this shit is making me too fucking groggy. this and the Klonopin both, in combination or whatever. i can’t even get up in the morning because i can’t stand on my own two feet to even make it to the God damn bathroom to take a piss.
on the other hand, when i take only 25mg as the pdoc suggested on those occasions when i would normally take an Ativan, it doesn’t do God damn shit except make me start to feel sleepy.
Brian looked up the side effects and shit on Seroquel and it said that this excessive sleepiness is only supposed to last for the first 3 - 5 days. today is day 3. never mind working out–i better fucking be able to get my ass up on Monday morning to get to class where i’ll be operating, if not heavy machinery, a God damn fucking blow torch. and driving.
in the meantime, there are so many things i want to do/write and all the thoughts of doing these things are converging inside my brain so i can’t just stop, pick one, and do it. i am climbing the fucking walls. last night i cut again. well, with the really dull kitchen knife, so although i didn’t draw blood, i have huge red welts on my left arm.
i am going nuts. i can’t sit still even to do to mindless things, and the only reason i’m able to write this right now is because Brian is sitting next to me “supervising.” i’m throwing things, yelling, screaming, trying to hit Brian. last night he had to subdue me just the way i imagine the “men in white” subdue mental patients back in the old days.
and that’s what i feel i am–a God damn fucking mental patient. not a person who has any qualities, just a fucking mental case.
The nice thing about living in an apartment is not having to pay for your own water. You can leave every single faucet running for 24 hours if you want to, and you won’t have to pay the bill. The clean-up maybe, but the bill? Nah. Unfortunately, the people who own the cat in the video below, entitled “Water_Bill,” do have to pay for water because they’re homeowners. Suckers.
(@) Angelo says: More pet pics are available for your viewing pleasure at this week?s Friday Ark. If you post your own pets? photos, leave them a trackback or comment and you?ll be listed there, too.
managed to get my pdoc appointment moved to today from like, around the 14th. as most of you know, anxiety has been creating too much havoc in my personal life. last Thursday, for example, i so did not want to go to hockey practice because i was too nervous. (we’re off tonight.) i took an Ativan before we left, which didn’t help. after we were on the ice for about half an hour, i began to feel nauseous, so i got off the ice. Brian helped me into the lobby and out of the upper part of my gear.
even so, i began hyperventilating and was on the verge of a full-blown anxiety attack. we paged the pdoc who said there was nothing he could do until he saw me, and that was today.
he replaced the 150mg of trazodone with 100 mg of Seroquel at night, and 25mg Seroquel as needed, which takes place of the Ativan i took as needed. in addition, i’ll be on 2mg Klonopin twice a day (one table in each in the a.m. & p.m.)
the only bad news is that Seroquel can make you gain weight, so it’ll need to be monitored . luckily, Brian and i made it to the gym this morning!
anhedonia, that is. though we didn’t work out yesterday, i drove Brian to work and drove to 5 different stores to complete errands the whole rest of the morning–just like any normally functioning person might do–and then i picked him up from work. from there we went to the couples counselor, who told me that i should really call my therapist to make an appointment. i left her a voice mail today.
Brian and i told ourserlves that beginning today, we will once again start our morning workout routine. it almost didn’t happen, but i managed to force myself out of bed. we went to the gym for the first time in about a week, and it felt good. so why do i still feel so shitty?
i didn’t want to go to noon skate today, nor do i want to go to open studio time at the art center to work on my projects, neither of which is like me at all. all i wanted to do for a while was play mindless computer games, which i did and now i’m bored. i don’t have the gumption to visit blog friends. i don’t have the gumption to e-mail or call people, except for Brian so i can complain and ask him what i should do. i haven’t even eaten a thing yet today, but nothing sounds good and anyway, i have no appetite.
i’ve decided to implement imood once again, though i opened a new account under barbnatividad. if you want to be imood buddies, let me know. i highly recommend this site to anyone with a mood disorder. it’s a great way to keep track of your moods because it contains a mood history, which will show you how many times you’ve felt sad, or angry, or whatever. you can also write a little post when you change your mood if you want, so if you click on “depressed” in your mood history, it’ll bring up all of the posts you wrote that are related to that mood. so if you’re say, Brian (heehee), and want to know why i’m worried, nervous, or whatnot, all you’d have to do is click the little icon thingy in the Currently section of my sidebar.
i haven’t been on the computer much, which is why it’s taken me so long to answer previous comments and why i haven’t been visiting anyone. i suppose i’ve been isolating a bit, too. i’ve been busy–which is a good thing–working really hard on my metals projects and taking advantage of the available studio time outside of class. there were a couple of days this past week when i was gone the whole entire day, like from 9am to after 6pm, just like a fully-functioning working person! on Friday i was out all day, then after i picked up Brian from work we went to dinner and a movie, just like a normal couple. (l) we had Indian food at Essence of India. if you live in Chicago, you must try this place out! then we saw The Black Dahlia movie, which i will write a review about. someday.
