Latest and not greatest

Been feeling kinda ugh all week, tired, mentally fucked up. Major panic attack on Thursday at meeting, had to step out. Things off with B. Been calling to no effect. Not sure what is going on. Spent all day in bed yesterday doing nothing. Would have done the same today, but pulled myself up. Head aches constantly. Thoughts of mutilation again while washing up knives. Not great.

What the fu...

Everyone at the meeting today was in a tired, gloomy mood. No idea why, just was. Walked home (with me snouts), did some computer stuff, put on coffee, and just felt like I had to go to bed, which I did. Promptly fell into what felt more like a coma than sleep for four hours and could barely stand up when I was shaken awake. Ick. Nothing special done with meds or anything, so it's not that

Dropping like flies

Sadly, the rehab is getting back a lot of folks who were there during my internment: Mck, Gar, Matt, Big Fat Chris, Rob, I think there were others. Matt is esp. bad as it pretty much means he's off to the big house. Damn. And a lot of them I'd have put in front of me in terms of likely success.

For me? Today I got the blues. Still on pills. tempted to unilatarily double my doses of lexapro and wellbutin, but I don't know if that would help. The seroquel seems to be working pretty well.

S is thinking of leaving: actually, SS homes have pretty much said they've done all they can for him, go back to LA, go into outpatient treatment. I'm no doctor, but I can just tell that's not going to work. But I don't know what would either. And he's right: this is all too expensive (he's dropped $80k so far) I wish I could help him, but... Fuck.

Odd things...

Maybe it was the 70 minute walk back from the meeting, but I ended up feeling like crap. Almost vomity. Not good. Still, got more Lexapro from the nice folks at Walgreens, though they charged me double for it. Hmm. xanax melts better on the tongue with a little water. Anyway, the feeling past, all is good. Goodish.

xanax: your happy holiday pal!

I must admit, I am liking the xanax--it works very subtly but nicely. Basically, things that would normally cause anxiety become totally manageable. All the physical effects (well, most) are gone, and mentally it's just like there's nothing negative going on. I took two yesterday to get through the 14 foot xmas tree building and decorating and felt fine.

Scheduling drugs remains an issue: three times a day just doesn't work for me. And some things should be three times a day during waking hours, others not so. Then there's the two in the morning, one in the afternoon: why don't I just take that one at a time with my three times daily other pill? How much does it matter, really? My one a days, should I take them all at once in the morning, or take one in AM, another with the second round, and the Seroquel at bedtime? I need to figure this all out.

Alright

official word: xanax is kicking my ass. Totally non-comp today. Gonna try to nap it off till 5:00pm or I die, whichever comes first. Pain.

The review got moved, it's going to be an edit instead, new url to follow...

New on Fat Jerry

A rather long review of Jarvis Cocker's solo album.

http://www.fatjerry.com/index.php/site/comments/review_jarvis_cocker_jarvis_incomplete_no_pushee/

better living through... more drugs?

Went to the psych yesterday, he's added a prescription for xanax to the current list. Two tabs a day, when I "feel I need them". Per wikipedia, xanax is not a good thing for those with addictive traits (it's addictive)--I don't know at this time if that "just" means I'd need to take a slow decline from it to come off, or if it's open to abuse. My first controlled substance prescription, woo hoo. Fancy.

Started to change my routine and not load up with seven pills all at once in the AM, four at middayish and another six at bedtime and taking two, wait an hour, take another couple, mix the neurontin intake with the anti-deps.

Feeling wise: still cotton headed, still dizzy, sleep comes and goes. headaches are a complete bastard and sunlight is unbearable even with the 16 Ibuprofen. Can't afford a real pain-killer though, which isn't fun. Whatever damage my liver was getting from booze I can't help but think this must be almost as bad. No real desire to drink (the occasional "a beer would be nice", but no "god I must have a drink"). Shakes are getting better I think, but as soon as I notice them, I go to jelly. The xanax apparently will also make me dizzy, stagger, clumsy: so I'll still look like a drunk. Wonderful.

Keep telling myself that this is all for the good and all this crap should go away in time, and the positive effects should kick in in a few weeks. It's just been a hellish time with a new drug per week and dosage changes etc.

On the bright side, Mike's doctor is keeping him on his anti-deps for at least another month. That's good. Ah well.

New Editorial

Latest editorial piece is up on fat jerry:
http://www.fatjerry.com/index.php/site/comments/off_to_the_psychiatrist_with_pictures_see_comments/

Another day...

