared its ugly head.
A voice entered my head. It said, do what you can. It's your birthday, for God's sake. It doesn't always have to be balls to the wall. Relax.
It's a beautiful day outside, for weirdos like me, at least.
Overcast, dreary, cold, rainy.
I sat outside in the rain and took a few pictures. Enjoy.
I was getting myself all angry. A long time ago I realized that I have two options on days like this: lie in bed all day and feel sorry for myself, or push myself to keep going. Naturally, I chose the latter.
This it to say, I have been meaning to leave comments on many of your own individual blogs. Please don't think I don't care about you all and don't read your words on a daily basis. Nothing is more annoying than lurkers, so I do make a point to make my appreciation known.
Fifty or so blogs are bookmarked inside Firefox. I read over about ten earlier today and had every desire to leave substantive, thought-provoking comments like normal. But the words didn't come. It was an effort just to think and my perfectionism reared its ugly head.
A voice entered my head. It said, do what you can. It's your birthday, for God's sake. It doesn't always have to be balls to the wall. Relax.
It's a beautiful day outside, for weirdos like me, at least.
Overcast, dreary, cold, rainy.
I sat outside in the rain and took a few pictures. Enjoy.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
A Head's Up
Tomorrow is my birthday. I will be old, old, old.
Twenty-seven years old old old. I have reached the point where birthdays are largely anti-climatic affairs that don't grant a person further societal rights. Perhaps I will get lower car insurance, though. That would be worth celebrating. And not by switching to GEICO.
Segue:
I missed you all. I had every intention of attending Blue Gal's salon last night and even logged into Skype early, but then I got a horrific case of the brain zaps.
They are a side effect of a even larger phenomenon doctors call SSRI Discontinuation Syndrome.
Last week, my psychiatrist decided to taper me off of Effexor and put me on a MAOI inhibitor.
I have a three week washout period until I can start the new medications, because if I started them now, then I'd likely get serotonin syndrome.
I'm not feeling especially blogging-inclined at the moment.
This is how I feel right now: haunted, shirtless, and dangerously close to the monitor. I mean, sick.
I live with a chronic illness. Some days are good, some days are bad. I've just learned to delight in the good days and fight through the bad ones. What else can you do? *shrugs* Giving up isn't much of an option. I could throw my hands up in despair and to be honest, I sometimes do feel rather powerless and throw my own private pity parties, but I do what I can every day.
I just hope I don't come across as pandering for sympathy or bitching. This is my life. This is my cross to bear. Tomorrow is another, hopefully better day.
Twenty-seven years old old old. I have reached the point where birthdays are largely anti-climatic affairs that don't grant a person further societal rights. Perhaps I will get lower car insurance, though. That would be worth celebrating. And not by switching to GEICO.
Segue:
I missed you all. I had every intention of attending Blue Gal's salon last night and even logged into Skype early, but then I got a horrific case of the brain zaps.
They are a side effect of a even larger phenomenon doctors call SSRI Discontinuation Syndrome.
Last week, my psychiatrist decided to taper me off of Effexor and put me on a MAOI inhibitor.
I have a three week washout period until I can start the new medications, because if I started them now, then I'd likely get serotonin syndrome.
I'm not feeling especially blogging-inclined at the moment.
This is how I feel right now: haunted, shirtless, and dangerously close to the monitor. I mean, sick.
I live with a chronic illness. Some days are good, some days are bad. I've just learned to delight in the good days and fight through the bad ones. What else can you do? *shrugs* Giving up isn't much of an option. I could throw my hands up in despair and to be honest, I sometimes do feel rather powerless and throw my own private pity parties, but I do what I can every day.
I just hope I don't come across as pandering for sympathy or bitching. This is my life. This is my cross to bear. Tomorrow is another, hopefully better day.
Monday, October 22, 2007
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