this morning i had a really hard time getting out of bed, which had me worried. though i had my metals class today, i wasn’t even looking forward to it. but i forced myself up and into the shower and went. and of course i felt better, especially because i got over my fear of soldering. we don’t use a soldering iron, we use a torch! like the kind connected to a tank of some type of gas and looks like something welders use! anyway, after a bit of practice, i successfully soldered posts onto the earrings that i made. *sigh* if only we had a working camera. (p) boy, the things we take for granted.
we haven’t gotten back into our workout routine yet, so hopefully we’ll wake up early enough tomorrow.
before reading The Black Dahlia, i knew nothing about the case except that it’s a true story of the unsolved, brutal murder of a young woman named Elizabeth Short that took place in California a long time ago–in 1947, i found out later. thus, i didn’t know which of the characters were real or made up, though it’s clear that Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Officer Dwight “Bucky” Bleichert, the protagonist and narrator, belongs to James Ellroy.
Ellroy’s fictionalization isn’t about the Elizabeth Short, aka The Black Dahlia, case. it’s the story of a young man’s rapid descent into a personal hell of his own making. Bucky, as well as most of the characters, are completely disturbed and seem to have no redeemable qualities. the one exception is Kay Lake, the woman who stands between Bucky and his partner, Leland (Lee) Blanchard. if you have a weak stomach, don’t bother reading this book. the description of Elizabeth Short’s beaten and hideously mutilated body is nowhere near as sick as these characters. the writing is excellent–vivid and dramatic–and as such, Ellroy doesn’t hold back in describing the characters’, especially Bucky’s, flaws.
the book is divided into four parts. “Fire and Ice,” introduces readers to Bucky and explains how he and Lee become partners. “39th and Norton,” named for the Los Angeles intersection near which Elizabeth Short’s body was found, is the book’s longest section and unfortunately, begins dragging towards the end. Part III, “Kay and Madeleine,” is named after the two main female characters in the book and in Bucky’s life: Kay Lake and Madeleine Sprague. like Part II, this section moves slowly, but is mercifully short. “Elizabeth,” in which events pick up again at a lightning pace, concludes both Bucky’s work on the case and his story.
aside from the disturbed characters and slow middle section, i had other difficulties while making my way through the novel. one was the incredible amount of violence, most of it inflicted by the LAPD. violence normally doesn’t bother me, and i’m still not sure why it affected me the way it did here. maybe because the LAPD is portrayed as corrupt, which isn’t necessarily a fictionalization? i also disliked the portrayal and treatment of women and minorities. however, the story takes place in the ’40s, so perhaps these representations are merely a Zeitgeist. finally, Ellroy employs a lot of 1940s slang, with which i’m unfamiliar. of course i could have looked it all up, but i was too lazy. besides, i was caught up in reading, and anyway, some of the terms can be defined based on the context.
despite my complaints, i absolutely loved The Black Dahlia, which is an excellent read that i highly recommend to anyone looking for a real page-turner.
i’ve felt “off” for the past several days. i’ve recovered from my cold and now i’m PMSing. i’m beginning to lose interest in some of the activities i enjoy. am i on the tail end of being physically sick, or on the front end of another depression?
it’s after 5pm and i’m still in my PJs. i took my trazodone around 10:30 last night. i remember switching off the lamp at 11:00. and yet, we woke up too late to go to the gym this morning.
WARNING: this is a really long post. things have been bad the past few days, but before i go into that, and because this has something to do with it, i’ll preface it with this:
there are so many things i’ve wanted to blog about since this past summer. what’s kept me from posting is my inability to put pen to paper (or fingertips to keyboard); the inability to write complete sentences; the inability to organize paragraphs; the inability to articulate what i want to say in a coherent manner. obviously i’ve improved, but i’m not at the level i’d like to be.
another part of this is my reading level, which like my memory, was impacted by the ECTs. both are much poorer than before the treatments. i’m sure you’ve noticed i’ve been reading and sometimes reviewing mainly Star Wars comics and books lately. now you know why. granted, i’ve always read these, even the juvenile novel series, but lately, it’s what i’m most comfortable reading because i’m already familiar with most of the characters, settings, and situations. plus, i absolutely love them. (y)
The Black Dahlia, the selection for yesterday’s Book/Movie Club meeting (to which we didn’t make it), took a while for me to get into, but i’ll explain that when i write the review. and it has nothing to do with reading levels.