The good news: the larger doses of Lexapro and Welliwhatever have not kicked my ass as badly as I thought they might. I'm still dizzy, lacking focus, and way overdone on the painkillers, but I'm making it through the day. AA meeting went fine. Got another one scheduled with Mike for tomorrow, so that's all good. Still working out what schedule to take things on.

Journal

Hmm, so you want a journal do you? How I'm doing post-rehab, on drugs? Alright. I can do that. I think.

Se ond psych visit today. Another ten minute deal. The Wellb. went up to 300mgs a day, increased the Lexapro to 30mgs. Want to get the Seroqul increased, been double dosing with it.

Still listless, no focus, very little energy. Aches and pains are being held at bay by lots (and I do mean lots) of Ibuprofen.

Want to write up "Shooting 'Dust'" for FJ. Nervous about meeting B tomorrow.

Another day...

S'anyway I'm in the start-up phase of a major depression. Yeah-me! I hear you cheer. It's odd. I know (now) that I have clinical depression and I'm not just a mopey fuck who likes his old Smiths records way too much. I'm technically and medically fucked up in the head. Other people, in general, don't get this - in turn, I don't get to have that happy-go-lucky, chitty-chitty bang bang general optimisim about things. Somehow, I don't feel like I got the shitty end of the stick on that deal.

It's odd though, to know that what you feel and what you "go through" are not normal. It's akin, I guess, to finding out that everyone else only lives during daylight and has never seen (no pun intended) night. And to me, this is -normal-. This is just shit as it happens. Contemplating the alternative is almost alien, illogical, impossible. I can't imagine what it would be like to not have a serious funk every few months where you just sit in a chair (or couch or on the floor) and think/do nothing 24x7. Or minor versions of the same that incapacitiate you for minutes or maybe hours. This is normality as I know it. And I can't let anyone else know anything of this: it's a landscape too alien and yet too similar to comprehend. "Cathederal" comes to mind. It's as close as I can think of a metaphor.

Anyway, yes, whiney old me, rattling on about myself, whining, boo-hoo poor me. Break out the Mozza Long Players Mavis, I've got some serious moping to do... Ohhh, reel around the fountain, if I had fifteen minutes with you/I'd make a stew, it might be good, but probably not, especially if I used the beef stock, on accident much less pupose. And Porpoises have miserable fucking lives as well, think about that next time you are / queueing up for tickets to a Beck concert. You never get the good seats anyway, so what's the point? Choose drugs.

RIP George, the Best

I never liked footie all that much, but George was always just great. Probably the most emotionaly generous person on the planet, gave joy to millions, he's the Pat Fish of football.

Blah

So someone posted a really long, stupid, spam piece as a comment - and I can't figure out how to delete the MF. And since my eMail address has changed, I didn't see the other comments till I was prompted to go look.

Anyway, the book is now somewhere in a million boxes of stuff, probably snuggling up to my "Will and Grace" DVD's. I'm having some mental/moral issues with writing more of it out: something the writers behind Will and Grace shpuld have had a long time ago. Ah, when I find it, I probably will. Either that or propose it to NBC as a sitcom "So there's this girl, with no arms, and...!" - you can just see the funny a-coming.

Two sides to every house...

I'm figuring out that a lot of what I'm reading as poor spelling is actually more a form of shorthand. I'll go ahead and expand what I can figure out.

There's no indication of where this T-House was. It appears it was originally a home for retired miners that ran out of funds and was sold to the trust very cheaply. Anyway, on with the show:

"There's two houses in the big hoose - one fur the boys and one fur us. But it's just the one hoose. They try to keep us apart, but canny. Wee Jennty is alwies wi the boys. The teachers'll gee her a doin' (beat her up - ed.) when they find oot, but she doesn'y seem to care."

"We went tae the village today, three of us and Miss H. - she's a soor faced bitch if evar. People stared at us, as all. I stared back. Freaks."

"Me Diary"

My foot still hurts. Just to keep you informed.

But more interestingly, I was sent a gift by my mothers cousin, who is a junk whore and attends house sales almost every day. She remembered a conversation we had about thalidomide (for those who don't know: A sedative and hypnotic drug, C13H10N2O4, withdrawn from general use after it was found to cause severe birth defects when taken during pregnancy. It is sometimes prescribed to treat leprosy. - thank you dictionary.com). Thalidomide was very commonly prescribed in the UK, and while most victims were aborted, still born, or given a merciful death post birth by their doctors others were "viable" and remained alive.

The most common issue with male victims was extreme shortening of the arm, and the lack of an albow joint. Commonly, and crassly, these were referred to as "flipper babies". For females, the most common (in surviving cases) anomaly was absence of arms entirely.