about a month ago we were going to join a literary book club, the selection for which was Love in the Time of Cholera by Garc?a M?rquez. i could barely read the first page, and not because of the translation. rather, i had difficulty because of the “literary” style of writing. it’s what some might consider a “snob” book, but so the fuck what? i used to eat those types of books for breakfast.
along with my diminished reading level and atrophied writing skills, i’ve lost a great portion of my vocabulary. a great portion. fortunately, some of it is returning, but nowhere near to the level it was when i was studying for the GRE. heh.
one other thing i can think of is that, although i haven’t lost my informal writing voice, i no longer have as much control over a formal/academic or even semi-formal voice. and that’s a big part of why i’ve been writing these damn book reviews. they double as a writing exercise within a casual forum. plus they’re super-informative, right?
so now you know–the source of my frustration and parts of my anxiety, anger, and bitterness. here’s the rest of the entry:
as for the past few days, well, i haven’t been doing so well: i took several trazodone and Ativan over the weekend because of my anxiety and irritability–i just wanted to sleep off the moods. at some point i was so frustrated that i used our dull paring and steak knives to cut. i didn’t draw blood, exactly, but i do have ugly red scratches on my arm that were clearly not inflicted by one of the cats, and i feel the need to cover them with long sleeves.
i was too distraught to see my therapist on Saturday, and Brian canceled the appointment because i didn’t want to call her. i still haven’t called her. i’m thinking that Saturday appointments don’t work for me, but her schedule has really changed.
Brian did call our couples counselor and had me talk to her. unfortunately, i don’t remember any of the conversation except that i agreed to page her the next evening. i didn’t.
i fell asleep at 9 last night but still had a hard time getting up this morning. so did Brian, so we agreed to go to the gym after he got off work. besides, i had my metals class later in the morning. i made it to that because working on jewelry always makes me feel good. i even finished my first project (for this term), and it’s called “Dancing Star.” i’d attempt to post a picture, except the camera fucking died.
oh, but we just sold our Ohio State-Penn State game tickets on eBay and made enough to cover the face value with enough left over so we could maybe buy a new digital camera. not like we can afford to actually go to the game. we’ve seen this match-up before, but not while the Bucks were ranked #1! (u)
as the rest of this afternoon wore on, i grew more and more agitated and ended up taking an Ativan and working on this entry, longhand. we didn’t go work out.
on the bright side, i went to my first hockey practice last Thursday. even though i haven’t tended goal since 2001, i did well enough to impress some of my teammates when they saw me going one-on-one against the White team.
we’re planning to work out tomorrow morning, but now it seems that Brian is really sick with either the cold from which i just recovered or a different one. either way, i’m planning to go to noon skate.
In issues 1 and 2, three young Jedi, brothers Ulic and Cay Qel-Droma and Twi’lek, Tott Doneeta, are given their first mission by their Jedi Master Arca: to bring peace to the war-torn world of Onderon. For centuries, the planet has been divided into two factions: the citizens of the walled city of Iziz and the Beast Riders of Onderon, descendants of criminals cast out of the city fifty years prior. Shortly after the Jedi’s arrival, Princess Galia, the heir of Onderon and daughter of reigning Queen Amanoa, is abducted by Beast Riders. The Qel-Dromas and Doneeta chase after the Outcasts and meet with surprise.
Ulic is described as “headstrong and overconfident,” qualities that may doom the mission. In addition, he’s naive but his intentions are good. Cay and Doneeta are also likeable.
Issues 3 and 5 comprise the story of Nomi Sunrider, the Jedi best known for her skill in Battle Meditation. Though Sunrider has long been sensitive to the Force, she has always shied away from its power, allowing her husband Andur to train as a Jedi and, when old enough, their daughter Vima. However, tragic circumstances transpire that force Sunrider to take up her role as a Jedi, albeit reluctantly. Nomi Sunrider’s story is more suspenseful and less predictable than that of the Qel-Dromas and Doneeta.
In both of these tales, family is involved: the Qel-Droma brothers train together and Andur and Nomi Sunrider are married and have a child. These events take place circa 4000 BBY (before the Battle of Yavin), so when did the Jedi stop allowing familial attachments, and what situation(s) brought about that decision? Perhaps that’ll be answered in one of the later comics in the Tales of the Jedi series. stay tuned!
this week’s post is dedicated to Jane of Jane Loves Tarzan, who Brian thinks should change the name of her blog to “Jane Loves Angelo,” as apparently, she’s one of his biggest fans. heehee. i hope you like it, Jane!
(@) Angelo says: more pet pics are available for your viewing pleasure at this week?s Friday Ark. if you post your own pets? photos, leave them a trackback or comment and you?ll be listed there, too.
the selection for yesterday’s Book/Movie Club meeting (to which we didn’t make it), took a while for me to get into, but i’ll explain that when i write the review. and it has nothing to do with reading levels.