Often, at birth, the parents (strung out on Thal, obviously) agreed to accept the child, only to realise later that they would never be able to deal with the challenges of such a sadly disabled child. Public support founded charity efforts to set up orphanages for the returned kids.

Anyway, the item sent to me is a diary, apparently kept for three to four years by a thalidomide girl in one such "orphanage". It's very, very poorly written (makes my spelling look good, if you can imagine!), and totally fascinating. It's titled (as you might have guessed) "me diary".

I'll share bits and pieces as I read them, right now this is my favourite:

"the scool has loads of teachers - some come for weeks, some stay for months - but the heed has been here forever. Lily peed herself in class today and Nan (the teacher - ed) sent er to the heed. Lily says the heed says Nan should fuk off and clean it up."

Lizzy (the author) is armless, and writes using a pencil held in her mouth. Apparently this is the most common method of writing, with only a few girls using foot writing (and most abstaining altogether, which I can totally understand).

I hurt my foot

Stupidly. Very stupidly. I was sitting having lunch at the Duke of Edinburgh (makers of the famed "biggest fucking martini we can make" and my leg went to sleep without my noticing. As I got up to leave, I thought "Oh well, just walk it off." - walking it off appears to have included a few bone fractures here and there, and rather intense ongoing pain. In the absence of bandages, I've strapped it up with a roll of StrapAll, the self binding strap with the unimaginative name! It hurts like (reading) the dickens.

Catch

The wonderful sandpit that is www.catch.com is back online! Rejoice!

Angst!

So, apropos of nothing, I had a couple of things that really pissed me off on my recent trip. Please feel free to ignore this if you don't care (and heck knows, you have no reason to).

- on the plane out, I watched "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" - it was the most awful, useless, pointless movie I've seen in a long time. Sure, the design was good and the kinda black and white but not film processing was clever, but nothing else worked. I wanted each and every one of the main characters to die. Whoever greenlighted this crap should be forced to watch four episodes of "Everybody Loves Raymond" back to back.

- so move to the "comedy" channel on the plane - guess what? Four episodes of "Everybody Loves Raymond", back to back. I've only ever flipped past this show in the, err, past and it looked like typical entry level sitcom stuff. It's not. It's awful. Every episode has one "joke" in it (much like a Shakespearean comedy) and a retinue of the same gags told time after time after time --- let me be clear here, everyone does -not- love Raymond.

- you don't get free booze on transatlantic flights anymore? Who fucked that gig up?

- on landing, I start down the A77 from Glasgow to Ayr. This used to be a simple dual carriageway affair that did have issues at rush hour and so on, but overall coped OK. It's about a 40 mile drive. Now, however, it's a 40 mile drive consisting of 60% "road renewal" works, with 40 MPH speed limits. Why? Well, road maintenance was outsourced, so now private companies are handling that task - at a "cost plus" ratio. So now most of the trip is single lane, 40 MPH, with police speed checks at each half mile because the way these "improvements" are being paid for is by over zealous speed ticketing. Oh, and why is it all 40 MPH? Because the labourors who knew what the fuck they were doing were let go, and the new Job Centre/Minimum Wage retards don't know that stepping in front of a moving vehicle is "not a good idea".

They estimate they'll be done with this in 2007. I'm done with them already. Did I point out that the local government bodies who used to carry out this work were barred from bidding on it as they had "too much inside knowledge" (aka, they knew what the fuck to do)?

Anyway, time passes, flight comes back, sitting on the plane. Tannoy announcement: "Please note that the entertainment offered today will be the Chicago to Heathrow selection, not the Heathrow to Chicago listing in the on flight magazine." - so it's fucking "Sky Captain" and the same Raymond episodes all over again (Don't you just love that one where his mother makes the sculptor of a cunt?) - it's a good thing us non-citizens don't get to have firearms, let me tell you.

OK, now you've made me cry...

I'm doin' this stupid fiorewall setup thing for a local small ass company and we set up part of it today --- it -totally- fucked up. In "post mortem" I find out that while they -are- combining their two "co-location" facilities into one, they are -not- combining their IP addresses (if you are bored at this point, please leave - it doesn't get any more interesting/exciting/anything). Now here's the deal: a basic firewall (such as we're using here) isn't going to "like" being an interface to three different networks --- and even though the hardware we're using can "technically" do this, it's a really bad idea and, oh, it means I need to rebuild the config from scratch. Another two weeks -pissed away-. Me? Happy camper? No...